Today in history
Today is Wednesday, January 9, the 9th day of 2019. There are 356 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1792 — The Treaty of Jassy marks the ending of
the RussoTurkish War of 178792.
1799 — British prime minister William Pitt (the Younger) introduces income tax at two shillings in the pound to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.
1806 — Lord Nelson, mortally wounded in the hour of the British fleet’s victory at Trafalgar in October 1805, is buried at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
1811 — The first women’s golf tournament takes
place at Musselburgh, Scotland.
1816 — Sir Humphry Davy’s safety lamp is first
used in a coal mine.
1868 — The Clutha A&P Society holds its first
show.
1874 — The Auckland Racing Club is formed following the amalgamation of the Auckland Jockey Club and the Auckland Turf Club.
1875 — George Phipps, the Second Marquess of Normanby, assumes office as New Zealand’s governor. Despite a tense relationship between the marquess and his ministers, he holds the post for a little over four years.
1878 — A team of Australian professional cricketers
begins a monthlong tour of New Zealand.
1901 — Police armed with search warrants launch dawn raids in Balclutha in an attempt to stamp out slygrogging.
1902 — Legislation is introduced in New York to
outlaw flirting in public.
1923 — Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand shortstory writer (The Garden Party), dies of tuberculosis, aged 34.
1932 — Unemployed workers riot in Dunedin after being refused relief for their families by the hospital board. The rioters are appeased when a number of private individuals arrange for the donation and supply of around 800 food parcels.
1951 — United Nations headquarters opens in New
York.
1960 — Construction work starts on the Aswan
High Dam in Egypt.
1964 — AntiUnited States rioting breaks out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and three US soldiers.
1972 — Fire destroys the liner RMS Queen
Elizabeth in waters off Hong Kong.
1973 — The whiteruled country of Rhodesia closes its borders with Zambia to try to cut off black liberation forces.
1977 — A Palestinian nationalist suspected of
having planned the attacks on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich is arrested in Paris by French intelligence agents who identify him as Abou Daoud.
1978 — An Islamic revolution erupts in Iran.
1980 — New Zealand gets its first ATM, at ANZ’s Lambton Quay branch.
1992 — Serbs in BosniaHerzegovina proclaim their own state.
1997 — Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak inaugurates a pumping station designed to send Nile River waters west from Lake Nasser to create a second river valley for Egypt’s growing population.
1998 — Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam visits the Maze Prison to make a facetoface appeal for peace to Protestant militants.
2000 — An investigation into leaks in Switzerland’s vaunted bank secrecy turns up 13 people in eight countries who illegally received data on other people’s Swiss bank accounts.
2001 — Some British schools begin handing out the
morningafter pill to pupils, setting off a debate over parental rights as the Government tries to curb an alarming rate of teenage pregnancy.
2007 — In a oneday cricket international between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Hamilton, Billy Bowden (43) becomes the youngest umpire to officiate 100 oneday internationals. His first ODI umpiring role, in 1995, was also New Zealand v Sri Lanka in Hamilton. Simon Taufel (Australia), eight years younger, bettered the record a few days later.
Today’s birthdays:
Warwick Braithwaite, New Zealandborn British conductor (18961971); Dame Gracie Fields, English entertainer (18981979); John Graham, All Black (19352017); Joan Baez, US folk singer (1941); K. Callan, US actress (1936); Jimmy Page, British musician (1944); Crystal Gayle, US singer (1951); Warren Parry, New Zealand darts player (1964); Joely Richardson, British actress (1965);
Dave Matthews, South Africanborn US musician (1967); Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge (1982); Paul CarnegieJones, New Zealand pianist (1985).
Thought for today:
Those who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing. — Hindu proverb.