Today in history
Today is Monday, February 11, the 42nd day of 2019. There are 323 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1531 — England’s King Henry VIII is recognised as Supreme Head of the Church of England by the English Church’s legislative body, the Convocations of Canterbury and York.
1812 — Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry
signs a boundary change law that favours his party, giving rise to the term ‘‘gerrymandering’’.
1858 — St Bernadette of Lourdes, originally MarieBernarde Soubirous, first has a vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, leading to the foundation of the shrine of Lourdes.
1888 — King Lobengda of Matabele, Rhodesia,
accepts British protection.
1907 — More than 300 people die in the United States when the paddle wheel steamship
Larchmont collides with the coal schooner
Harry P. Knowlton off New England’s Block Island.
1922 — The Forests Act passes into New Zealand law, with the intention of establishing the New Zealand Forest Service.
1929 — The Lateran Treaty establishes an
independent Vatican City.
1938 — Sir Frederic Truby King, who founded the
New Zealand Plunket Society, dies aged 79. 1944 — A large crowd gathers in Anzac Square,
Dunedin, to welcome home the second furlough draft from the Middle East.
1945 — United States president Franklin D.
Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin sign the Yalta Agreement during World War 2.
1956 — A referendum in Malta favours integration
with Britain.
1958 — The Queen Mother, while in Dunedin, visits Taiaroa Head to view the albatrosses, and attends a mayoral reception in the town hall with a number of local and government dignitaries.
1967 — Military rule is imposed in Beijing during
civil strife in China.
1968 — Communist troops execute 300 civilians in South Vietnam and bury them in a mass grave during fighting for the city of Hue.
1971 — A treaty banning nuclear weapons from the ocean floor is signed by 63 nations at ceremonies in Washington, London and Moscow.
1973 — A sixyear campaign to save lakes Manapouri and Te Anau from hydroelectric development concludes with the Government appointing six guardians of the lakes. 1979 — Followers of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini seize power in Iran, nine days after the religious leader returned to his home country following 15 years of exile.
1986 — Jewish dissident Anatoly Scharansky walks to freedom in Berlin after almost nine years in Soviet captivity on espionage charges.
1990 — Nelson Mandela is released after 27 years
of imprisonment in South Africa.
1993 — A Somali gunman hijacks a Lufthansa Airbus over Austria with 104 people aboard and orders it flown to New York, where he surrenders peacefully; President Clinton announces his choice of Miami prosecutor Janet Reno as the nation’s first female attorney general.
1994 — A Natoenforced ceasefire takes hold in
Sarajevo.
2004 — South Korean and US researchers announce that they have cloned a human embryo as a source of soughtafter embryonic stem cells. 2006 — Adventurer Steve Fossett completes the longest nonstop flight in aviation history with an emergency landing of his balloon in England, flying 42,460km in about 76 hours but stopping early because of mechanical problems.
Today’s birthdays:
Thomas A. Edison, US inventor
(18471931); Sir Keith Holyoake,
New Zealand prime minister and
GovernorGeneral (19041983);
Stanley Cawtheray, New Zealand football international (19061989);
Conrad Janis, US jazz musician and actor (1928); Gene Vincent, US musician (19351971); Bill Lawry, Australian cricketer (1937); Bevan Congdon, New Zealand cricketer (1938); Sergio Mendes, musician (1941);
Sheryl Crow, US singer (1962); Sarah Palin, US politician (1964); Eric Rush, New Zealand sevens player (1965); Jennifer Aniston, US actress (1969); Kelly Slater, US surfer (1972); Matthew Lawrence, US actor (1980); Kelly Rowland, US singer (1981).
Quote from history:
‘‘I owe nothing to Women’s Lib’’. — Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. On February 11, 1975, Thatcher became the first woman to head a British political party when she was elected leader of the Conservatives.