Today in history
Today is Saturday, October 12, the 285th day of 2019. There are 80 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1810 — Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig marries Princess Therese of SaxonyHildburghausen. The festivities become an annual event, evolving into the presentday Oktoberfest.
1838 — James Clendon is made the first United States consul in New Zealand. The Englishman is also a JP, police inspector and customs collector.
1872 — Apache leader Cochise signs a peace treaty with General Howard in the Arizona Territory.
1898 — In a state of depression, William Larnach shoots himself in the committee room at Parliament.
1901 — In what is possibly the first antismoking legislation in New Zealand, the Otago Daily Times reports on government legislation prohibiting youths from smoking.
1912 — The Browns Cooperative Dairy Factory in Southland opens.
1915 — In World War 1, English nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad in Germanoccupied Brussels for treason against a country that is not her own.
1917 — The New Zealand Division suffers nearly 3300 casualties, including 1190 dead, in one day at Passchendaele, Belgium. It is New Zealand’s worst military disaster.
1918 — The passenger liner RMS Niagara arrives in Auckland with 26 cases of ‘‘Spanish influenza’’ on board. The virus quickly takes hold throughout the country, killing 8500 people.
1928 — The first clinical use of the Drinker respirator or iron lung, on a human occurs at the Boston Children’s Hospital. The subject was an 8yearold girl who was nearly dead as a result of respiratory failure due to polio. Her dramatic recovery, within less than a minute of being placed in the chamber, helped popularise the new device.
1933 — US bank robber John Dillinger escapes from a jail in Allen County, Ohio, with the help of his gang, who killed the sheriff.
1944 — The Axis occupation of Athens comes to an end. The occupation ruined the Greek economy and brought about terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population, more than 40,000 of whom died from starvation in Athens alone .
1953 — US vicepresident Richard Nixon visits New Zealand, becoming the most senior American official to visit while in office.
1961 — A conscience vote in Parliament is won when 10 members of the National Government cross the floor in support of abolishing capital punishment. 1973 — Juan Peron is inaugurated as Argentine
president, with his wife, Isabel, as vicepresident.
1983 — Former Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka is sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for his part in the Lockheed bribery scandal.
1988 — Despite Dunedin’s Mike McGarry featuring in a strong New Zealand football team that included future coach of the national side Ricki Herbert, Australia secures a 21 victory at the Caledonian Ground in South Dunedin.
1995 — Allan Croad submits preliminary details of his invention to the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand and is later granted the patent for the Mountain Buggy.
1996 — New Zealanders vote in a general election under the mixed member proportional voting system (MMP) for the first time.
2002 — Terrorist bombs explode in a resort area on the Indonesian island of Bali, destroying two nightclubs and killing 202 people, including three New Zealanders and 88 Australians.
2011 — A week after the container vessel Rena struck a reef not far from the entrance to Tauranga Harbour, repercussions are felt, with an oil slick washing up on Bay of Plenty beaches and containers falling into the sea as the vessel continues to list. Residents in the area are warned to ‘‘prepare for the worst’’.
2012 — A landslip blocks the access road to Milford Sound, closing the road for almost a week while rocks and boulders, some estimated as large as 500 tonnes, are cleared away from a 200m stretch 2km on the Milford side of Falls Creek.