Today in history
Today is Friday, June 30, the 181st day of 2017. There are 184 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1852 — Tamihana, the son of Ngati Toa leader Te Rauparaha, is presented to Queen Victoria in an attempt to establish a Maori monarchy; a second New Zealand Constitution Act is passed by the Imperial Parliament.
1859 — Frenchman Charles Blondin (Jean Francois Gravelet) crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope as 25,000 spectators watch.
1863 — The first trees are planted in celebration of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, to begin Dunedin’s Botanic Garden, at a 8.9acre (3.6ha) site now occupied by the University of Otago. The garden was shifted to its present 28ha site in 1867. It is New Zealand’s first botanic garden.
1874 — The Otago Harbour Board is constituted. 1894 — The New Zealand Government guarantees £2 million to the Bank of New Zealand to enable it to continue trading; London’s Tower Bridge across the River Thames is officially opened.
1931 — On the third day of the first cricket test against England at Lord’s, New Zealand opening batsman Stewie Dempster becomes the first New Zealand to score a century overseas.
1934 — A Nazi purge begins in Germany with ‘‘the night of the long knives’’, as Adolf Hitler gets rid of hundreds of his political critics.
1939 — The New Zealand Listener begins publication.
1953 — The first public performance by the New Zealand Ballet is staged at the Playhouse Theatre in Auckland. The company did not add ‘‘Royal’’ to its name until 1984.
1959 — Approval is given for the first 50 government houses to be built on the 100ha (250 acres) Brockville housing block, with a further 50 planned for later in the year.
1970 — A ban on the use of DDT is enacted following environmental concerns.
1971 — A Soviet space mission ends in tragedy when three cosmonauts are found dead inside their spacecraft after it returns to Earth.
1974 — Alberta King, mother of the late United States civil rights leader Martin Luther King, is assassinated during a church service; 26yearold Soviet ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defects to the West while touring Canada with the Bolshoi Ballet.
1975 — A second television channel in New
Zealand is launched. In its first week it will stage a 24hour telethon, during which more than $500,000 will be raised for St John Ambulance.
1976 — The Government approves the development of a new township at Haast, 6km from the existing site on SH6 and 2.4km inland from the Jacksons Bay intersection and aerodrome.
1985 — The last annual renewal of driver licensing is made.
1988 — Carnarvon Station, Dunedin’s awardwinning restaurant in the Prince of Wales Hotel in Princes St, is destroyed by fire.
1997 — At midnight, Hong Kong is handed back to China after 156 years of British rule.
2003 — Independent News Limited (INL) sells its large stable of New Zealand newspapers to Australian media conglomerate John Fairfax Holdings for $1.2 billion.
2011 — GovernorGeneral Anand Satyanand leads volunteers in creating a Guinness world record for the longest clothesline of socks. Stretching 3km, they hang 25,128 socks, all pegged from the top and 1cm apart.
2013 — The Central Otago towns of Cromwell, Lauder and Alexandra record their highest June rainfall since records began. On the coast Oamaru and Dunedin recorded their secondhighest levels; hundreds of Cantabrians turn out to witness the New Zealand Defence Force officially dismissed from duty after 859 days of manning the central Christchurch cordons following the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes.
Today’s birthdays:
Nancy Dussault, US actress (1936); Stanley Clarke, US jazz musician (1951); Rupert Graves, British actor (1963); Marton Csokas, New Zealand actor (1966); Mike Tyson, US boxer (1966); Ilram Choi, US actor (1974); Ralf Schumacher, German F1 driver (1975); Lizzy Caplan, US actress (1982).
Quote from history:
‘‘Today I stand before the world organisation which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor.’’ — Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, opening a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in Addis Ababa in October 1963, thus becoming the first ruler to address both the League of Nations and the UN. On June 30, 1936, Selassie appeared before the League of Nations to appeal for help after Italy’s invasion.