TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY is Friday, September 30, the 273rd day of 2022. There are 92 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1839 — William Wakefield takes possession of Port Nicholson, Wellington, on behalf of the New Zealand Company.

1846 — American dentist William Morton uses ether as an anaesthetic for the first time on a patient in his Boston office.

1870 — The Canterbury Museum building is opened in Christchurch.

1878 — The Great Flood of 1878 kills at least three people, and thousands of animals drown or starve to death as it sweeps across the lower South Island.

1939 — Britain sends a 150,000man force to France after the start of World War 2.

1949 — The Berlin Airlift, which delivered 2.3 million tonnes of food and fuel to West Berliners while circumventing a Soviet blockade, comes to an end.

1965 — Considered a genius by many of his peers, Dunedinborn Alexander Aitken retires from the chair of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, where he worked for 40 years; six of Indonesia’s top army generals are kidnapped and killed in an abortive coup. Turmoil ensues, leading to the deaths of between 400,000 and 3,000,000 communists and President Sukarno being replaced by General Suharto.

1970 — The Lockington underground coalmine at Kaitangata closes.

1971 — Nearly 79,000ha of land is added to Mt Aspiring National Park, increasing the area of New Zealand’s newest national park to 3555sq km. It is now second in size only to Fiordland National Park and among the largest in the world.

1972 — The new Christchurch Town Hall is officially opened by GovernorGeneral Sir Denis Blundell.

1982 — Controversial Clyde Dam legislation is hurried through the House of Representatives with the assistance of Social Credit MPs, despite the government’s water right not being valid.

1987 — The Waitangi Tribunal rules

that the sea can be owned in the same way as the land. This allows Maori challenges to the fishing quota system.

1989 — RoseNoelle breaks up on a reef just off Great Barrier Island. The trimaran had capsized when struck by a giant wave off Hawke’s Bay and had been drifting upside down for 119 days. All four crew members survived the ordeal.

2008 — Horrified investors watch in disbelief as their wealth is eroded by a slump in global markets that triggers what will be termed a ‘‘global financial crisis’’. Many New Zealand finance companies are bankrupted.

2010 — Two commuter trains collide headon after one of them derailed after hitting a slip north of Wellington. Two people suffered moderate injuries.

2012 — The South Island’s West Coast and Hawke’s Bay are the first regions to switch to digital television.