Today in history
Today is Monday, September 24, the 267th day of 2018. There are 98 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
768 — Pepin III (the Short), the first king of
western Europe’s Carolingian dynasty, dies.
1143 — Innocent II, pope from 1130 to 1143, dies.
1568 — The Spanish capture English ships and
booty at San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1688 — France’s King Louis XIV declares war on the Holy Roman Empire, called the War of the League of Augsburg.
1834 — Dom Pedro (King Pedro IV of Portugal), founder of the Brazilian Empire, dies and is succeeded by Queen Maria II.
1852 — French inventor Henri Giffard makes the first flight in a powered airship, cruising with steam power over Paris.
1862 — At the peak of the Otago gold rush, 2203
people arrive at Port Chalmers from Australia.
1869 — Thousands of businesses are ruined in a Wall Street panic that becomes known as Black Friday, after financiers Jay Gould and James
Fisk attempt to corner the gold market.
1905 — Trying to draw attention to his fanatical crusade to rid New Zealand of Chinese people, Lionel Terry, the ‘‘Yellow Peril’’ campaigner, murders Joe Kum Yung in Wellington.
1907 — In an attempt to protect Maori from exploitation by people claiming to be healers and prophets, the Tohunga Suppression Act passes into law.
1917 — Ten soldiers from New Zealand are killed in the Bere Ferrers rail accident in Devon,
England.
1939 — Eleven men die of asphyxiation while investigating an underground gas leak in the Glen Afton mine at Huntly.
1949 — The beginning of the end is signalled for tram services in New Zealand’s main centres with the introduction of a trolleybus service in Auckland.
1956 — The Salk antipolio vaccine is used in New Zealand. It brings to an end a series of major outbreaks that have hit the country since 1916. The vaccine is phased out from 1961, replaced by the more effective Sabin vaccine.
1971 — Britain expels 90 Soviets for espionage
activities.
1975 — Britons Dougal Haston and Doug Scott become the first to climb Mount Everest by the southwest face.
1976 — American newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery.
1979 — CompuServe (CIS) offers one of the first online services to consumers. It will be dominant among internet service providers for consumers through the mid1990s.
1980 — A simmering border war between Iran and Iraq flares into fullscale hostilities when Iraqi troops cross the border and encircle Abadan, setting fire to the world’s biggest oil refinery.
1985 — A petition with the names of more than 586,000 people opposing the decriminalisation of homosexual practices in New Zealand is presented at Parliament. The campaign has caused division in Christian church circles and the wider community throughout the country. 1993 — Norodom Sihanouk reclaims the Cambodian throne he gave up in 1955; former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos is convicted of corruption and sentenced to at least 18 years in jail.
1995 — After allnight talks in Egypt, Israel and the PLO agree to sign a pact at the White House expanding Palestinian selfrule in the occupied West Bank; 13 people are killed in southern French town Cuers when Eric Borel runs amok with a rifle a day after killing his mother, stepfather and halfbrother.
1996 — Death of Pavel Sudoplatov, a Russian spy who stole US plans for the atom bomb and arranged to have Stalin’s rival Leon Trotsky killed with an ice pick.
Today’s birthdays:
F. Scott Fitzgerald, US writer (18961940);
Sir James (Jim) Barnes, New Zealand politician (19081995); Jim Henson, US muppeteer (193690); Donald (Don) Brash, New Zealand politician (1940); Linda McCartney, USborn wife of Beatle Sir Paul (194198); Gerry Marsden, British singer (1942); Phil Hartman, US actor (194898); Kristina Wayborn, Swedish actress (1950); Kevin Sorbo, US actor (1958); Nia Vardolos, Canadian actress (1962); Tionette Stoddard, New Zealand Olympic skeleton racer (1974); Liam Finn, New Zealand musician/ songwriter (1983).
Thought for today:
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. — Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (163277).
ODT and agencies