Today in history
Today is Wednesday, April 4, the 94th day of 2018. There are 271 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1406 — King Robert III of Scotland dies and is succeeded by James I, who was being held prisoner by the English.
1581 — Francis Drake arrives back in England after circumnavigating the globe and is knighted by
Queen Elizabeth I on board his ship, the
Golden Hind.
1618 — Cardinal de Richelieu is ordered into exile in Avignon for intrigues with the French Queen Mother, Marie de Medici.
1660 — England’s King Charles II issues the Declaration of Breda, promising religious tolerance.
1818 —The United States Congress decides the American flag will consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.
1864 — Hoyt and Company begins the first regular coach service between Dunedin and Invercargill, stopping overnight at Popotunoa.
1878 — The Otago Daily Times releases a
prospectus issued for a limited liability company. 1887 — Susanna Salter is elected in
Argonia, Kansas, becoming the world’s first female mayor.
1902 — British financier Cecil Rhodes leaves
$US10 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University.
1910 — Despite long delays the southern area of
Greater Dunedin finally gets electric lighting when 124 60candlepower lamps are switched on by Mayoress Walker, along the main streets of South Dunedin, Caversham and St Clair.
1912 — A Chinese republic is proclaimed in Tibet.
1918 — The second Battle of the Somme ends in World War 1 with German gains of some 60km at a cost of 150,000 killed or wounded; Allied casualties numbered 160,000.
1932 — US researcher Prof C.G. King of Pittsburgh isolates vitamin C for the first time after five years of research.
1949 — Nato is founded when the North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington by foreign ministers of the US, Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Canada for mutual assistance against aggression in the North Atlantic.
1963 — New Zealand joins the jet age when BOAC begins a regular international jet service between Auckland and Britain. The trip takes 37 hours.
1964 — Archbishop Makarios abrogates the 1960
treaty between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, and heavy fighting erupts in northwest Cyprus; The Beatles set a record by occupying the top five positions on the US singles chart at the same time.
1966 — The Dunedin City Council votes 8 to 5 in
favour of fluoridating the city’s water supply.
1969 — Doctors in a Houston, Texas, hospital implant the first complete artificial heart in a 47yearold man, who dies four days later.
1983 — The US space shuttle Challenger is
launched into orbit on its maiden flight.
1990 — Britain publishes a controversial Bill to grant citizenship to up to 225,000 Hong Kong residents in the runup to the colony’s handover to China in 1997.
2006 — Women make history in Kuwait by voting and running for office for the first time in a local byelection.
2014 — The Bell Tea and Coffee Co ends a more than 100year connection with Dunedin when it begins to progressively close its Dunedin factory and move machinery to its Auckland plant. 2017 — After devastating parts of Queensland, Cyclone Debbie heads across the Tasman, dumping torrential rain on most parts of the North Island and upper South Island, cutting power and causing landslips, with Whanganui and Rangitikei councils declaring a state of emergency ahead of possible serious flooding.
Today’s birthdays:
Arthur William Baden Powell, New Zealand naturalist/palaeontologist (19011987); Selwyn Toogood, New Zealand radio and television personality (19162001); Craig T. Nelson, US actor (1944); Christine Lahti, US actress (1950); Murray Chandler, New Zealand chess grandmaster (1960); Graham Norton, Irish talkshow host (1963); Peter Bethune, New Zealand conservationist (1965); Gail Jonson, New Zealand swimming representative (1965); Robert Downey jun, US actor (1965); Nancy McKeon, US actress (1966); Jessica Napier, New Zealandborn actress (1979); Andrea Hewitt, New Zealand triathlon representative (1982).
Quote from history:
‘‘We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people’’ — US civil rights leader Martin Luther King jun. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
ODT and agencies