Today in history
Today is Friday, July 6, the 187th day of 2018. There are 178 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1189 — King Henry II of England, the first of the Plantagenets, dies and is succeeded by Richard I.
1483 — King Richard III is crowned.
1535 — Sir Thomas More is beheaded in England
for treason.
1553 — King Edward VI of England dies and is succeeded four days later by Lady Jane Grey, who was deposed by Edward’s halfsister, Mary, after just nine days on the throne.
1699 — Captain William Kidd, the pirate, is taken into custody in Boston, Massachusetts. He is later hanged in England.
1875 — Daniel Pollen assumes office as premier of New Zealand while Julius Vogel travels overseas. He serves until Vogel’s return in February 1876.
1879 — The Steam and Horse Tramways opens in
Dunedin.
1885 — Louis Pasteur performs the first inoculation of a human being, Joseph Meister, a 9yearold boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog.
1908 — Kathleen Beauchamp, a 19yearold aspiring writer, leaves New Zealand for London. She took the pen name Katherine Mansfield.
1917 — Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence capture the port of Aqaba from the Turks in World War
1.
1919 — A British dirigible lands at New York’s Roosevelt Field, marking the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.
1923 — The overnight Auckland to Wellington express train is derailed at Ongarue by a landslip during the early hours. Seventeen people are killed and many others injured. It is the first major railway accident resulting in loss of life in New Zealand; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.
1928 — The first alltalking feature film, The Lights
of New York, premieres in New York.
1942 — Diarist Anne Frank and her family take
refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.
1943 — Darwin is bombed. The city was bombed
64 times during World War 2.
1944 — In the United States a fire engulfs the tent during a performance of the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut. It was estimated that up to 8000 people were attending from which 167 died and 700 more were injured.
1945 — Nicaragua becomes the first nation to formally accept the United Nations charter.
1957 — Althea Gibson becomes the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating fellow American Darlene Hard 63, 62.
1960 — Sevenyearold Rodger Woodward becomes the first person to survive an unprotected plunge over Niagara Falls after falling out of a boat.
1988 — New Zealand’s first frozen embryo pregnancy is confirmed in Auckland. The baby is expected around Christmastime; the world’s worst offshore accident occurs when the Piper Alpha oil platform explodes in the British sector of the North Sea, killing 167 people.
2005 — New York Times reporter Judith Miller is jailed for refusing to divulge a confidential source to a grand jury investigating the Bush administration’s leak of an undercover CIA operative’s name.
2009 — Jadranka Kosor becomes the first female
prime minister of Croatia.
2010 — The Government approves funding of $7 million for a further three cycle trails in Otago. These include the Alps to Ocean Trail (Mt Cook to Oamaru), the Clutha Gold Trail (Roxburgh to Lawrence) and the Queenstown Trail (a series of trails within the Wakatipu Basin).
Today’s birthdays:
Maximilian, archduke of Austria and emperor of Mexico (18321867); Arthur Lydiard, New Zealand marathon runner and athletic coach (19172004); Bill Haley, rock’n’roll pioneer (19251981); Janet Leigh, US actresssinger (19272004); Dalai Lama, exiled Tibetan leader (1935); Dave Allen, Irish comedian (19362005); George W. Bush, former US president (1946); Sylvester Stallone, US actorproducer (1946); Burt Ward, US actor (1946); Nat Anglem, New Zealand crosscountry skier (1973); Mike Homik, New Zealand basketball international (1978); Jeremy Yates, New Zealand professional cyclist (1982); Brent Fisher, New Zealand football international (1983).
Thought for today:
Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form. — Andre Maurois, French author (18851967).