Today in history
Today is Thursday, February 14, the 45th day of 2019. There are 320 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1663 — Canada becomes a royal province of France.
1797 — A British fleet under John Jervis and Horatio
Nelson defeat the Spanish off Cape St Vincent. 1869 — The schooner St Vincent is wrecked in
Palliser Bay, with the loss of 20 lives.
1872 — The last engagement of the New Zealand Wars takes place west of Lake Waikaremoana when Te Kooti faces government forces under Captain George Preece. Te Kooti later sought sanctuary in the King Country.
1886 — St Joseph’s Cathedral in Dunedin is
dedicated.
1893 — A treaty of annexation of Hawaii is concluded between the secretary of state of the United States and five businessmen who had been involved in overthrowing the Hawaiian queen, but the US Senate refuses to ratify it.
1905 — The Wyndham Dairy Factory produces a ‘‘monster cheese’’ to be exhibited in London. Weighing a ton, it stands 3ft high, has a girth of 11ft and required three large vats of milk in its making.
1909 — The North Island maintrunk line is
inaugurated.
1915 — The Pioneer Battalion, a Maori contingent of 500 volunteers, among them Peter Buck, leaves for Egypt.
1922 — Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi begins the first regular radio broadcasting transmission from England. 1930 — Sir Thomas MacKenzie, the 18th New
Zealand prime minister, dies aged 75.
1946 — A machine at the University of Pennsylvania, which takes seconds to do calculations that normally take hours, is announced to the public. It was called short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer and was formally dedicated at the university the next day.
1956 — Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces Josef Stalin’s policies at a Soviet Communist Party conference.
1964 — The National Women’s Hospital in Auckland is officially opened by the GovernorGeneral, Sir Bernard Fergusson, who acted in the absence of the Queen Mother, who had to withdraw from the official duty after developing appendicitis.
1972 — A wage and price freeze is announced by New Zealand prime minister Jack Marshall, warning that other deflationary measures to stabilise the economy can be expected.
1989 — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issues a fatwa against British author for writing The Satanic Verses, calling on all Muslims of the world to immediately kill Rushdie and all his editors and publishers. A bounty of $US1 million was placed on Rushdie’s head, this quickly increasing to $US6 million. At least 22 people have been killed as a result of the fatwa.
2002 — Researchers at the Texas A&M University successfully clone a cat, the sixth species to be cloned.
2003 — The world’s first cloned mammal,
Dolly the sheep, is given a lethal injection after developing signs of progressive lung disease. She was 6.
2004 — A civil state of emergency is declared in Wanganui, Manawatu and Rankitikei as a result of the Valentine’s Day storm, which leaves hundreds of people homeless and considerable areas of farmland inundated. Approximately 500 Lower Hutt residents are also evacuated because of flooding and Wellington becomes isolated. The event produced galeforce southerlies of up to 230kmh in the Tararua Range and swells of 11m in Cook Strait.
— A 5.7magnitude earthquake centred in Pegasus Bay, east of Christchurch, is followed by two others measuring 3.5 and 3.2 shortly after. No major damage or injuries were reported.
— A helicopter pilot is killed when his craft crashes while he was battling wildfires in the Port Hills area with a monsoon bucket.
Today’s birthdays:
Allan Bell, New Zealand politician (18701936); Reg Singer, New Zealand football international (19242001); Carl Bernstein, US journalist (1944); Susan Napier, New Zealand novelist (1954); Zinzan Brooke, All Black (1965); Roger Langridge, New Zealandborn comics writer/artist/letterer (1967); English actor and comedian (1970); Rob Thomas, US singer (1972); Cadel Evans, Australian cyclist (1977); Storm Uru, New Zealand rower (1985).
Quote from history:
‘‘When I was young I looked like Al Capone but I lacked his compassion.’’ — Oscar Levant, US musician and humorist. On February 14, 1929, Al Capone’s henchmen killed seven of the Bugs Moran gang in the St Valentine’s Day Massacre in a Chicago garage.