Today in history
Today is Friday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2018. There are 262 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1059 — Pope Nicholas II issues a decree on the election of popes, declaring that only cardinals will be allowed to elect them.
1528 — Pope Clemente VII establishes a commission to determine the validity of King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in England.
1742 — George Frederick Handel conducts the first
performance of his work Messiah, in Dublin.
1820 — In the Bay of Islands, the captain of HMS Dromedary seizes the US General Gates for smuggling convicts out of Sydney. It is the first military action by the British under orders in New Zealand.
1870 — The Metropolitan Museum of Art is
founded in New York.
1896 — The National Council of Women is formed at a meeting in Christchurch. Among its first objectives are prison reform, abolition of capital punishment and the raising of the age for female consent in order to protect young women from sexually transmitted diseases.
1897 — Ethel Benjamin, the first woman to graduate in law at the University of Otago, has her degree conferred and is admitted to the bar.
1913 — An Edison electricbattery tram service begins operation in Gisborne, remaining in service until 1929.
1919 — The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also
known as the Amritsar massacre, takes place when troops of the British Indian Army, under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer, open fire on a crowd of nonviolent protesters and Baisakhi pilgrims, who had gathered to take part in the annual Baisakhi celebrations. Although casualty numbers vary, the Indian National Congress estimated 1000 killed and 1500 injured.
1935 — A LondontoAustralia airline service is
introduced by Imperial Airways and Qantas.
1964 — Sidney Poitier becomes the first black actor to win an Oscar, taking the best actor award for Lilies of the Field.
1970 — Apollo 13, fourfifths of the way to the moon, is crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen bursts. The astronauts managed to return safely.
1983 — Zhao Ziyang becomes the first Chinese premier to visit New Zealand. He is presented with a canister of bull semen as a gift, described by a Chinese official as sowing the ‘‘seeds of friendship’’.
1985 — The Australian War Memorial changes the title plaques of a bronze statue by Leslie Bowles and a painting by Horace MooreJones from
Simpson and his Donkey to The Man with the Donkey, in the interests of historical accuracy.
1986 — A stampede by Hindu pilgrims kills at least 46 people and injures 39 others at a religious festival along the Ganges River northeast of New Delhi, India; Pope John Paul II visits a synagogue in Rome in the first recorded papal visit of its kind.
1992 — The Great Chicago Flood takes place as the city’s centuryold tunnel system and adjacent basements fill with water from the Chicago River.
1995 — Ukraine agrees to close by 2000 the last operating Chernobyl nuclear reactor (unit 3). The meltdown of reactor 4 resulted in massive radioactive pollution and many deaths.
1997 — United States golfer Tiger Woods becomes the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first player of AfricanAmerican heritage to claim a major golf title.
2014 — The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and wife Kate, visit Dunedin and Queenstown.
2015 — An unseasonal cold snap brings snow and record low temperatures for April to Otago and Southland. Dunedin Airport recorded a temperature of 2.4degC at 2.30pm. The previous lowest temperature for April was 7.5degC, recorded in 2012.
Today’s birthdays:
Thomas Jefferson, US president (17431826); Frank Winfield Woolworth, US retailer (18521919); Arthur ‘‘Bomber’’ Harris, British air force commander (18921984); Ian Ferguson, New Zealandborn officer in Australian Army during World War 2 and the Korean War (19171988); Edward Fox, British actor (1937); Paul Sorvino, US actor (1939); Chris Tranchell, New Zealandborn British actor (1941); Alan Jones, Australian radio personality (1941); Al Green, US singer (1946); Ron Perlman, US actor (1950);
Joe Stanley, All Black (1957); Garry Kasparov, Russian chess champion (1963); Ricky Schroder, US actor (1970); Adam Milne, New Zealand cricket player (1992).
Thought for today:
Any idiot can face a crisis. It’s daytoday living that wears you out. — Anton Chekhov.
ODT and agencies