TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Tuesday, July 7, the 189th day of 2020. There are 177 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1307 — King Edward I of England dies on his way north to subdue a rebellion in Scotland. He is succeeded by Edward II.
1718 — Alexis, heir to Russia’s Peter the Great, is murdered at the instigation of his father.
1749 — Spain’s Ferdinand VI severs himself from a ‘‘family compact’’ with France.
1753 — An Act is passed for the
naturalisation of Jews in England.
1801 — Toussaint L’Ouverture, the black general, proclaims Haiti’s independence from France.
1807 — The first Treaty of Tilsit is signed by Napoleon I of France, and Alexander I of Russia, under which France and Russia become allies and divide Europe between them.
1874 — The first meeting of the Otago Harbour Board is held.
1898 — The United States annexes the island of Hawaii.
1912 — US athlete Jim Thorpe wins four of five events to win the pentathlon gold medal at the Stockholm Olympics. He was stripped of the medal in 1913 after it was alleged he had played professional baseball. The medal was reinstated 1982.
1913 — Britain’s House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule Bill.
1916 — In Wellington, the New Zealand Labour Party is formed at a joint conference of the United Federation of Labour and the Social Democratic Party, which had combined three years earlier, pledging to overthrow capitalism through strike action.
1924 — Arthur Porritt, a medical student from Whanganui via Dunedin, wins the bronze medal in the 100m at the Olympic Games in Paris. It remains New Zealand’s only medal in an Olympic sprint event. The race was won by Harold Abrahams, and the film Chariots of Fire is based on it (in the film, Porritt is portrayed as the character Tom Watson). The race, which was scheduled for 7pm, was celebrated each year at this time on the 7th day of the 7th month by Porritt and Abrahams until Abrahams’ death in 1978. Porritt managed the New Zealand Olympic team to Berlin in 1936, and was the first New Zealandborn GovernorGeneral.
1928 — Sliced bread is sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Missouri in the US. Using a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder, it was described as the greatest step forward in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.
1937 — Japanese and Chinese troops clash at the Marco Polo Bridge, beginning the Second SinoJapanese War.
1946 — Italianborn Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini is canonised as the first American saint.
1973 — John Walker runs his first subfourminute mile, in 3min 58.8sec, in Victoria, British Columbia.
1982 — Unemployed labourer Michael Fagan makes his way to the Queen’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace and sits on her bed chatting before being arrested.
1983 — General practice registrar Dr Marion Poore speaks of her study into a mystery disease causing havoc for hundreds of West Otago residents. It becomes known as Tapanui flu.
1985 — Boris Becker, aged 17, becomes the youngest player to win the Wimbledon men’s singles tennis title.
1986 — The United Nations secretarygeneral arbitrates an agreement between New Zealand and France allowing the Rainbow
Warrior saboteurs to do three years’ military service in the Pacific, instead of time in New Zealand prisons, in return for $US7 million in compensation.
1997 — The Pathfinder spacecraft yields what scientists say is unmistakable photographic evidence that floods scoured the Red
Planet’s landscape more than a billion years ago.
2006 — Spain reports its first case of H5N1 bird flu, discovered in a wild fowl in a marshland area.
Today’s birthdays:
James McKerrow, Surveyorgeneral of New Zealand and Chief Commissioner of
Railways (18341919); Charles William Adams, New Zealand surveyor/astronomer/ public servant (18401918); Joann Friedrich Wilhelm Baucke, New Zealand linguist/ ethnologist/journalist/interpreter (18481931); Harold Beamish, New Zealand flying ace World War 1 (18961986); Jack Somerville, New Zealand Presbyterian leader (19101999); Alison Duff, New Zealand sculptor/potter/teacher (19142000); Murray Halberg, champion New Zealand middledistance athlete (1933); Peter Gresham,
New Zealand politician (1933); Ringo Starr,
British musician (1940); Bill Oddie, British comedian/actor (1941); Joe Spano, US actor (1946); Shelley Duvall, US actress (1949); Vonda Shepard, US singer (1963); Jeremy Kyle, English television host (1965); Jorja Fox, US actress (1968); Sean Becker, New Zealand curling international (1975); Ron Cribb, All Black (1976); Benjamin Mitchell, New Zealand actor (1979); Julianna Guill, US actress (1987); Eve Hewson, Irish actress (1991); Dylan Sprayberry, US actor (1998).
Quote of the day:
‘‘I live in the present with an eye on the future.’’ — MS Dhoni, Indian international cricketer, who was born on this day in 1981.
ODT and agencies