Today in history
Today is Friday, November 17, the 321st day of 2017. There are 44 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1558 — Elizabeth I becomes queen of England on
the death of Mary I.
1800 — The United States Congress meets for
the first time in the new capital, Washington.
1838 — One of the oldest sports clubs in Australia, the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), plays its first cricket match against a military team at the Old Mint site, at the corner of William and Latrobe Sts.
1855 — Scottish explorer David Livingstone
discovers Victoria Falls in Africa.
1862 — The Christchurch Gas Company is
formed.
1869 — The Suez Canal opens in Egypt, linking
the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
1878 — The New Zealand Press Association is formed in the Otago Daily Times office by George Fenwick, G. M. Reed and W. Reeves.
1902 — Auckland becomes the first New Zealand city to provide a full electric tram service. Dunedin’s service begins in 1903.
1921 — University of Otago physics professor Robert Jack broadcasts New Zealand’s first radio programme.
1925 — A second New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition opens on reclaimed land at Logan Park, Dunedin. It attracted 45,786 people on opening day and hosted over 3 million visitors over a 24week period. Over 80,000 people attended the closing celebrations. 1937 — Lord Halifax visits Adolf Hitler, attempting a peaceful settlement of the Sudetenland issue, marking the start of Britain’s policy of appeasement.
1941 — Less than a month before Pearl Harbour, Japanese prime minister General Hideki Tojo outlines a threepoint plan he said was aimed at peace in east Asia; Ernst Udet, the head of the German Luftwaffe Ordnance Department, commits suicide after disagreements with the Nazi leadership.
1963 — The army in Iraq revolts and sets up a new revolutionary government headed by Abdel Salam Arif.
1967 — The Skyline Gondola in Queenstown
opens.
1971 — Vemij Thanon Kittikachorn seizes power in Thailand, abolishes Parliament, dismisses the Cabinet and suspends the nation’s constitution.
1972 — Former Argentine dictator Juan Peron
returns to his homeland after 17 years in exile. 1974 — The first general election in Greece for over 10 years ends in a decisive victory for the New Democracy Party of Constantine Karamanlis.
1977 — Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat formally accepts an invitation to visit Israel, ignoring an uproar among Arab nations and his own government.
1979 — Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US embassy in Teheran.
1991 — Son Sen, a leader of the Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths of between 1.2 and 2.8 million Cambodians in the 1970s, returns to Phnom Penh to take part in a powersharing administration.
1993 — South African leaders endorse a new
constitution to end apartheid.
1999 — Much of Central Otago and Southland are
declared disaster zones following some of the worst flooding in 120 years, and a civil emergency is declared in Alexandra.
2012 — An estimated 25mm of rain falls in a very short period of time around 1.30pm, causing widespread flooding in the Mosgiel retail area, affecting shops on Gordon Rd between Cargill St and Factory Rd. Recent street beautification is blamed for the poor drainage that caused the flooding.
Today’s birthdays:
Bert Sutcliffe, New Zealand cricketer (19232001); Rock Hudson, US actor (19251985); Peter Cook, English actorcomedian (19371996); Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian singer (1938); Martin Scorsese, US film director (1942); Lauren Hutton, US actressmodel (1943); Danny DeVito, US actor (1944); Jeff Buckley, US singersongwriter (19661997); Sophie Marceau, French actress (1966); Brandon Call, US actor (1976).
Thought for today:
The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force. — Mary Wollstonecraft, English author (17591797).