Today in history
Today is Tuesday, May 5, the 126th day of 2020. There are 240 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1260 — Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan,
becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
1646 — British forces under King Charles I
surrender to the Scots at Newark, England.
1833 — James Busby’s arrival in the Bay of Islands signals the first tentative steps along a path that led to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi seven years later.
1840 —The directors of the New Zealand Company decide to change the name of the Port Nicholson settlement from Britannia to Wellington.
1860 — Giuseppe Garibaldi and his ‘‘Thousand Redshirts’’ sail from Genoa to conquer Sicily and Naples.
1862 — The Mexican army defeats invading French forces in the Battle of Puebla. In celebration of the victory, May 5 is a civic holiday in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where it is recognised as El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla).
1863 — New Zealand’s first regular army begins when the Colonial Defence Force Act 1862 becomes law, allowing the country to raise troops for the purpose of internal defence.
1871 — Auckland is constituted a borough.
1890 — The Royal Commission on Sweating delivers its report, citing many instances of excessively long hours, low pay and exploitation of women and children.
1898 — At the height of New Zealand’s Dog Tax
War in the Hokianga, Government troops march towards armed Maori rebels, who viewed the annual ‘‘dog tax’’ of 2s 6d (25c) as a form of discrimination.
1908 — Prime Minister Joseph Ward triggers the
construction of the Otira railway tunnel.
1911 — New Zealand pilot J.J. Hammond makes
the first flight over Sydney.
1925 — John Scopes is arrested in Tennessee for
teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution.
1930 — Amy Johnson begins the first solo flight by
a woman between England and Australia.
1945 — US poet Ezra Pound is arrested in Italy for treason over his World War 2 broadcasts and taken back to the US. (He was declared insane and allowed to return to Italy.)
1950 — Subsidies are withdrawn on butter, tea,
bread, flour and eggs in New Zealand.
1954 — Blasting by contractors widening the Goat Island channel is reported to be responsible for damage to windows, chimneys and drains in the Port Chalmers area; General Alfredo Stroessner heads a coup against civilian president Federico Chavez, beginning a 34year dictatorship in Paraguay.
1961 — Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space in a 15minute suborbital flight in a Mercury spacecraft.
1965 — The first largescale US Army ground units
arrive in South Vietnam.
1980 — Farm buildings on the historic Totara Park Station, near Oamaru, are purchased by the New Zealand Meat Board, to be renovated by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust to commemorate the centennial of New Zealand’s first successful shipment of frozen meat to Britain, exported from the station in February 1882; a siege at the Iranian Embassy in London ends as the SAS and police storm the building.
1981 — Bobby Sands becomes the first of the 10 IRA hunger strikers to die in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland.
1994 — Chris Butcher (15), a seventhform pupil at
Waitaki Boys’ High School, is capped for a bachelor of science degree at Massey University, for which he has been studying extramurally for the past five years. Considered a child genius, Chris passed his first schoolcertificate subject aged 8, and two bursary subjects at age 11.
2001 — The world’s first paying space tourist, Dennis Tito, returns to Earth after a week in space.
Today’s birthdays:
Cliff Porter, All Black captain (18991976); Lloyd Allan Trigg, RNZAF pilot WW2, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross (19141943); Michael Palin, British actor/traveller (1943); John RhysDavies, British actor (1944); Phil Price, New Zealand sculptor (1965); Danielle Fishel, US actress (1981); Craig David, English singer/songwriter (1981); Henry Cavill, British actor (1983); Adele, English singer/songwriter (1988); Chris Brown, US singer/songwriter (1989).
Quote of the day:
‘‘Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.’’ — Karl Marx, Herman socialist revolutionary, who was born on this day in 1818. He died in 1883 aged 64.