Today in history
Today is Friday, January 11, the 11th day of 2019. There are 354 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
49BC — Roman emperor Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon River and moves his troops into an offensive position in the war against Pompey.
1569 — The first lottery in England is drawn in St Paul’s Cathedral under the patronage of
Queen Elizabeth I.
1846 — British troops occupy Ruapekapeka Pa after it is abandoned by Hone Heke and Kawiti, bringing to an end the war in the Far North of New Zealand.
1851 — The Lyttelton Times begins publication.
1856 — A folk hero of the area in North OtagoSouth Canterbury now bearing his name, sheep rustler James Mackenzie receives a free pardon due to flaws in his trial almost a year earlier when he was sentenced to five years’ hard labour.
1868 — Despite poor ground conditions, New Zealand’s first cricket match is played at the
Basin Reserve, Wellington, between Wellington Volunteers and a team from HMS
Falcon.
1890 — The merchant ship SS Marlborough
departs Lyttelton bound for London with a cargo of wool and frozen meat but disappears en route with the loss of 30 lives; its sister ship SS
Dunedin departed for London two months later and disappeared without a trace also, with the loss of 34 lives.
1922 — A 14yearold boy, Canadian Leonard Thompson, becomes the first person to have his diabetes successfully treated with insulin.
1935 — Aviator Amelia Earhart begins a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, on her way to becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
1939 — Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Shakhbut signs the emirate’s first oil agreement, with a Britishled consortium.
1941 — Germany and Italy declare war on the
United States.
1942 — Japan declares war on the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invade the Dutch East Indies.
1962 — An avalanche buries a village in the
Peruvian Andes, and 3000 people are killed.
1964 — US surgeongeneral Luther Terry issues the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one’s health.
1965 — The bodies of two 15yearold girls are found in sand at Sydney’s Wanda Beach; their deaths are still unsolved. 1970 — In Nigeria, the 32monthold secessionist Biafran regime collapses under onslaughts by the Nigerian military.
1973 — Air New Zealand takes delivery of its first
widebodied jet, a DC10.
1974 — The first sextuplets to survive are born to
Sue Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa.
1976 — President Rodriguez Lara of Ecuador is
ousted in a coup.
1977 — France sets off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
1981 — A threeman British team led by Sir Ranulph Fiennes completes the longest and fastest crossing of Antarctica, reaching Scott Base after 75 days and 4022km.
1986 — L. Douglas Wilder becomes lieutenant governor of Virginia, making him the first AfricanAmerican sworn in as a Southern state official since the American Civil War.
1999 — Haiti’s President Rene Preval dissolves Parliament after a 22month impasse with no working government. He appoints a premier and a cabinet by decree.
2008 — Sir Edmund Hillary, explorer and the first
person to climb Mt Everest, dies aged 88.
2012 — A gang of children, some as young as 6, are blamed for a spate of crimes, including vandalism, arson and theft, in the lower North Island town of Featherston.
Today’s birthdays:
Francesco Parmigianino, Italian artist (15031540); William James, US philosopher (18421910); Sir Arthur Guinness, New Zealand politician (18461913); Arthur Lambourn, All Black (19101999); Rod Taylor, Australian actor (19302015); Jean Chretien, Canadian prime minister (1934); Hamish Macdonald, All Black (1947); Kim Coles, US actress (1962); Tom Dumont, US musician (1968); Kyle Richards, US actress (1969).
Thought for today:
‘‘A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.’’ — Author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy, who died on this day in 1928.