Today in history
Today is Saturday, February 4, the 35th day of 2017. There are 330 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1585 — France’s King Henry III refuses the sovereignty of the Netherlands.
1783 — Hostilities end between the United States and England.
1789 — Electors unanimously choose George Washington to be the first US president.
1840 — Work begins on the task of translating the Treaty of Waitangi, prepared by James Busby, into Maori.
1861 — Delegates from six Southern states meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederate States of America.
1874 — British forces under Garnet Wolseley burn Kumasi, Ghana, ending the Ashanti War.
1924 — Mahatma Gandhi, a pacifist who led the struggle for Indian independence from Britain, is released after spending two years in jail in Bombay.
1927 — British driver Malcolm Campbell breaks the world land speed record in his car Bluebird, driving at 174.224mph (280.2kmh).
1945 — British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta in the
Crimea to discuss plans for the defeat of the Axis powers and decide on the postwar world.
1950 — The British Empire Games begin in Auckland. The games are being held in New Zealand for the first time and a crowd of 40,000 witnesses the opening ceremony.
1964 — The largest contracting job in New Zealand history begins at Deep Cove, when Prime Minister Keith Holyoake fires the first shot in the tailrace tunnel project for the Manapouri power scheme. The project is estimated to cost £9.3 million.
1966 — An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 jet aircraft crashes in Tokyo Bay, killing 133 passengers and crew.
1971 — British carmaker RollsRoyce declares itself bankrupt.
1973 — Temperatures soar as a heatwave hits the Otago region, with a maximum temperature in Dunedin of 34.5degC.
1974 — Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of the late William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1976 — An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale kills 23,000 people near Guatemala city.
1987 — The San Diego Yacht Club celebrates the victory of skipper Dennis Conner and the Stars
and Stripes over Australia’s Kookaburra III to sweep the America’s Cup series off Fremantle. 1990 — New Zealand fast bowler
Richard Hadlee becomes the first international cricketer to take 400 test wickets, capturing 4/69 in the first test against India in Christchurch. In 86 tests, Hadlee took 431 wickets at an average of 22.29.
1991 — Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones establish a worldrecord test cricket partnership of 467 runs in the drawn first test at the Basin Reserve in Wellington against Sri Lanka. The partnership was broken when Crowe was dismissed for 299.
1992 — Large crowds turn out to witness the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth II berth at Port Chalmers. At the time it was the largest ship to enter Otago Harbour.
1995 — Six people die when the New Empire Hotel in Hamilton is set ablaze. Arsonist Alan Lory is later jailed on six manslaughter charges.
1998 — A 6.1magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast kill at least 4500 people.
2009 — Floods hit North Queensland, putting 62% (about one million square kilometres) of the state under water.
Today’s birthdays:
Charles Lindbergh, US aviation pioneer (19021974); Rosa Parks, US civil rights activist (19132005); Isabel Peron, former president of Argentina (1931); Gary Conway, US actor (1936); Ron Rangi, All Black (19411988); Dan Quayle, former US vicepresident (1947);
Alice Cooper, US rock singer (1948); Michael Beck, US actor (1949); Patrick Bergin, Irish actor (1951); Lisa Eichorn, US actress (1952); Jenette Goldstein, US actress (1960); Frank Bunce, All Black (1962); Gabrielle Anwar, English actress (1970).
Thought for today:
Very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for his master. — Ben Jonson, English dramatist and poet (15721637).