Today in history
Today is Saturday, October 14, the 287th day of 2017. There are 78 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1066 — Normans under William the Conqueror
defeat the English at the Battle of Hastings.
1322 — Robert the Bruce of Scotland heavily defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, north of York. Edward is thus forced to accept the independence of Scotland.
1586 — Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial in England, accused of conspiring against Queen Elizabeth I. Mary was beheaded the following February.
1854 — The world’s first recorded baby show is
held at Springfield, Ohio, in the United States.
1878 — After more than a week of rain, the bridge over the Clutha River at Clydevale is washed downstream, where it collides with the road bridge at Balclutha, causing it to collapse also. The flooding in the South Otago area does not begin to subside until two days later and is regarded as New Zealand’s greatest recorded flood.
1912 — Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the US presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee. He is saved by his thick coat and a bundle of paper in his breast pocket and goes ahead with a scheduled speech.
1913 — Britain’s worst mining disaster occurs as the result of an explosion at the
Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales, killing 439. 1927 — Dunedin’s Dale Austen wins the
Miss New Zealand contest and receives a threemonth Hollywood contract.
1943 — Ethel Benjamin, who in 1897 was the first woman to become a lawyer in New Zealand, is struck by a motor vehicle and dies of a fractured skull in Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood, Middlesex, England.
1944 — British and Greek troops liberate Athens from the Germans in World War 2; German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler.
1947 — US Air Force test pilot Charles ‘‘Chuck’’ Yeager becomes the first person to break the sound barrier, flying the experimental Bell X1 rocket plane over Edwards Air Force Base in California.
1959 — Tasmanianborn film star Errol Flynn (50)
dies suddenly in Vancouver, British Columbia.
1968 — The first live telecast from a manned US
spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7.
1977 — US singer Bing Crosby collapses and dies after a game of golf near Madrid, aged 74.
1979 — New Zealander Martin Johnstone’s handless body is discovered in England. Terry Clark, an associate of Johnstone, the former leader of the Mr Asia drug ring, is later convicted of masterminding the crime.
1987 — A reallife drama begins in Midland, Texas, after 18monthold Jessica McClure slides 6.7m down an abandoned well at a daycare centre. Hundreds of rescuers work 58 hours to free her; GovernorGeneral Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau resigns after Fiji is declared a republic following two coups d’etat.
1990 — US composerconductor Leonard
Bernstein dies in New York at age 72.
1991 — Tens of thousands of jubilant Bulgarians cram the centre of Sofia to celebrate the end of the Communist Party’s fourdecade grip on power.
1997 — Dozens of protesters shouting ‘‘Clinton, go
home’’ burn an effigy of US president Bill Clinton and throw manure on his limousine, marring an otherwise smooth visit to Brazil; novelist Harold Robbins dies in California, aged 81.
2003 — A Bill abolishing New Zealand appeals to the Privy Council and establishing a Supreme Court is passed.
2012 — Dunedinbased doctor Dougal Thorburn sets a world 10km record pushing a pram containing his 2yearold daughter Audrey. The pair smashed the old record of 34min 19sec set in 2008, stopping the clock at 32min 26sec.
Today’s birthdays:
Eamon de Valera, Irish statesman (18821975); Dwight D. Eisenhower, US general and 34th president
(18901969); Lillian Gish, US actress (18961993); Sir Roger Moore, English actor (19272017); Ralph Lauren, US fashion designer (1939); Sir Cliff Richard, British singer (1940); Justin Hayward, British singermusician (1946); Natalie Maines, US musician (1974); Carlos Spencer, All Black (1975); Usher, US singer (1978).
Thought for today:
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. — Leo Tolstoy, Russian author (18281910).