Today in history
Today is Thursday, June 29, the 180th day of 2017. There are 185 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1613 — The original Globe Theatre in London burns down during the first performance of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.
1855 — The Daily Telegraph begins publication in
London.
1864 — The chiefs of Ngai Tahu and Ngati Mamoe sell Stewart Island to the Government for £6000;
Samuel Crowther is consecrated Bishop of Niger, the Church of England’s first black bishop.
1867 — The Lyttelton rail tunnel is formally opened.
1868 — British news agency the Press
Association is founded.
1880 — The South Pacific island of Tahiti is formally annexed by France, having been a French protectorate since 1842.
1905 — The Automobile Association is formed in London by 50 motorists to counter what they see as police hostility towards the motor car.
1916 — Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement is found guilty of treason and sentenced to death for conspiracy with Germany.
1927 — Fault is found with the Government in a royal commission report on the confiscation of Maori lands following the New Zealand Wars.
1935 — In Christchurch, the Sun and Times newspapers cease publication following a pricecutting war with rivals the Star and Press.
1946 — The British arrest more than 2700 Jews in Palestine in an attempt to stamp out alleged terrorism.
1949 — South Africa begins its apartheid programme by enacting a ban against racially mixed marriages.
1965 — United States paratroopers take their first offensive action in South Vietnam, attacking a communist stronghold 30km northeast of Saigon.
1967 — Israel defies international protests and unites the divided city of Jerusalem for the first time in two decades, following its victory in the SixDay War; Jayne Mansfield, US film actress, is killed in a car crash near New Orleans.
1974 — Isabel Peron is sworn in as president of Argentina, taking over from her husband, Juan Peron, after he fell ill. He died two days later; a landslip kills more than 250 people east of Bogota, Colombia.
1980 — Vigdis Finnbogadottir is elected Iceland’s president, Europe’s first democratically elected female head of state.
1983 — A huge manhunt begins in North Otago for the armed kidnappers of Gloria Kong (14), who was abducted from her home at Totara. A $120,000 ransom was demanded. Four people were arrested two weeks later and Gloria returned safely home.
1987 — In a landmark decision, the New Zealand Court of Appeal defines the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing the role of partnerships, and requires the Government to recognise Maori land claims in legislation.
1990 — Penny Jamieson becomes the first woman in the world to head an Anglican diocese when she becomes bishop of Dunedin.
1992 — Algerian head of state Mohammed
Boudiaf is assassinated as he opens a cultural centre in the eastern Algerian town of Annaba.
1995 — The US space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir, forming the largest humanmade satellite to orbit Earth; Lana Turner, the blonde bombshell who was discovered at a Hollywood soda fountain and rose to become one of America’s most glamorous movie stars, dies aged 75.
2000 — An overloaded ship carrying almost 500 people, many fleeing sectarian violence in the Molucca Islands, goes missing in remote eastern Indonesia. There are 10 known survivors.
2003 — American actress Katharine Hepburn dies aged 96. She won a record four best actress Oscars during a career that spanned much of the 20th century.
2006 — Female voters in Kuwait cast ballots in parliamentary elections for the first time.
Today’s birthdays:
George Washington Goethals, US builder of the Panama Canal (18581928); Gary Busey, US actor (1944); Little Eva (Eva Narcissus Boyd), Jamaican singer (19432003); Ian Paice, English musician (1948); Maria Conchita Alonso, US actress (1957); Sharon Lawrence, US actress (1961); Amanda Donohoe, British actress (1962); Katherine Jenkins, Welsh singer (1980).
Thought for today:
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. —
Lord Alfred Tennyson, English poet (18091892).
ODT and agencies