Today in history
Today is Friday, March 10, the 69th day of 2017. There are 296 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
241BC — The Battle of the Aegates is fought off the western coast of Sicily. It was the final naval battle fought between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic during the First Punic War.
1624 — England declares war on Spain. 1629 — England’s King Charles I dissolves Parliament and does not recall it for 11 years.
1862 — The United States Government issues its first paper money.
1863 — Prince Albert Edward (later King Edward VII) of England marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
1869 — The New Zealand Cross is instituted by orderincouncil, because local military personnel were not eligible for the Victoria Cross. Only 23 were awarded, meaning it is one of the rarest military honours in the world.
1876 — US inventor Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call, telling his assistant in an adjoining room: ‘‘Mr Watson, come here. I want you.’’
1914 — Suffragette Mary Richardson slashes Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus painting at the London National Gallery in protest at the British Government’s treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst.
1922 — Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British governors of India, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years’ jail.
1930 — Thousands of people wait in the rain for hours to welcome back RearAdmiral Richard Byrd on his return to Dunedin from the Antarctic with members of his expedition aboard The City of New York.
1945 — Threehundred US B29 bombers devastate Japan’s capital in what became known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid. The resulting firestorm kills 100,000 people.
1948 — Czech statesman and foreign minister Jan Masaryk apparently commits suicide by throwing himself from a window at the foreign office in Prague.
1949 — Mildred Gillars, who made wartime broadcasts for the Nazis as Axis Sally, is convicted in Washington of treason; she served 12 years in prison.
1952 — The Government of Cuba is overthrown by former president Fulgencio Batista, who rules as a dictator until 1959.
1956 — A general strike protesting the exile of Archbishop Makarios brings Cyprus to a standstill.
1959 — The Dalai Lama leads a rebellion against Chinese rule. The revolt fails and he flees Tibet into India.
1972 — Visiting feminist Germaine Greer is fined $40, when she appears in the Auckland Magistrates’ Court charged with using obscene language during a public meeting.
1973 — The Governor of Bermuda, Sir Richard Sharples, is assassinated in the grounds of Government House.
1975 — North Vietnam troops seize most of
South Vietnam’s provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot in the central highlands; dog spectacles are patented in England.
1990 — In Florida, American Jennifer Capriati, at 13 years and 11 months, becomes the youngest player to reach the final of a professional tennis tournament.
1991 — Halfamillion people rally in Moscow in support of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
2000 — Scientists discover the bones of what could be the largest meateating dinosaur ever to walk the earth, in Patagonia.
Today’s birthdays:
Kate Sheppard, New Zealand suffragette (18471934); Spencer Gore, winner of the first Wimbledon tournament (18501906); Chuck Norris, US actor (1940); Dean Torrence, US singer (1940); Morgan Tsvangirai, former prime minister of Zimbabwe (1952); Sharon Stone, US actress (1958); Jeff Ament, US musician (1963); Rick Rubin, US music producer (1963); Prince Edward of England (1964); Edie Brickell, US singer (1966); Eva Herzigova, Czech model (1973); Olivia Wilde, US actress (1984).
Quote from history:
‘‘I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.’’ — US civil rights leader Martin Luther King jun. On March 10, 1969, James Earl Ray was sentenced in Memphis, Tennessee, to 99 years in prison for the murder of King.