Today in history
Today is Monday, August 27, the 239th day of 2018. There are 126 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1660 — Published books of poet John Milton are burnt in London because of his attacks on King Charles II.
1789 — The French National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proclaiming that ‘‘men are born and remain free and equal in rights’’.
1813 — French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte wins his last great battle, at Dresden, Germany, against a larger Austrian, Prussian and Russian force.
1858 — Queen becomes the first steamship to arrive
at Dunedin.
1859 — Colonel Edwin L. Drake creates the first productive oilwell in the United States, in the state of Pennsylvania.
1883 — Four enormously powerful volcanic eruptions tear apart Krakatoa Island, in the Sunda Strait, Indonesia; the last of these made the loudest sound ever recorded on Earth. Shock waves travel around the earth threeandahalf times, and tsunamis kill an estimated 36,000 people.
1900 — A devastating hurricane hits Galveston in
Texas, killing more than 6000 people.
1911 — Joseph Pawelka, who notoriously became part of New Zealand folklore, escapes from custody for a final time and is not recaptured or heard of again; in Dunedin, Caversham men O. Wood and B. Hughes successfully fly their
locally built glider.
1921 — The British install Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein, who led the Arab revolt against the Turks, as king of Iraq.
1928 — The KelloggBriand Pact (Pact of Paris) is established, by which countries vow to solve conflicts by peaceful means. It is eventually signed by most of the world’s nations.
1939 — German pilot Erich Warsitz flies the first jet
plane, the Heinkel HE178.
1943 — US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt arrives in
Auckland.
1945 — US troops begin landing in Japan at the end
of World War 2.
1946 — France and Laos conclude an agreement
establishing a kingdom under French domination.
1948 — In a trial of alleged wartime Ustashi (proAxis) agents, 43 people are sentenced to death in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, for war crimes and violence against the Tito regime.
1966 — French president Charles de Gaulle arrives in Ethiopia from Somaliland, where his visit is marred by bloody rioting. 1967 — Death of Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, in his London flat from an overdose of sleeping pills.
1974 — Fire causes extensive damage to the tannery of Windward Skins Ltd, near Balclutha; the Local Government Commission agrees to double the size of the borough of Alexandra. The town boundaries will spread from the top of Bridge Hill in the south to the aerodrome road in the northwest.
1979 — British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten is killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion; the Irish Republican Army claims responsibility.
1997 — Police enact ‘‘Operation Lowburn’’, declaring four farms ‘‘restricted places’’ and placing roadblocks throughout the area after reports of the arrival of the rabbit calicivirus in the Cromwell district.
2003 — Mars passes just 55.76 million km from Earth, making it the closest such encounter since the Stone Age.
2005 — Captain Tana Umaga makes a trysaving
tackle in the dying minutes to contribute to the All Blacks’ 3127 victory over South Africa at Carisbrook. The All Blacks performed the new Kapa O Pango haka for the first time.