TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Monday, July 6, the 188th day of 2020. There are 178 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1189 — King Henry II of England, the first of the Plantagenets, dies and is succeeded by Richard I.
1348 — Pope Clement VI issues a papal bull during the Black Death, stating Jews are not to blame and urging their protection.
1483 — King Richard III is crowned.
1553 — King Edward VI of England dies and is succeeded four days later by Lady Jane Grey, who was deposed by Edward’s halfsister, Mary, after just nine days on the throne.
1785 — Following the collapse in the value of Continental currency during the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress authorises the issuance of a new currency, the US dollar.
1875 — Daniel Pollen assumes office as premier of New Zealand while Julius Vogel travels overseas. He serves until Vogel’s return in February 1876.
1879 — The Steam and Horse Tramways opens in Dunedin.
1885 — Louis Pasteur performs the first inoculation of a human being, Joseph Meister, a 9yearold boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog.
1908 — Kathleen Beauchamp, a 19yearold aspiring writer, leaves New Zealand for London. She took the pen name Katherine Mansfield.
1917 — Arab forces led by T. E. Lawrence capture the port of Aqaba from the Turks in WW1.
1923 — The overnight Auckland to Wellington express train is derailed at Ongarue by a landslip during the early hours. Seventeen people are killed and many others injured. It is the first major railway accident resulting in loss of life in New Zealand; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.
1928 — The first alltalking feature film,
The Lights of New York, premieres in New
York.
1942 — Diarist Anne Frank and her family take refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.
1943 — Darwin is bombed. The city was bombed 64 times during World War 2.
1944 — In the United States, a fire engulfs the tent during a performance of the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut. It was estimated that up to 8000 people were in the audience; 167 died
and 700 more were injured.
1945 — Nicaragua becomes the first nation to formally accept the United Nations charter.
1957 — Althea Gibson becomes the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating fellow American Darlene Hard 63, 62.
1970 — In the US, California passes the first ‘‘no fault’’ divorce law.
1988 — New Zealand’s first frozen embryo pregnancy is confirmed in Auckland. The baby is expected around Christmastime; the world’s worst offshore oildrilling accident occurs when the Piper Alpha oil platform explodes in the British sector of the North Sea, killing 167 people.
2005 — New York Times reporter Judith Miller is jailed for refusing to divulge a confidential source to a grand jury investigating the Bush Administration’s leak of an undercover CIA operative’s name.
2009 — Jadranka Kosor becomes the first female prime minister of Croatia.
2010 — The Government approves funding of $7 million for a further three cycle trails in Otago. These include the Alps to Ocean Trail (Mt Cook to Oamaru), the Clutha Gold Trail (Roxburgh to Lawrence) and the Queenstown Trail (a series of trails within the Wakatipu Basin).
2016 — The reality cellphone game
Pokemon Go is released in New Zealand, beginning a craze where users download the app in order to search for Pokemon. The popularity causes overloads and outages for users, and also leads to a number of injuries from the users’ inattention to outdoor hazards.