Today in history
Today is Friday, August 24, the 236th day of 2018. There are 129 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
79 — Mount Vesuvius erupts and buries the Italian
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
410 — Rome is overrun by the Visigoths, an event that symbolises the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
1814 — After defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross occupies Washington and sets fire to many public buildings, including the White House (known as the Presidential Mansion at the time) and the Capitol, as well as other facilities of the United States Government. President James Madison flees the city with military officials. But the British occupation lasts only 26 hours due to the ‘‘storm that saved Washington’’.
1821 — The Spanish captaingeneral of Mexico,
Juan O’Donoju, signs the Treaty of Cordoba, giving Mexico independence.
1844 — Crown colony governor Robert FitzRoy and a number of troops arrive at the Bay of Islands in an attempt to subdue the rebellion led by Hone Heke.
1875 — Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel, in 21 hours 45 minutes.
1878 — Wellington becomes the first major centre in New Zealand to have a steam passenger tram service, with the Marquess of Normanby inaugurating the service. 1891 — A patent for the motionpicture camera is
filed by Thomas Edison.
1919 — William Massey (Reform) assumes office as prime minister following the dissolution of the national war cabinet.
1932 — Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly nonstop across the US, travelling from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in 19 hours.
1949 — Nato goes into effect.
1954 — US president Dwight Eisenhower signs into law the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party; President Getulio Vargas of Brazil kills himself with a gunshot to the heart rather than face forced retirement.
1957 — Otago defeats Wellington 1911 at Athletic Park to win New Zealand interprovincial rugby’s prized Ranfurly Shield. It will be 56 years before a team from Otago has another successful challenge.
1964 — A fireworks explosion in Atlatlahucan, Mexico, during religious celebrations kills 45 people and injures 33.
— Mobs from China repeatedly attack British positions along the Hong Kong border and are driven off with tear gas.
— France explodes a hydrogen bomb at a South Pacific testing ground and becomes the world’s fifth thermonuclear power.
1981 — Mark David Chapman is sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of British rock star John Lennon.
1985 — The pilot of a Chinese military aircraft crashlands his plane in South Korea and asks for political asylum in Taiwan. The plane’s navigator and a farmer working in a rice paddy are killed.
1989 — Poland becomes the first Soviet bloc country since the late 1940s to appoint a noncommunist prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki.
1990 — A Nevada judge rules the British heavy metal rock band Judas Priest was not responsible for the deaths of two youths who shot themselves after listening to the band’s music.
1991 — Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party and urges its leadership to disband the party; Ukraine becomes the seventh of 15 Soviet republics to declare independence.
1996 — All Black No8 Zinzan Brooke calmly slots a drop goal to help New Zealand win its first test series in South Africa.
1997 — More than one million people attend Pope John Paul II’s Mass at the World Youth Day ceremony in Paris.
Today’s birthdays
Sir Jack Hunn, New Zealand civil servant (19061997); Ruth Park, New Zealandborn Australian author (19172010); A.S. Byatt, English novelist (1936); Bartholomew John, New Zealand actor (1952); Stephen Fry, British actor/writer (1957); Steve Guttenberg, US actor (1958); Marlee Matlin, US actress (1965); Heremaia (Harry) Ngata, New Zealand football international (1971); Rupert Grint, English actor (1988); Alexandre Coste, French son of Albert II, Prince of Monaco (2003).
Thought for today:
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. — Voltaire, French authorphilosopher (16941778).