Today in history
Today is Thursday, December 13, the 347th day of 2018. There are 18 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1642 — Dutch navigator Abel Tasman sights the
west coast of the South Island.
1789 — The Austrian Netherlands declares its
independence as Belgium.
1839 — William Wakefield ‘‘purchases’’ the
Wairau Valley for £100.
1848 — The first edition of Otago’s first newspaper, the Otago News, a fourpage fortnightly publication, is published in Dunedin.
1884 — The St Clair baths are opened by the
Mayor of Caversham, Hugh Calder.
1917 — Count Felix von Luckner, with a number of other German prisoners of war makes an escape from Motuihe Island. They surrender three days later on the Kermadec Islands. Von Luckner attempts two more unsuccessful escapes before being repatriated in 1919.
1918 — United States president Woodrow Wilson arrives in France, becoming the first president to visit Europe while in office.
1924 — General Sir Charles Fergusson takes office as New Zealand’s GovernorGeneral. Both his grandfathers, Sir James Fergusson (187374) and the Earl of Glasgow (189297) were governors, and his son, Sir Bernard Fergusson, was later GovernorGeneral (196267).
1937 — Japanese troops take Nanking in China and proceed to massacre an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians over a period of six weeks.
1939 — The Royal Navy cruiser Achilles, crewed mostly by New Zealanders, engages the
in the Battle of the River Plate.
— New Zealand’s trusteeship agreement over Western Samoa, providing for selfgovernment, is approved by the United Nations.
1949 — (National) takes office as prime minister, serving through New Zealand’s worst period of industrial unrest, until ill health forces him to stand down in 1957.
1956 — Fleeing Russian oppression, 66 Hungarian
refugees arrive in Auckland.
1967 — The military government in Greece crushes a countercoup, and King Constantine II flees to Rome with his family.
1974 — Egypt demands a 50year freeze on Israel’s population as a condition for peace in the Middle East.
1980 — Parliament votes overwhelmingly 58 to 10 in favour of changing divorce law in New Zealand to a single ground, that of irreconcilable breakdown of marriage, to be determined by partners living apart for two years.
— South African president F.W. de Klerk meets for the first time imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk’s office in Cape Town.
1990 — African National Congress president Oliver Tambo arrives in South Africa after 30 years in exile.
1991 — The leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan agree that they will join the new Commonwealth of Independent States.
1994 — President Sam Nujoma and his governing party are declared winners of Namibia’s first postindependence election.
2010 — Pike River Coal Mine, near Greymouth, is placed in receivership, adding to the woes of a company and a West Coast community still coming to grips with the loss of 29 miners after an explosion in the mine almost a month earlier.
2013 — A centuryold macrocarpa tree explodes when struck by lightning on a farm in Hawkes Bay, killing 53 ewes sheltering beneath it. 2015 — Dunedin relief teacher and Moana Pool fitness instructor Andrew Nicholson completes a 29,000km aroundtheworld cycling journey in a record 123 days while raising $3813 for charity.
Today’s birthdays:
Thomas Kendall, New Zealand missionary and recorder of the Maori language (17781832); Archibald Baxter, New Zealand antiwar activist (18811970); Keith Hay, New Zealand homebuilder/entreprenur (191797); Dick Van Dyke, US actor (1925); Christopher Plummer, Canadianborn actor (1929); Ruth Richardson, New Zealand politician (1950); Wayne (Buck) Shelford, All Black captain (1957); Steve Buscemi, US actor (1957); Jamie Foxx, US actor, singer and comedian (1967); Vaughan Coveny, New Zealand football international (1971);
Mark Paston, New Zealand football international (1976); Alison Shanks, New Zealand Olympic racing cyclist (1982); Taylor Swift, US singer (1989).
Thought for today:
To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers, or both.’’ — Elizabeth Charles, British writer (182896).
ODT