TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Wednesday, November 25, the
330th day of 2020. There are 36 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1880 — Ngati Whakaue lease land to the Crown which will later be home to the European settlement of Rotorua.
1884 — Evaporated milk is patented by
John Meyenberg of St Louis, Missouri.
1902 — New Zealand’s general election sees the number of parliamentary seats increase from 74 to 80.
1903 — New Zealand’s Bob Fitzsimmons defeats George Gardner in San Francisco to win the world lightheavyweight title and become boxing’s first world champion over three weight categories.
1914 — Prime Minister William Massey opens New Zealand’s first hydroelectricity works, at Lake Coleridge.
1919 — New Zealand’s first children’s health camp begins at Turakina. Under Dr Elizabeth Gunn’s initiative other camps are opened throughout the country in the following years.
1930 — Minister of Native Affairs Sir Apirana Ngata makes New Zealand’s first international telephone call, from Wellington, to Australian Acting Prime Minister Mr J.E.
Fenton. Shortly afterwards, two business calls were made to Sydney and six people in Australia rang friends in New Zealand. The charge for the calls was £1 per minute.
1936 — Germany and Japan sign the anticommunist AntiComintern Pact.
1940 — The passenger ship Holmwood is captured and scuttled at the Chatham Islands by the German raider Komet. All passengers and crew are taken to New Guinea.
1947 — New Zealand becomes a sovereign nation independent of Britain with the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act passing into law; the Rabbit Nuisance Amendment Act passes into law, putting in place measures to control a nationwide plague of rabbits; the ‘‘Hollywood Ten’’ are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
1952 — The Ohakune Mountain Road Association is established to build a road to Mt Ruapehu; Agatha Christie’s murdermystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. It will become the longest continuously running play in history on ceasing to run on March 16, 2020, due to the Covid19 pandemic.
1963 — The body of US president John F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
1965 — General Joseph Mobutu, later known as Mobutu Sese Seko, deposes President Joseph Kasavubu in the Congo.
1969 — Beatle John Lennon returns his MBE, awarded in 1965, to the Queen in protest against Britain’s policy in Biafra and its support for the US in Vietnam.
1971 — Denmark and Norway become the first Nato members to establish full diplomatic relations with North Vietnam.
1972 — In New Zealand, the Labour Party, under the leadership of Norman Kirk, sweeps into power at the general election.
1973 — Greek president George Papadopoulos is ousted in a military coup.
1974 — The Irish Republican Army is outlawed in Britain following the deaths of 21 people in a pub bombing in Birmingham three days earlier.
1984 — Thirtysix top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid’s Do
They Know It’s Christmas? in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
1992 — The Czech Parliament votes to split the country into separate Czech and Slovak republics from January 1, 1993.
1999 — A 5yearold Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, is rescued by fishermen while floating in an inner tube off the Florida coast, sparking a heated international custody and immigration battle between the governments of Cuba and the US.
Today’s birthdays
John Acland, New Zealand farmer/politician (18231904); Dolce Ann Cabot, New Zealand journalist/newspaper editor (18621943); Thomas Burnett, New Zealand politician (18771941); Paul Beadle, New Zealand sculptor/medallist (191792); Keith Lawrence, New Zealandborn British Royal Air Force Officer (19192016); Maurice Duggan, New Zealand writer (192274);
Colin James, New Zealand political journalist/commentator (1944); Ben Stein, US writer/actor (1944); Lowell Goddard, New Zealand judge (1948); Raymond (Bruce) Hopkins, New Zealand actor (1955); Amy Grant, US singer/songwriter (1960); Billy Burke, US actor (1966); Jill Hennessy, Canadian actress (1968); Dougray Scott, Scottish actor (1969); Jamie Gale, New Zealand sailor (1971); Christina Applegate, US actress (1971); Adam Travis Dykes (Adam Firestorm), New Zealand professional wrestler (19762009); Jenna Bush Hager, US news personality/author (1981);
Gaspard Ulliel, French actor (1984); Faye Smythe, New Zealand actor (1985); Katie Cassidy, US singer/actress (1986).
Quote of the day
‘‘Thinking fascinates me, and I probably spend too much time in my mind. My wife says that my perfect world is to be in the Suburban driving, with her next to me and the boys in the back seat and complete silence for two thousand miles’’. — US actor John Larroquette, who was born on this day in 1947.