TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Wednesday, November 11, the 316th day of 2020. There are 50 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1869 — The Victorian Aboriginal
Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people’s wages, their terms of employment, where they could live and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.
1880 — Infamous bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at the Melbourne Jail.
1887 — August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed as a result of the Haymarket affair. It began as peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eighthour working day and resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; many more were wounded.
1916 — William Broome, a men’s clothing manufacturer and retailer in New Plymouth, submits his application to register the Swanndri.
1917 — A block of buildings in Christchurch known as the Canterbury Hall, including His Majesty’s Theatre, is destroyed by fire.
1918 — World War 1 ends with the signing of the armistice; the independent republic of Poland is proclaimed by Jozef Pilsudski.
1919 — The Industrial Workers of the World attack an Armistice Day parade in Centralia, Washington, United States, resulting in the deaths of five people.
1920 — The body of an unknown British soldier is buried in Westminster Abbey.
1923 — Adolf Hitler was arrested in Munich for high treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch.
1926 — The United States Numbered Highway System is established.
1928 — Six men drown when a boat capsizes in Otago Harbour.
1930 — Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
1940 — In the World War 2 Battle of Taranto, the Royal Navy launches the first allaircraft shiptoship naval attack in history.
1942 — While serving as a British troopship in WW2 the transtasman liner TSS
Awatea is raked by bombs and holed by aerial torpedoes while taking part in in Operation Torch, the successful Allied invasion of Morocco and Algeria. Remarkably, everyone on board escaped to safety.
1951 — Juan Peron is elected for the second of three presidential terms.
1952 — The first video recorder is demonstrated by inventors John Mullin and Wayne Johnson in Beverly Hills, California.
1961 — The Soviet city Stalingrad is renamed Volgograd.
1964 — Food shortages in India provoke riots in Kerala state.
1965 — Ian Smith declares Rhodesian independence, while Britain declares the regime illegal.
1970 — Arthur Allan Thomas is charged with the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe. Twice convicted of the crimes, he was granted a royal pardon in 1980 by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.
1971 — The United States Senate ratifies a treaty to return the island of Okinawa to Japan.
1972 — The US turns over its big base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese, marking the end of direct US participation in the Vietnam War.
1978 — With two minutes remaining and behind 1012 in a rugby test match against Wales at Cardiff Arms Park, All Black lock Andy Haden flings himself sideways as if in a Cgrade action movie and secures a penalty, which Brian McKechnie converts to secure a famous 1312 victory. The team went on to become the first All Black touring team to achieve the elusive ‘‘Grand Slam’’ by defeating all four home unions.
1992 — Overturning centuries of tradition, the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
1994 — A 72page manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific diagrams and notes is sold at an auction in New York for a record $US30.8 million.
1995 — An avalanche buries a Japanese trekking group in the Mt Everest region in Nepal, killing 26.
1999 — British hereditary lords end 700 years in Parliament when they pass legislation stripping away their right to sit in the House of Lords.
2000 — US Republicans go to court, seeking to block manual recounts from continuing in Florida’s razorthin presidential election; a cable car crammed with skiers and snowboarders catches fire while being pulled through an alpine tunnel in Austria, killing 155 people.
2004 — New Zealand’s Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington.
2006 — Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army.
Today’s birthdays
Thomas Ellison, member of the New Zealand Natives and New Zealand rugby teams (18671904); James Kelly, New Zealand Catholic priest/editor (18771939); Marjory Mills, New Zealand embroiderer/artist (18961987); Ramai Hayward, New Zealand actor/filmmaker (19162014); Sir Lance AdamsSchneider, New Zealand politician/ ambassador (191995); Sonja Davies, New Zealand politician/ trade unionist (19232005); Trevor Meale, New Zealand cricketer (19282010); Ian Hamilton Burrows, New Zealand Army officer (19302006); Christopher Horton, New Zealand businessman (19382015); Rodger Freeth, New Zealand motorsport competitor (195093); Rex Sellers, New Zealand sailor (1950); Peter Parros, US actor (1960); Stanley Tucci, US actor/director (1960); Demi Moore, US actress (1962); Calista Flockhart, US actress (1964); Michael Owens, New Zealand cricketer (1969); Alistair Hunt, New Zealand tennis player (1972); Adam Beach, Canadian actor (1972); Leslie Mann, US actress (1972); Leonardo DiCaprio, US actor (1974).
Quote of the day:
‘‘All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.’’ — US novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who was born on this day in 1922. He died in 2007, aged 84.