Today in history
Today is Thursday, July 5, the 186th day of 2018. There are 179 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1811 — Venezuela becomes the first South American country to declare its independence from Spain.
1865 — William Booth sets up the Christian Revival Association, later to become the Salvation Army, in London; Britain imposes the world’s first speed law, limiting all motorpowered vehicles to 2mph and introduces the Red Flag Act, under which a man with a red flag has to walk in front of all motor vehicles.
1871 — With just three professors, New Zealand’s first university, the University of Otago, stages its inauguration ceremony.
1881 — The New Zealand Government passes the Chinese Immigrants Act, which imposes a poll tax of £10 on Chinese arrivals. The tax is later increased to £100.
1945 — Winston Churchill is defeated for reelection as prime minister after leading England through World War 2. His Conservative Party is swept out of office by the Labour Party.
1946 — Bikini swimsuits are modelled for the first time in Paris. Louis Reard, a former engineer, named them after Bikini Atoll, where US nuclear tests were being held. Reard said he thought his twopiece suits would be ‘‘highly explosive’’.
1947 — Four people die and three others are injured when a 32room annexe at Franz Josef Hotel is destroyed by fire; the South African football team scores five goals in the first half and dazzles the Carisbrook crowd with ball control and positional play to defeat New Zealand 6nil. South Africa won all four tests in the series, scoring 24 goals.
1948 — Britain’s National Health Service Act comes into effect, providing governmentfinanced medical and dental care.
1954 — Elvis Presley’s first commercial recording session takes place at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, where he records That’s All Right (Mama).
1959 — President Sukarno dissolves Indonesia’s Constituent Assembly and assumes dictatorial powers for himself.
1965 — Maria Callas gives her last stage performance, singing Tosca at London’s Covent Garden.
1969 — The Rolling Stones give a free concert in Hyde Park, London, in memory of Brian Jones, who died two days earlier.
1975 — New Zealand’s first telethon begins as a 24hour fundraiser for the St John Ambulance Association. It raises over $600,000; the Cape Verde Islands become independent after 500 years of Portuguese rule; Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating Jimmy Connors.
1977 —The Pakistan army seizes power in a bloodless coup that unseats Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
1980 — Sweden’s Bjorn Borg wins the Wimbledon
men’s singles title for the fifth consecutive year.
1991 — The Bank of England suspends the operations of Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA (BCCI) following allegations of massive fraud.
1994 — Thousands of jubilant Palestinians greet PLO leader Yasser Arafat when he returns to the West Bank for the first time in 27 years and swears in the selfrule government; up to 150 Haitians drown when an overcrowded boat capsizes and spills 200 refugees trying to flee to the US into the sea.
1998 — John Britten’s motorcycle the V1000 goes
on display at New York’s Guggenheim Museum as part of an exhibition entitled ‘‘The Art of the Motorbike’’.
2002 — Detective Constable Duncan Taylor is fatally shot when, along with his partner, he attempted to stop a youth to question him over a property offence at Rongotea in the Manawatu.
Today’s birthdays:
Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum, US circus pioneer (181091); Frederick Edward Maning, New Zealand writer and Native Land Court judge (181283); Cecil Rhodes, British founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) (18531902); Keith Murray, New Zealand architect/designer (18921981); Len Lye, New Zealand artist (190180); Georges Pompidou, French prime minister and president (191174); Katherine Helmond, US actress (1928); Huey Lewis, US musician (1950); John Wright, New Zealand cricketer and coach (1954); Edie Falco, US actress (1963); Bengt Lagerberg, musician (1973); Shane Filan, Irish singer (1979); Thomas Abercrombie, New Zealand international basketball player (1987).
Thought for today:
The truly fashionable are beyond fashion. — Cecil Beaton, English fashion photographer and costumedesigner (190480).
ODT