Today in history
Today is Saturday, March 9, the 68th day of 2019. There are 297 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1074 — Pope Gregory VII declares that all married
Roman Catholic priests are excommunicated.
1796 — French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais, the widow of a former French officer executed during the Revolution.
1831 — The French Foreign Legion is founded by King Louis Philippe, with its headquarters in Algeria.
1864 — In the US Civil War, General
Ulysses S. Grant is appointed commanderinchief of the Union armies.
1916 — Germany declares war on Portugal on the grounds that Portugal had seized German ships in Portuguese harbours.
1924 — Italy annexes the independent city of Fiume but abandons claims to Yugoslavia’s Dalmatian coast.
1932 — A major demonstration is staged in Dunedin by the unemployed; Emperor Pu Yi, who abdicated the Chinese throne in 1912, is installed as president of Japanesecontrolled Manchuria.
1942 — The Japanese complete the conquest of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) island of Java during World War 2.
1949 — A national referendum supports the introduction of offcourse betting through the totalisator and the retention of bars closing at six o’clock.
1956 — Opo the dolphin, who captured the hearts of the country over the summer, is found dead at Opononi. It is thought the dolphin may have been the victim of illegal fishing using explosives; Archbishop Makarios, whom the British suspected of terrorism, is deported from Cyprus to the Seychelles.
1967 — A 21yearold man is killed by a shark in heavy surf off Dunedin’s St Kilda Beach. It is the second fatal shark attack in the area in three years.
1976 — Fortytwo people die in Cavalese in Italy in the world’s worst cablecar disaster. One teenage girl survives.
1982 — Charles Haughey is sworn in as Irish
prime minister.
1985 — The National Gallery purchases
Cezanne’s An Afternoon in Naples for
$1 million.
1990 — The two Germanies begin preliminary
reunification talks.
1991 — Yugoslavia deploys tanks in the capital Belgrade after bloody clashes between riot police and tens of thousands of anticommunist protesters.
1999 — Iranian president Mohammad Khatami travels to Italy on the first state visit to the West by an Iranian president since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
2000 — A fire sweeps through a locked dormitory at a high school in the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, killing 18 teenage girls and their supervisor.
2002 — Space shuttle Columbia’s astronauts release the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit after five days of repairs; the Mont Blanc alpine tunnel reopens to car traffic after a fire in 1999 which killed 39 people, but protesters vow to try to block heavy goods vehicles from using it again.
2004 — Scientists unveil a picture of the universe snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope that looks deep into the cosmos, and back 13 billion years. 2016 — New Zealand Defence Force staff and heavily armed police special tactics group officers cordon off a house near Kawerau, in the eastern Bay of Plenty, after four police officers were shot and wounded.
Today’s birthdays:
Henry Suter (born Hans Heinrich Suter),
Swissborn New Zealand zoologist/palaeontologist/ malacologist (18411918); Lloyd Price, US musician (1933); Yuri Gagarin, Russian astronaut, first man in space (193468); Bobby Fischer, US chess player (19432008); John Lister, New Zealand professional golfer (1947); Keri Hulme, New Zealand author (1947); Jimmie Fadden, US musician (1948); Chris Lewis, former New Zealand professional tennis player (1957); Linda Fiorentino, US actress (1960); Juliette Binoche, French actress (1964); Andrew Robertt, New Zealand actor (1969); Emmanuel Lewis, US actor (1971);
Gordon McCauley, New Zealand cycling representative and national road champion (1972).
Thought for today:
It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him. — John Steinbeck, American author (190268).