Today in history
Today is Thursday, January 10, the 10th day of 2019. There are 355 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1663 — Britain’s King Charles II grants a charter to the Royal African Colony.
1770 — Mount Egmont (Taranaki) is sighted and named by Captain Cook.
1776 — Britishborn political writer Thomas Paine publishes his influential pamphlet Common Sense.
1815 — The British declare war on the King of Kandy in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
1838 — Bishop JeanBaptiste Pompallier arrives at Hokianga to become the first bishop of any denomination to arrive in New Zealand. He establishes the country’s first Roman Catholic mission station at Papakawau.
1842 — William Martin is sworn in as the first judge of New Zealand’s Supreme Court, and as the country’s first chief justice.
1845 — Hone Heke orders the flagstaff at Russell to be felled for a second time. Within a week, a reward of £100 for Heke’s capture is posted.
1863 — London’s Metropolitan, the world’s first underground passenger railway, opens to the public.
1893 — The Otago Daily Times publishes a Lyttelton Times report on a series of icebergs witnessed off the Chatham Islands.
1896 — The Otago Witness reports on the discovery of two Maori canoes by a farmer while ploughing a field at Henley.
1901 — The Texas oil boom starts, ushering in an era of American prosperity as it introduces the world to a new energy source.
1914 — The first New Zealand bowls championships begin in Dunedin.
1919 — The British Army takes over administration of the Baghdad Railway.
1920 — The League of Nations is established as the Treaty of Versailles goes into effect.
1928 — New Zealanders George Hood and John Moncrieff are lost while attempting the first transtasman flight; Leon Trotsky, one of the chief architects of the Soviet Union, is ordered into exile by the Soviet Government.
1930 — New Zealand plays its first cricket test match against England in Christchurch. English bowler Maurice Allom took 4 wickets in 5 balls, which included a hattrick, to dismiss New Zealand for 112 and set up an eightwicket win for the English.
1935 — The Duke of Gloucester visits Dunedin.
1946 — The League of Nations is officially superseded by the United Nations when the first meeting of the General Assembly begins in London.
1953 — The Social Credit Political League is created. New Zealand’s new political party advocates the monetary doctrine of the Douglas Credit Movement and quickly becomes a serious threat to the longestablished twoparty system. However, despite strong poll showings it does not win a seat in Parliament until 1966.
1964 — Panama severs diplomatic relations with the United States after what it terms ‘‘unjustifiable aggression’’ by US troops the previous day.
1968 — The US Surveyor 7 spacecraft makes a soft landing on the moon, ending a series of US unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
1969 — Sweden becomes the first Western European country to announce it will establish full diplomatic relations with North Vietnam.
1982 — New Zealand’s All Whites soccer team qualifies for the World Cup after beating China 21 in Singapore.
1994 — Lorena Bobbitt goes on trial in Manassas, Virginia, charged with malicious wounding of her husband, John. She is acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.
2013 — Four houses are destroyed when a wildfire, fuelled by high temperatures and winds, rips through properties southwest of Christchurch, forcing residents to flee for safety.
Today’s birthdays:
Cyril Evans, All Black (18961975); Sir Andrew McKee, New Zealandborn Royal Air Force officer (19021988); Ralph Caulton, All Black (1937); Jim Croce, US musician (19431973); Rod Stewart, British pop singer (1945); Donald Fagen, US singer/musician (1948); George Foreman, US heavyweight boxing champion (1949); Pat Benatar, US singer (1953); Fran Walsh, New Zealand screenwriter (1959); Malcolm Dunford, New Zealand football international (1963); Cinnamon Chaney, New Zealand football international (1969); Jemaine Clement, New Zealand comedian, actor and musician (1974); Hayden Roulston, New Zealand professional cyclist (1981).
Thought for today:
The force that rules the world is conduct, whether it be moral or immoral. — Nicholas Murray Butler, American educator (18621947).