TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Thursday, November 5, the 310th day of 2020. There are 56 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1605 — The Gunpowder Plot, involving Guy Fawkes, to blow up the British Houses of Parliament is uncovered.
1881 — An attack by a force of 1600 armed police and volunteers forces the abandonment of a Maori settlement at Parihaka. Although Te Whiti and Tohu Kakahi offer no resistance, they are arrested and will not return from forced exile for 16 months.
1895 — Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) disembarks at Bluff to begin a lecture tour of New Zealand; George B. Selden is granted the first patent in the United States for an automobile.
1905 — The Otago Electric Company’s No 1 dredge claims a world record for five days of dredging, yielding 1273oz of gold. Otago dredges totalled 88,846oz for the year, compared to 87,130oz in 1903 and 106,369oz in 1902.
1913 — In Wellington, during the Great Strike, 20 people are injured in the ‘‘Battle of Featherston St’’, when 800 mounted special constables charge a crowd attempting to prevent racehorses being loaded on to a ship.
1925 — British secret agent Sidney Reilly (‘‘Ace of Spies’’) is executed by the OGPU, the secret police of the Soviet Union.
1928 — Mt Etna in Sicily erupts, destroying a large area. The village of Mascali is buried.
1940 — Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first and only United States president to be elected to a third term.
1941 — Mr D.G. Sullivan lays the keel for the first minesweeper to be built at Port Chalmers; US President Franklin Roosevelt makes his ‘‘Four Freedoms’’ speech (freedom of speech and worship; freedom from want and fear) during his State of the Union address.
1946 — John F. Kennedy is first elected to the House of Representatives.
1956 — British paratroopers land at Port Said, Egypt. The Soviet Union threatens the use of rockets unless Britain and France accept a ceasefire.
1975 — While returning to Taumarunui, a lightengine banker locomotive (used to help trains up steep gradients by pushing from behind), after assisting a train up to National Park, derails at Raurimu. The driver is killed and his assistant injured.
1976 — A security guard is fatally shot during the robbery of a newly opened branch of the ANZ Bank in Old Taupo Rd, Rotorua. It is the second robbery of the branch; the first, on July 16, occurred just five days after its opening. The incidents remain unsolved.
1978 — Iranian prime minister Jafar Sharif Emami resigns following riots and demonstra
tions against the shah.
1983 — The Byford Dolphin diving bell accident kills five and leaves one severely injured.
1987 — South Africa releases African National Congress leader Govan Mbeki, who had been held prisoner for 23 years and was a colleague of Nelson Mandela.
1991 — Media mogul and MP Robert Maxwell is found dead in waters off the Canary Islands, where his yacht had been cruising.
1992 — Ernest Rutherford features on New Zealand’s newly issued red $100 note.
1996 — Pakistani President Farooq Leghari dismisses the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and dissolves the National Assembly.
2015 — Heir to the British throne Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, visit Dunedin.