Today in history
Today is Monday, December 24, the 358th day of 2018. There are 7 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1650 — Edinburgh Castle in Scotland surrenders to
the forces of Oliver Cromwell.
1871 — Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida has its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal.
1873 — New Zealand’s first regular passenger rail
service begins on the Auckland to Onehunga line.
1874 — The first sod is turned on the Dunedin
Peninsula and Ocean Beach Railway.
1886 — The Reefton Electric Light and Power Company becomes the first public electricity supply authority in the southern hemisphere.
1901 — Captain Robert Falcon Scott departs from Port Chalmers on Discovery on his way to explore Antarctica.
1903 — Three passengers are killed when a runaway doubledecker tram collides with another in Auckland.
1906 — Canadian physicist Reginald Fessenden becomes the first person to broadcast a music programme over the radio, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.
1909 — Compulsory military training becomes law
with the passing of New Zealand’s Defence Act.
1920 — Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso gives his last public performance, singing in Jacques Halevy’s La Juive at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
1943 — United States president Franklin D.
Roosevelt appoints General Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces as part of Operation Overlord.
1953 — A lahar on Mt Ruapehu sweeps away the rail bridge at Tangiwai, causing the Wellington to Auckland express to plummet into the Whangaehu River. It is New Zealand’s worst railway disaster, with 151 of the estimated 285 passengers losing their lives.
1968 — Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve television broadcast.
1974 — Winds in front of Cyclone Tracy start to
lash Darwin.
1976 — Takeo Fukuda becomes Japanese prime
minister.
1979 — An estimated 80,000 Soviet soldiers invade Afghanistan , ousting Communist Party leader Hafizullah Amin and replacing him with the proMoscow Babrak Karmal; the European Space Agency launches its first Ariane rocket from French Guiana. Arianespace, dominated by France, goes on to dominate the world satellitelaunching market.
1989 — General Manuel Antonio Noriega takes refuge from US troops in the Vatican diplomatic mission in Panama City.
1993 — Santa Claus raises a Palestinian flag in the
Gaza Strip, as the army grants a Christmas truce.
1994 — Muslim militants seize a French jetliner in
Algiers and take 239 people hostage.
1995 — Serb and Muslim armies swap more than 200 prisoners of war in a Christmas Eve gesture symbolising a new era of Bosnian peace under Nato’s biggest military operation.
1997 — Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the ageing revolutionary known as Carlos the Jackal, is sentenced by a French court to life in prison for the 1975 murders of two French investigators and a Lebanese national.
2003 — Italian food giant Parmalat files for bankruptcy protection after the discovery of a ¤7 billion ($NZ13 billion) discrepancy in its accounts.
Today’s birthdays:
John Lackland, king of England (11671216); Kit Carson, US frontiersman and national folk hero (18091868); Arthur Kelly, New Zealand professional rugby player (18861965); Nola Luxford, New Zealandborn actress (19011994); William Pickering, New Zealandborn rocket scientist (19102004); Vincent Bevan, All Black (19211996); Mary Higgins Clark, US author (1927); Colin Cowdrey, English cricketer (19322000); Sharon Farrell, US actress (1940); Howden Ganley,
New Zealand racing car driver (1941); Frank Oliver, All Black (19482014); Stephanie Hodge, US comedian/actress (1956); Nick Smith, New Zealand politician (1964); Lee Stensness, All Black (1970); Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican singer (1971);
Geoff Allott, New Zealand cricketer (1971); Stephenie Meyer, US author (1973);
Riki van Steeden, New Zealand football international (1976); Melissa Suffield, British actress (1992).