Today in history
Today is Monday, July 23, the 204th day of 2018. There are 161 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1595 — The Spanish land at Cornwall, England, and burn Mousehole and Penzance before returning to their ships.
1785 — Prussia’s Frederick the Great (nicknamed Der Alte Fritz or ‘‘Old Fritz’’), forms Die Fiirstenbund (League of German Princes).
1829 — William Austin Burt of Mount Vernon, Michigan, receives a patent for his
‘‘typographer’’, a forerunner of the typewriter.
1846 — Governor George Grey’s men capture
Te Rauparaha at Plimmerton. Despite being held prisoner for 10 months before being placed under house arrest, he is not charged with a crime. 1851 — The ship Maria sinks off Cape Terawhiti. The incident claims 26 lives, including that of William Deans, who in 1843 was the first European to settle on the Canterbury Plains.
1870 — The schooners Enterprise and Tauranga sink after colliding between Cape Rodney and
Sail Rock in the Hauraki Gulf; 18 lives are lost.
1904 — Dunedin’s Carisbrook ground hosts New Zealand’s first international football match, with New South Wales defeating the New Zealand side 1nil. A week later the sides drew 3all in Wellington; the icecream cone is invented by Charles Menches during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis.
1907 — An antipodes team including New Zealander Anthony Wilding defeats the British Isles 32 to win the Davis Cup. Wilding is also in the team that defends the prestigious tennis trophy in 1908 and 1909, and wins it again in 1914. Wilding won the Wimbledon singles title for four consecutive years (19101913).
1909 — A number of residents see a mysterious airship in the skies above Kelso.
1910 — Dr Alice Burn and Lady Stout represent New Zealand at the great suffragette demonstration at Hyde Park, London.
1914 — Austria and Hungary issue an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The dispute led to World War 1.
1931 — A telephone link between New Zealand and Britain is officially launched, at a cost of £6 15s (more than a week’s wage then) for a threeminute call to England, Scotland or Wales. The cost to call the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and Dublin is £7 1s for three minutes.
1942 — The gas chambers at Treblinka extermination camp begin operation, killing 6500 Jews who had been transported from the Warsaw Ghetto the day before. 1952 — Setting an Olympic record distance of 20ft 5in (6.24m), Yvette Williams wins the long jump at the Helsinki Olympic Games, to become New Zealand’s first female Olympic gold medallist. God
Defend New Zealand is played following the national anthem God Save The Queen, at the medal ceremony. This is the first time the national hymn is heard at the Olympics and 20 years will pass before it is played again.
1958 — Queen Elizabeth names four women to peerages, the first women to sit in Britain’s
House of Lords.
1986 — Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson;
they become the Duke and Duchess of York.
2009 — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and North Korea exchange pointed barbs, with Clinton declaring that North Korea ‘‘has no friends left’’ and the communist regime calling the US official a ‘‘schoolgirl’’.
2011 — The Otago crosscountry team breaks a 53year drought, winning the senior men’s national teams title for the first time since 1958.
2012 — One of New Zealand’s most acclaimed literary figures, Margaret Mahy, dies after a brief illness, aged 76. Ms Mahy wrote her first story when she was 7, going on to write more than 120 books, which were translated into 15 languages.
Today’s birthdays:
Raymond Chandler, US author
(18881959); Emperor Haile Selassie of
Ethiopia (18911975);
Arthur Lindo Patterson, New
Zealandborn pioneering Xray crystallographer (19021966);
David Essex, British singer (1947);
Eric Lesbirel, New Zealand football international (1951); Nicky Wagner, New Zealand politician (1953); Woody Harrelson, US actor (1961);
Eriq La Salle, US actor (1962); Paul Arthurs, British guitarist (1965); Charisma Carpenter, US actress (1970); Selma Blair, US actress (1972);
Adrian Cashmore, All Black (1973);
Emmanuelle Vaugier, Canadian actress (1976); Duffy, Welsh singer (1984); Daniel Radcliffe, British actor (1989).