Today in history
Today is Monday, November 19, the 323rd day of 2018. There are 42 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1703 — Death of the Man in the Iron Mask, a prisoner held in a number of French prisons. He appears in the literary works of Francois Voltaire and Alexandre Dumas.
1863 — United States president
Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address, calling for ‘‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’’.
1872 — The Auckland Post Office is destroyed by
fire.
1893 — The first newspaper colour supplement is published in the Sunday paper New York
World.
1917 — Six people lose their lives in a fire at the
Silver Grill in Manchester St, Christchurch.
1941 — Half a city block is razed by a fire that
started in a Christchurch timber yard.
1946 — The first Unesco conference opens in Paris, where the organisation attains full status as an agency.
1947 — Prince Philip of Greece is given the title of Duke of Edinburgh on the eve of his wedding to Princess Elizabeth.
1949 — Prince Rainier is sworn in as the 30th
ruling Prince of Monaco.
1952 — The Otago Daily Times becomes the first New Zealand metropolitan morning newpaper to publish news on the front page.
1969 — The first reports emerge that US troops
shot Vietnamese civilians in My Lai village in March; the US Apollo 12 lunar module lands on the moon, carrying astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean.
1978 — Guyanese troops raid the jungle camp of the People’s Temple sect and find the bodies of hundreds of massmurder or masssuicide victims.
1990 — Nepal adopts a new constitution, creating a democratic government five months after a popular revolt reduces the allpowerful king to a constitutional monarch; leaders of Nato and the Warsaw Pact declare the end of the Cold War when they sign the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe; pop duo Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because they did not sing on their Girl You Know It’s True album.
1993 — A UN convoy delivers food to a mental hospital in Sarajevo, where patients suffering frostbite and tuberculosis huddle around wood stoves and sleep in freezing wards.
1996 — Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II meet in an historic first encounter in Rome. The pontiff accepts Castro’s invitation to visit the communist island.
1997 — Bobbie McCaughey gives birth in Des Moines, Iowa, to four boys and three girls, believed to be the world’s first surviving set of septuplets.
1998 — The impeachment inquiry against US president Bill Clinton opens with testimony by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who accuses the president of perjury and obstructing justice.
1999 — The rising level of Lake Wakatipu causes flooding of the lower margins of Glenorchy. Record rainfall in the area causes a massive landslip that makes a 200m stretch of the Glenorchy road impassable, and floods many central Queenstown businesses.
2005 — Prince Albert of Monaco is enthroned,
succeeding his father, Prince Rainier.
2010 — An explosion in the Pike River Coal
Mine, near Greymouth, leads to the deaths of 29 miners. Initial hopes of rescue turn to despair when a series of explosions and a fire in the days that follow remove all hope of a successful rescue.
Today’s birthdays:
Elizabeth McCombs, first woman elected to New Zealand’s Parliament (18731935); Indira Gandhi, Indian prime minister (19171984); Larry King, US TV talkshow host (1933); Meg Campbell, New Zealand poet (19372007); Sir Kenneth Keith, New Zealand judge (1937); Ted Turner, US media mogul (1938); Calvin Klein, US clothing designer (1942);
Anthony (Eddie) Rayner, New Zealand musician (1952); Robert Beltran, US actor (1953);
Dennis Ireland, New Zealand Grand Prix motorcycle road racer (1954); Glynnis O’Connor, US actress (1956); Allison Janney, US actress (1959);
Meg Ryan, US actress (1961); Jodie Foster, US actress (1962); Paul Campion, New Zealand film director (1967); Alexander (Mahe) Drysdale, New Zealand international rower (1978); Adele Silver, English actress (1980); Kimberley (Kim) Smith, New Zealand international runner (1981).
Thought for today: