Today in history
Today is Friday, September 15, the 258th day of 2017. There are 107 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1590 — Giovanni Battista, son of the elector palatine, signs a treaty with French Huguenots to bring an army of 156,000 German and Swiss mercenaries into France.
1776 — During the American Revolution, British forces under General William Howe capture New York.
1830 — British statesman William Huskisson is fatally injured at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
1840 — Anna Watson arrives in the Waitemata Harbour from the Bay of Islands for the purpose of establishing a new capital for New Zealand.
1867 — Trout ova brought in from Tasmania are placed in a breeding box in the Water of Leith.
1868 — Located in the Exchange, Otago Museum opens. It opened on its present site in August 1877.
1882 — British forces occupy Cairo, and the Arab Pasha surrenders and is banished to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
1916 — The Battle of FlersCourcelette, the third and final general offensive mounted by the British in the Battle of the Somme, begins with New Zealand suffering heavy casualties at Flers. The battle marked the first involvement at the Somme for the Canadian Corps, New Zealand Division and tanks of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps.
1917 — Russia is proclaimed a republic by
Alexander Kerensky, head of a provisional government.
1935 — Nuremberg laws outlaw Jews and make the swastika the official flag of Germany.
1938 — British prime minister Neville Chamberlain visits Germany’s Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden, where Hitler states his determination to annex Sudetenland on the principle of selfdetermination.
1940 — During the Battle of Britain in World War 2, the tide turns as the Luftwaffe sustains heavy losses inflicted by the Royal Air Force.
1946 — A people’s republic is formed in Bulgaria after a referendum rejects the monarchy.
1967 — The Egyptian commander in the sixday war with Israel, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, commits suicide.
1969 — New Zealand Steel begins production at
Glenbrook, Waiuku. It first smelts scrap iron in electric arc furnaces, with ironsand not being used until later in the year.
1972 — Two former White House aides, Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy, are added to the five men already charged with the breakin at the Watergate building.
1982 — As the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act comes into force, Western Samoans lose automatic right to New Zealand citizenship. However, all Western Samoans in the country were granted the right to citizenship.
1988 — The convictions of Michael and Lindy Chamberlain over the death of their baby, Azaria, at Ayers Rock are quashed.
1997 — Thousands of Rwandans gather for a Mass at the site of one of the century’s worst genocides. The bones of as many as 60,000 Tutsis slain by the former Hutu government are put to rest.
1998 — United States president Bill Clinton ends a fiveday visit to New Zealand on a high note, declaring an end to the blanket ban on military exercises between the two countries imposed over New Zealand’s antinuclear stance.
2012 — The All Blacks defeat South Africa 2111 in a somewhat dour match marking the first international rugby test played at Dunedin’s new covered stadium. Of nine kicks at goal, South Africa could convert only two. Another talking point was All Black captain Richie McCaw being hit by a flying elbow on the edge of a ruck by Springbok prop Dean Greyling; State Highway 6 between Haast and Hawea is closed to night traffic due to two major slips in the area following a period of heavy rain, and a shallow 5.2 earthquake in the area 10 days previously.
2015 — An explosion at a hazardous recycling business in Auckland kills one man and injures four others.
Today’s birthdays:
William Howard Taft, US president (18571930); Agatha Christie, British author (18901976);
Jessye Norman, US soprano (1945); Oliver Stone, US filmmaker (1946); Tommy Lee Jones, US actor (1946); Nathan Astle, New Zealand cricketer (1971); Princess Letizia of Spain (1972); Sophie Dahl, British author and model (1979); Prince Harry of the United Kingdom (1984).
Thought for today:
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play. — Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (18441900).