Today in history
Today is Saturday, November 25, the 329th day of 2017. There are 36 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1783 — The British evacuate New York, their last military position in the United States, during the War of Independence.
1875 — Britain buys 176,602 shares in the Suez
Canal from the Khedive of Egypt.
1876 — The Dull Knife Fight, or the Battle on the
Red Fork, part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, occurs in presentday Johnson County, Wyoming, between soldiers and scouts of the United States Army and warriors of the Northern Cheyenne. The battle essentially ended the Northern Cheyenne’s ability to continue the fight for their freedom on the Great Plains.
1880 — Ngati Whakaue lease land to the Crown which will later be home to the European settlement of Rotorua.
1884 — Evaporated milk is patented by John
Mayenberg of St Louis, Missouri.
1902 — New Zealand’s general election sees the number of parliamentary seats increase from 74 to 80.
1903 — New Zealand’s Bob Fitzsimmons defeats
George Gardner in San Francisco to win the world lightheavyweight title and become boxing’s first world champion over three weight categories.
1914 — Prime Minister William Massey opens New Zealand’s first hydroelectricity works, at Lake Coleridge.
1919 — New Zealand’s first children’s health camp begins at Turakina. initiative sees other camps opened throughout the country in following years.
1930 — Minister of Native Affairs Sir Apirana Ngata makes New Zealand’s first international telephone call, from Wellington, to Australian Acting Prime Minister Mr J. E. Fenton. Shortly afterwards, two business calls were made to Sydney and six people in Australia rang friends in New Zealand. The charge for the calls was £1 per minute.
1935 — King George II returns to Greece after 12 years of exile and is restored to his throne by a referendum.
1936 — Germany and Japan sign the Anti
Comintern Pact.
1940 — The passenger ship Holmwood is captured and scuttled at the Chatham Islands by the German raider Komet. All passengers and crew are taken to New Guinea.
1947 — New Zealand becomes a sovereign nation
independent of Britain with the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act passing into law; the Rabbit Nuisance Amendment Act passes into law, putting in place measures to control a nationwide plague of rabbits.
— The Ohakune Mountain Road Association is established to build a road to Mt Ruapehu.
—The body of US president John F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
— General Joseph Mobutu, later known as Mobutu Sese Seko, deposes President Joseph Kasavubu in the Congo.
1969 — Beatle John Lennon returns his MBE, awarded in 1965, to the Queen in protest against Britain’s policy in Biafra and its support for the US in Vietnam.
1971 — Denmark and Norway become the first Nato members to establish full diplomatic relations with North Vietnam.
1972 — In New Zealand, the Labour Party, under the leadership of Norman Kirk, sweeps into power at the general election. 1973 — Greek president George Papadopoulos is
ousted in a military coup.
1974 — The Irish Republican Army is outlawed in Britain following the deaths of 21 people in a pub bombing in Birmingham three days earlier.
1986 — The IranContra affair erupts in the US as President Ronald Reagan and Attorneygeneral Edwin Meese reveal that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.
1992 — The Czech Parliament votes to split the country into separate Czech and Slovak republics from January 1, 1993.
Today’s birthdays
Carl Benz, German car manufacturer (18441929); Dr John Flynn, founder of Australia’s Royal Flying Doctor Service (18801951); Joe DiMaggio, US baseball player (19141999); John Larroquette, US actor (1947); Imran Khan, Pakistani cricketer turned politician (1952); John F. Kennedy jun (19601999); Dougray Scott, Scottish actor (1969); Christina Applegate, US actress (1971).
Thought for today
To be free is to have achieved your life. — Tennessee Williams, American playwright (19111983).