Today in history
Today is Friday, October 19, the 292nd day of 2018. There are 73 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1765 — The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, draws up a declaration of rights and liberties.
1774 — Captain Cook makes his fourth visit to
New Zealand.
1781 — British troops under Lord Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the American Revolutionary War.
1812 — French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte
begin their retreat from Moscow.
1813 — Napoleon’s forces are defeated by a combined Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish army at the Battle of Leipzig, Germany, marking the end of the French
Empire east of the Rhine.
1874 — The North Dunedin branch of the Bank of
New Zealand is established.
1951 — United States president Harry Truman
formally ends the state of war with Germany.
1952 — Coull Somerville Wilkie Ltd’s printing department is destroyed by fire, with damage estimated at £500,000. Earlier in the year, the firm’s paper division was extensively damaged by fire also.
1954 — An AngloEgyptian treaty providing for withdrawal of British armed forces from the Suez Canal Zone during the next 20 months is signed in Cairo. Egypt is to take complete control of the Suez Canal in seven years.
1960 — The US imposes an embargo on exports to Cuba, covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.
1966 — US president Lyndon B. Johnson arrives
for a short visit to New Zealand.
1969 — US vicepresident Spiro Agnew refers to antiVietnam War protesters as ‘‘an effete corps of impudent snobs’’.
1972 — US and South Vietnamese officials meet in peace negotiations in which the US and North Vietnam will move towards a ceasefire agreement in Indochina and a political accord that would replace the current government in Saigon.
1974 — Niue gains selfgovernance in
association with New Zealand.
1977 — The supersonic Concorde aeroplane makes its first landing in New York after 19 months of delays caused by residents concerned about the aircraft’s noise.
1980 — An appeal is launched for a
CT bodyscanner at Dunedin Hospital.
1982 — Plans to build an aluminium smelter at Aramoana are abandoned by Minister of
Energy Bill Birch.
1983 — The commander of Grenada’s armed forces announces that Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was under house arrest, has been killed by soldiers after he tried to seize army headquarters.
1987 — The Government sells New Zealand Steel to listed company Equiticorp as part of its asset sales programme; the stockmarket crashes as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 508 points, or 22.6% in value, its biggest percentage drop in decades.
1991 — A clandestine assembly of ethnic Albanian legislators proclaims Kosovo to be an independent republic. The republic of Serbia annexed Kosovo in 1990.
1995 — Three die after a hotair balloon is blown across Christchurch, eventually landing in the sea several hundred metres off Waimairi Beach.
2004 — Myanmar’s secretive military regime forces out its prime minister, the longpowerful General Khin Nyunt, and places him under house arrest on corruption charges.
2005 — Chile’s Supreme Court strips former dictator General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution for corruption charges related to his multimilliondollar bank accounts.
2012 — The road to Milford Sound reopens to singlelane traffic a week after it was closed by a massive slip which left rocks weighing up to 500 tonnes strewn across the highway.