Today in history
Today is Monday, September 17, the 260th day of 2018. There are 105 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1497 — British rebels under Perkin Warbeck, the
son of a Flanders official, attempt to take Exeter. 1631 — A SwedishSaxon army under Gustav II Adolf of Sweden destroys a Catholic army at Breitenfeld, Germany, marking the rise of Sweden as a major power.
1665 — The great bubonic plague breaks out in
London.
1787 — The United States constitution is signed. 1796 — President George Washington delivers his farewell address to the American people. He had been president since 1789.
1853 — The first Scottish settlers bound for Waipu
in Northland arrive at Auckland.
1871 — The Mont Cenis Tunnel, the first of the great tunnels through the Alps to be completed, is opened.
1931 — The first longplaying record to rotate at 331⁄3rpm is demonstrated by the RCA Victor company at the Savoy Plaza Hotel, New York.
1935 — Manuel Quezon is elected the first
president of the Philippine Commonwealth.
1941 — New Zealand abolishes the death penalty for murder. It is replaced by life imprisonment with hard labour. Sentences of flogging and whipping are also discontinued.
1944 — The Battle of Arnhem begins with an
Allied airborne landing in the Netherlands.
1948 — Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte, the
United Nations mediator in the ArabIsraeli conflict over Palestine, is slain near Jerusalem by Jewish militants.
1949 — Fire destroys the Noronic, the largest passenger steamer on the Great Lakes, at Toronto pier, killing more than 130 people.
1952 — New Zealand’s population passes two million. The populations of the four main centres at the time were: Auckland 337,100, Wellington 135,300, Christchurch 178,500 and Dunedin 96,500.
1956 — Criticised by the mayor of Auckland as a ‘‘nauseating sight’’, an exhibition of drawings and sculptures by Henry Moore attracts record attendances.
1963 — Malaysia breaks off diplomatic relations with Indonesia because of what it describes as President Sukarno’s increased hostility.
1967 — A riot during a football game in Turkey kills
42 people and injures 600 others.
1970 — Open warfare erupts in Jordan between Jordan’s army and Palestinian guerrillas, precipitating a world crisis. 1974 — Ian Brackenbury Channell climbs his small ladder and begins an address in Cathedral Square, Christchurch. Despite dodging about 20 eggs thrown at him and being arrested by police, Channell begins life as the Wizard and becomes a city icon.
1978 — Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign an agreement for Middle East peace at Camp David, in the US.
1980 — Exiled Nicaraguan leader
Anastasio Somoza is assassinated in an explosion that wrecks his car in Asuncion, Paraguay.
1998 — Demonstrators close down businesses and government offices in Lesotho to protest election results, while a weekold mutiny by army officers continues.
2000 — Motorists run in fear for their lives when thousands of tonnes of rock crash over SH6, beneath Nevis Bluff at the western end of the Kawarau Gorge, near Queenstown. The slip, estimated at 30m across and 15m deep, closed the road for almost a week.
2001 — The New York Stock Exchange reopens after a fourday shutdown, the longest break since the Great Depression. Wall Street suffered its biggest points plunge following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington; President George W. Bush says the US wants terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden ‘‘dead or alive’’.
Today’s birthdays:
Sir Francis Chichester, British sailor (190172); Dolores Costello, US actress (190379); Jack Hinton, New Zealand soldier awarded Victoria Cross in World War 2 (19091997); Mary Stewart, English author (19162014); Sir Stirling Moss, English race car driver (1929); Anne Bancroft, US actress (19312005); Ken Kesey, US author (19352001); Bruce Spence, New Zealand actor (1945);
John Ritter, US actor (19482003); BeBe Winans, US singer (1962); Wendy Northcutt, US author (1963); Anastacia, US singer (1973); Jarrod Kenny, New Zealand basketball international (1985).
Thought for today:
There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften. — Cicero, Roman scholar (10643BC).
ODT and agencies