Today in history
Today is Monday, December 18, the 352nd day of 2017. There are 13 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1559 — Queen Elizabeth I sends aid to Scottish
lords to drive the French from Scotland.
1620 — Pilgrims go ashore from the ship Mayflower at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the United States.
1644 — Queen Christina comes of age and
begins her reign in Sweden.
1792 — Thomas Paine is tried in England in his
absence for publishing The Rights Of Man.
1843 — New Zealand’s first A&P show is held at the Royal Exchange Hotel in Auckland, with the Domain hosting the livestock sections.
1865 — Slavery is abolished in the United States.
1875 — The first elections for St Kilda mayor and
council are held.
1890 — Frederick Lugard occupies Uganda for
the British East Africa Company.
1903 — The USPanama Treaty places the Canal
Zone in US hands in perpetuity for annual rent.
1912 — At a meeting of the Geological Society of London, Charles Dawson claims that a skull found at the Piltdown gravel pit in East Sussex, is that of a primitive man he claims to be the Piltdown Man. It was later discovered to be a hoax.
1916 — In World War 1, the 10month Battle of Verdun ends after a huge loss of life: 543,000 French and 434,000 German troops were killed.
1934 — The first New Zealand licensed airline, Air
Travel, provides flights from Hokitika.
— A secret plan issued by Adolf Hitler orders German general staff to prepare for the invasion of Russia under the codename Operation Barbarossa.
1957 — The
Station in Pennsylvania, the first nuclear facility to generate electricity in the US, goes online.
1961 — New Zealand’s first Golden Kiwi lottery is drawn, for a prize of £12,000. The weekly national raffle will be replaced by Lotto in 1989.
1965 — Nine African states break off diplomatic
relations with Britain over the Rhodesia issue.
1970 — The divorce law goes into effect in Italy despite opposition by the Roman Catholic Church.
1973 — New Zealand character Fred Dagg first appears on New Zealand television screens during the closing moments of the current affairs programme Gallery.
1974 — Two American women are killed instantly
when an aerial cableway gondola in which they are travelling plunges out of control into a steep mountainside at Queenstown.
1987 — Ivan Boesky, the Wall Street financier who played a key role in the biggest insider trading scheme in US history, is jailed for three years.
1990 — The Taj Mahal reopens after being closed to tourists due to sectarian violence that took 11 lives in three days of fighting in the Indian city of Agra.
1992 — Ruling party leader Kim Youngsam accepts victory as South Korea’s first civilian president after 32 years of military rule.
1998 — The Loyalist Volunteer Force becomes the first paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland to start to hand over its weapons for decommissioning.
2003 — Egon Krenz, East Germany’s last communist leader, is freed from jail after serving almost four years of a sixandahalf year sentence.
2013 — For the second time in three days a brief
Today’s birthdays:
John Hall, New Zealand prime minister 187982 (18241907); Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (18631914); Eric Tindall, All Black, test cricketer, international rugby referee and international cricket umpire (19102010); Betty Grable, US actress (191673); Noel McGregor, New Zealand cricketer (19312007); Keith Richards, English rock musician (1943); Stephen Biko, South African antiapartheid activist (194677); Steven Spielberg, US film director (1947);
Ray Liotta, US actor (1955); Brad Pitt, US actor (1963); Christina Aguilera, US singer (1980).
Quote from history:
‘‘Remember, we play the ball where it lies, and now let’s not talk about this, ever again’’. — Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones, US golfer, on being stricken by the rare and debilitating spinal condition syringomyelia in his mid40s. Jones, the only player to win the grand slam of all four of golf’s most important championships in one year, died on December 18, 1971.
ODT