Today in history
Today is Tuesday, March 27, the 86th day of
2018. There are 279 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1713 — Spain agrees at Utrecht to cede Gibraltar
and Menorca to Britain.
1773 — The first batch of beer is brewed in Dusky Sound, New Zealand, by the crew of the Resolution at Captain Cook’s order. Ingredients for the brew included rimu branches, molasses and yeast.
1794 — The United States Navy officially comes into being when Congress votes to provide a naval armament.
1802 — The Peace of Amiens between Britain, France, Spain and the Batavian Republic is signed.
1836 — The first Mormon temple is dedicated, in
Kirtland, Ohio.
1860 — M.L. Byrn of New York is granted the first patent on a corkscrew (a ‘‘gimlet screw’’ with a Tshaped handle).
1899 — The first international radio transmission is sent when inventor Guglielmo Marconi sends a wireless message from England to France.
1913 — A 24hour torrential downpour begins that will flood most areas of Otago and Southland and parts of Canterbury, causing widespread damage. Worst affected are the townships of Gore, Mataura and Wyndham.
1940 — New Zealand prime minister Michael Joseph Savage dies in Wellington after a long illness. Peter Fraser takes over as prime minister on April 1.
— Yugoslavia’s Prince Paul is deposed in a coup following a pact with Adolf Hitler.
— Former New Zealand governorgeneral Lord Galway dies aged 61.
— Germany launches its last V2 rocket from The Hague and it crashes in Orpington, southeast of London; Argentina declares war on Germany and Japan.
1964 — An earthquake in Alaska kills more than
100 people.
1968 — Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut who flew the world’s first manned space mission, is killed in the crash of a training plane; General Suharto is elected Indonesia’s second president, replacing Prersident Sukarno, who lost power in March 1966.
1970 — A severe earthquake strikes western Turkey, killing at least 1087 and leaving 90,000 homeless.
1977 — Two Boeing 747s, owned by KLM and
PanAm, collide and burst into flames on a runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people.
1980 — The a floating platform for offduty oil workers, capsizes in the North Sea, killing 123 people.
1982 — Auckland’s Round the Bays fun run attracts 80,000 participants, making it the largest jogging event in the world.
1984 — A bomb explodes at the Wellington Trades Hall, killing the caretaker. Noone was charged with the crime and no clear motive has been established.
1989 — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leading a new wave of militancy in Iran’s 10yearold Islamic revolution, prompts the resignation of his moderate successordesignate, Ayatollah
HusseinAli Montazeri.
1998 — The US Food and Drug Administration
approves the drug Viagra.
2013 — New Zealand cricket star Jesse Ryder is severely beaten outside a Christchurch bar and left fighting for his life after celebrating the end of the cricket season with his Wellington representative teammates. Two men are charged with the assault.
Today’s birthdays:
Sir David Monro, New Zealand politician (181377); John Balance, 14th premier of New Zealand (183993); Shona McFarlane, New Zealand artist/journalist (19292001); Michael York, English actor (1942); Elizabeth (Liddy) Holloway, New Zealand actress (19472004); Neville Hiscock, New Zealand motorcycle racer (195183); Andrew Farriss, Australian musician (1959); Quentin Tarantino, US film director (1963); Mariah Carey, US singer (1970); Jarrod McCracken, New Zealand rugby league captain (1970);
David Coulthard, Scottish Formula One driver (1971); Andrew Blowers, All Black (1975); Fergie, US singer (1975); George Whitelock, All Black (1986);
Alex Pledger, New Zealand professional basketball player (1987); Kimbra (Kimbra Lee Johnson), New Zealand singer (1990).
Thought for today:
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. — Bill Watterson, US cartoonist (1958).
ODT