Today in history
Today is Wednesday, January 2, the second day of 2019. There are 363 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1492 — King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ride victoriously into Granada after their armies defeat Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Spain, completing the Christian reconquest of Spain.
1839 — French pioneering photographer
Louis Daguerre takes the first photograph of the moon.
1880 — Telegraph workers in Dunedin go on strike.
1882 — The Edendale cooperative dairy factory
opens.
1919 — Australian pilot Captain Andrew Lang sets a world altitude record of 9296m in an
Airco DH9 at Martlesham, England.
1933 — The Anarchist and Syndicalist Uprising
starts in Barcelona, Spain.
1937 — The English and Italians sign a
‘‘gentleman’s agreement’’ respecting each other’s rights in the Mediterranean while maintaining the independence of Spain.
1938 — Using a Sikorsky S42 flying boat piloted by Captain Ed Musick, Pan American begins New Zealand’s first official airmail service, between Auckland and San Francisco. The service proved a success, with some 25,000 items posted by New Zealanders on the first flight. Musick and his crew were lost nine days later when their craft, the Samoan Clipper, crashed into the Pacific.
1942 — The Philippines capital, Manila, is captured
by the Japanese in World War 2.
1950 — Bert Sutcliffe completes a New Zealand record cricket innings tally of 355 playing for Otago against Auckland at Carisbrook.
1954 — The first It’s In The Bag radio show airs, hosted by Selwyn Toogood. It continues to run for 11 years, later transforming into a popular television quiz show.
1959 — The first lunar space shot, the unmanned Luna 1, is launched by the Soviet Union; originally intended to hit the moon, a launch malfunction causes it to pass within 6000km of the moon before moving into a solar orbit.
1971 — Sixtysix people suffocate or are trampled to death when a crowd barrier gives way at a football match between Celtic and Rangers at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium), Glasgow. The incident occurred near the end of the match, when fans leaving the stadium were met by a group trying to return after hearing that Rangers had scored an equaliser. It is the second such incident at the ground. In 1902, 25 people were killed and 517 injured when the west stand collapsed during an international between England and Scotland. That game ended in a 1all draw, but was later erased from official records.
1995— The most distant galaxy yet discovered is found by scientists using the Keck telescope in Hawaii. It is estimated to be 15 billion light years away and is named 8C 1435+63.
1997 — Kofi Annan arrives at the United Nations headquarters for the first time as secretarygeneral, promising changes to a world body deeply in debt.
2003 — Andrew Cooney (23) becomes the
youngest person to trek to the South Pole.
2006 — The roof of an ice rink in Germany collapses after a heavy snowfall in a town in the Bavarian Alps, killing 15 people and injuring many others.
2012 — A Port Chalmers firefighter is hospitalised after sustaining injuries when fire engulfs a former North Sea trawler at dock in Careys Bay; five people are taken to Timaru Hospital with moderate to serious injuries after two powerboats collide on Lake Middleton, beside Lake Ohau.
2013 — Wild weather and heavy rain cause a 40m section of the Wanganui River bridge in South Westland, near Harihari, to be washed away, forcing the closure of SH6, and stranding tourists at Haast township. The Larrys Creek rail bridge at Inangahua is also washed away.