Today in history
Today is Saturday, December 15, the 349th day of 2018. There are 16 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1640 — The Duke of Braganca is crowned John IV, the first king of Portugal, after 60 years of Spanish rule.
1711 — The plague breaks out in Copenhagen.
1789 — Beginning on this day and concluding almost a month later on January 10, the first United States presidential election is held. Americans vote for electors who, a month later, choose George Washington to be the nation’s first president.
1806 — Napoleon Bonaparte enters Warsaw,
Poland.
1881 — The Silverstream water race is opened.
1885 — The Catlins railway to Romahapa is
opened.
1890 — Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux is killed during an attempt to arrest him by reservation police in the United States state of South Dakota.
1908 — On the Whanganui River, Richard Arnst
wins the world rowing championship.
1916 — The French defeat the Germans in the
Battle of Verdun during World War 1.
1939 — The motion picture Gone With the Wind
premieres in Atlanta, in the US.
1942 — New Zealand’s Economic Stabilisation Commission is established, charged with controlling the country’s economy by fixing prices and wages through subsidies, regulation and rationing.
1944 — New Zealand’s poll tax on Chinese immigrants is abolished; the aircraft carrying American band leader Glenn Miller, a US army major, disappears over the English Channel, probably the victim of bombs jettisoned from British bombers returning from an unsuccessful raid.
1945 — The final stage of the South Island’s main trunk line, north of Kaikoura, is completed, linking the ports of Picton and Bluff by rail.
1965 — Two US manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, manoeuvre to within 3m of each other while in orbit.
1970 — A Soviet spacecraft starts sending
messages from the planet Venus.
1978 — US president Jimmy Carter announces he will grant diplomatic recognition to communist China on New Year’s Day and sever official relations with Taiwan.
1979 — The deposed Shah of Iran leaves the US
to ‘‘temporary’’ exile in Panama.
1986 — Rival ethnic groups battle in Karachi and set
hundreds of homes and shops ablaze in the city’s worst rioting since Pakistan’s independence 39 years earlier.
1989 — is named head of government and declares Panama in ‘‘a state of war’’ with the US; a popular uprising begins, resulting in the downfall of Romanian dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu.
1992 — Chess genius Bobby Fischer is indicted in the US on charges of violating economic sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing a highly publicised match with Boris Spassky.
1994 — The Swedish Government decides not to salvage the bodies from the ferry Estonia, which sank in the Baltic, killing 800 people. The decision is opposed by the victims’ relatives.
1995 — Pioneer 6, a spacecraft launched on a journey through the solar system on December 16, 1965, gets an early happy birthday call from Nasa and replies.
1999 — Venezuelans overwhelmingly approve a new constitution that eliminates the Senate and vastly increases the power of President Hugo Chavez, allowing him to stay in office for up to 13 years.
2013 — The sole occupant and pilot of a Hughes 500 helicopter flying between the Greenstone Valley and Dumpling Hut is killed when it crashes at Glade Burn, near the Lake Te Anau starting point of the Milford Track.
Today’s birthdays:
Maurice Wilkins, New Zealandborn molecular biologist and Nobel Laureate
(19162004); Ron Bailey, New Zealand politician (19262015); Tim Conway, US comedian/actor (1933); Bill Davis,
All Black (1942); Michael King, New
Zealand author/biographer
(19452004); Stephanie (Steve) Chadwick, New Zealand politician (1948); Don Johnson, US actor (1949); twin brothers Alan and Gary Whetton, both All Blacks (1959); Melissa Ruscoe, New Zealand rugby union and rugby league international (1976); Hayden Godfrey, New Zealand cycling international (1978); Adam Brody, US actor (1979); Brooke Fraser, New Zealand singer/songwriter (1983); Ian Hogg, New Zealand football international (1989).
Thought for today
History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances. — Donald Creighton, Canadian historian (19021979).