TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Wednesday, November 4, the 309th day of 2020. There are 57 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1429 — Joan of Arc liberates Saint-PierreleMoutier in the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War.
1520 — Christian II of Denmark is crowned king of Sweden and grants an amnesty to his opponents.
1547 — England’s Parliament repeals the Henrician Act as the first stage in Protestant Reformation.
1677 — The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange; they later jointly reign as William and Mary.
1839 — The Newport Rising, the last largescale armed rebellion against authority in Great Britain occurs, when approximately 10,000 Chartist sympathisers, led by John Frost, march on the town of Newport, Monmouthshire, resulting in the deaths of 22 demonstrators when troops open fire. The leaders of the rebellion were convicted of treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The sentence was later commuted to transportation.
1847 — Sir James Young Simpson, a Scottish physician, discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.
1854 — Florence Nightingale and a team of 38 nurses arrive in the Crimea to set up a hospital for British troops at Scutari.
1862 — The first rapidfire machine gun is patented by Richard Gatling in Indianapolis, and named after him.
1872 — Wiremu Katene is the first Maori appointed to the Executive Council (Cabinet).
1879 — Prince Rupert becomes the first vessel brought alongside the Timaru breakwater.
1880 — The first cash register is patented by Americans James and John Ritty.
1888 — The foundation stone is laid for the municipal buildings at Port Chalmers.
1890 — The first electrified underground railway system is officially opened in London.
1918 — New Zealand troops are engaged in their last action of World War 1 when the Rifle Brigade captures Le Quesnoy, using ladders to climb 20mhigh ramparts; Wilfred Owen, the British poet noted for his anger at the cruelty of war, is killed in action during World War 1.
1921 — Japan’s Premier Takashi Hara is assassinated.
1922 — The entrance to King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt is discovered.
1924 — Nellie Tayloe Ross, of Wyoming, becomes the first female elected as governor in the United States.
1930 — New Zealandbred racehorse Phar Lap wins the Melbourne Cup.
1946 — The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) is formed.
1952 — Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected United States president, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson.
1954 — A fire destroys sheds belonging to contractors building Dunedin’s new Wakari Hospital. Plans for the hospital and nurses home, along with a quantity of tools, were lost in the blaze.
1960 — At the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community in Tanzania, Dr Jane Goodall observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first such observation in nonhuman animals.
1962 — The US concludes Operation Fishbowl, its final aboveground nuclear weapons testing series, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
1966 — The worst floods in Italy’s history affect a third of the country. Florence is cut off and many of the city’s art treasures are damaged.
1973 — The Netherlands experiences its first CarFree Sunday brought on because of the oil crisis. Highways are used only by cyclists and roller skaters.
1979 — Alexander James Sinclair, known as Terence John Clark, a 44yearold Aucklander, is charged in relation to the Mr Asia drug murder of Christopher Martin (Marty) Johnstone (27) along with four other men in Britain. Also charged over related offences were two other New Zealanders, Karen Soich (23), a barrister, and Errol John Hincksman (31); militants seize the US embassy in Teheran and take 90 hostages, demanding the ousted Shah of Iran as ransom.
1980 — Ronald Reagan wins the US presidential election, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter by a large margin.
1995 — Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated as he leaves a rally in Tel Aviv.
1997 — Jenny Shipley is sworn in as New Zealand’s first female prime minister, after unseating Jim Bolger as National Party leader at a caucus meeting the night before which discussed the party’s flagging fortunes.
1999 — Wezi Kaunda, son of Zambia’s founding president, Kenneth Kaunda, dies after being shot in the head in what officials said was an assassination.
2002 — China and the 10 member states of Asean sign a deal to create the biggest freetrade zone on Earth, encompassing more than 1.7 billion people.
2008 — Horse trainer Bart Cummings wins a record 12th Melbourne Cup with Viewed; Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial or AfricanAmerican descent to be elected president of the United States.
Today’s birthdays
John Lawn, New Zealand goldminer (18401905); Emma Cheeseman, New Zealand painter/taxidermist (18461928); George Murray, New Zealand civil engineer/ surveyor (18591947); Annie McVicar, New Zealand community worker and first woman elected to the Wellington City Council (18621954); Robert Jack, pioneer of radio broadcasting in New Zealand (18771957); Vida Mary Katie MacLean, New Zealand military nurse (18811970); Albert Cuthbertson, New Zealand sailor (19091977); Giff Vivian, New Zealand cricketer (191283); Allan Pyatt, New Zealand bishop (191691); Sidney Koreneff, New Zealand newspaper managing director/ French Resistance worker/Anglican priest (191897); Brian Edwards, New Zealand broadcaster (1937); Loretta Swit, US actress (1937); Ray Columbus, New Zealand entertainer (19422016); Alexis Hunter, New Zealand artist (19482014); Lani Tupu, New Zealandborn actor (1955); Julie Hogg, New Zealand football international (1958); Jenny Egnot, New Zealand sailor (1968); Matthew McConaughey, US actor (1969); Tonicha Jeronimo, British actress (1977); Adrian Blincoe, New Zealand middledistance runner (1979); Mike Fraser, New Zealand international rugby referee (1980); Alexz Johnson, Canadian singer/actress (1986); Bryony Botha, New Zealand cyclist (1997).
Quote of the day:
‘‘The perils of duckhunting are great — especially for the duck’’. — Walter Cronkite, US broadcast journalist who was born on this day in 1916. He died in 2009, aged 92.
ODT and agencies