TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Tuesday, November 10, the 315th day of 2020. There are 51 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1868 — Te Kooti extracts utu (revenge) for his exile to the Chatham Islands, when he leads a massacre on the settlement at Matawhero in which approximately 60 people are killed. Most of those who escape the slaughter run to Turanganui (Gisborne), some 6km away.
1871 — A report tabled in Parliament exonerates the New Zealand government from being accused of intercepting telegraphs for political gain. This report followed a series of events which led Otago Daily Times editor George Barton assert such claims in his newspaper. The Government in turn sued Barton for libel and he countersued the Telegraph Department head Charles Lemon, prompting a parliamentary select committee to convene and investigate the affair; Henry Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, ‘‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’’
1880 — Donald Sutherland and John Mackay discover the spectacular 585m Sutherland Falls in Fiordland.
1886 — Roslyn Woollen Mills begins the manufacture of worsteds, the first in New Zealand.
1913 — A general strike ordered by the United Federation of Labour is observed in Auckland. Christchurch and Dunedin unions ignore the call for action.
1942 — Buoyed by the rout of Nazi forces at El Alamein in World War 2, British prime minister Winston Churchill says: ‘‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’’
1944 — It is disclosed that Germany is using a new weapon, a V2 rocket, against England; the ammunition ship USS Mount
Hood explodes at Seeadler Harbour, Manus, Admiralty Islands, killing approximately 432 and wounding 371. 1955 — Sometimes referred to as the
‘‘Mary Celeste of the South Pacific’’, MV Joyita is discovered 1000km west of its scheduled course, partly submerged and drifting north of Vanua Levu, with no trace of the 25 passengers and crew, but with four tonnes of cargo missing.
1969 — The children’s educational programme Sesame Street makes its debut on PBS television in the United States.
1972 — Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham, Alabama, is hijacked and, at one point, there are threats to crash it into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the plane lands in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro.
1973 — Southland’s Saturdayevening publication Sports News is published for the final time. Dunedin’s equivalent, the Star
Sports, will cease publication in 1979.
1975 — SS Edmund Fitzgerald is wrecked on Lake Superior, Canada, with the loss of 29 lives. The event spurs an international hit song for Gordon Lightfoot; Angola becomes independent of Portugal in the midst of a civil war.
1979 — A 106car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, derails in Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history. 1983 — Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0. 1989 — Germans begin to tear down the Berlin Wall; the first person to fly singlehanded around the world, Gaby Kennard, arrives back in Sydney; Todor Zhivkov resigns after 35 years as Communist Party leader of Bulgaria.
1999 — The United States Justice Department strips a retired Ohio factory worker of his citizenship, charging he served as an armed guard at a Nazi slave labour camp.
2010 — A campaign in Dunedin to retain neurosurgical services proves successful. It is announced they will be enhanced rather than dropped.
Today’s birthdays
Martin Luther, Germanborn Protestant Reformation leader (14831546); John Bollons, New Zealand marine captain/ naturalist/ethnographer (18621929); Andrew Davidson, New Zealand educationalist/welfare worker (18941982); Jack Steel, All Black (18981941); Hamilton Walker, New Zealand engineer/inventor (190390); Maurice (Morrie) Holmes, New Zealand harness racer (190898); Evelyn Freda White, New Zealand showjumper/ racehorse trainer (190995); Patrick Jameson, New Zealandborn flying ace World War 2 (191296); Duncan MacIntyre, New Zealand politician (19152001); Brian Ashby, New Zealand Roman Catholic bishop (19231988); Tony Ciprian, New Zealand broadcaster (19322015); Don Clarke, All Black (19332002); Marilyn Duckworth,
New Zealand novelist/poet/short story writer (1935); Rosalind Hursthouse, New Zealand philosopher (1943); Andy Leslie, All Black captain (1944); Greg Lake, British rock musician (19472016); Jack Scalia, US actor (1950); Brittany Murphy, US actress (19772009); Brendon Hartley, New Zealand racing car driver (1989).
Quote of the day:
"If you're going to make rubbish, be the best rubbish in it." — Welsh actor Richard Burton, who was born on this day in 1925. He died in 1984, aged 58.
ODT and agencies.