Today in history
Today is Wednesday, May 16, the 136th day of 2018. There are 229 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1568 — Mary, Queen of Scots, takes refuge in
England.
1770 — Marie Antoinette, aged 14, is married to
France’s King Louis XVI, aged 15.
1796 — The Lombardic Republic is established in
Italy.
1804 — Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed emperor.
1840 — The Rev J. Watkins lands at Waikouaiti,
becoming the first missionary in Otago.
1842 — Land claims commissioner William Spain oversees New Zealand’s first landcourt hearing, at Wellington.
1862 — The mastermind of the organised colonisation of New Zealand, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, dies, aged 66.
1868 — The United States Senate fails by one vote
to impeach President Andrew Johnson.
1881 — The first electric tram goes into public
service, near Berlin in Germany.
1883 — The first regular direct steam link between Britain and New Zealand begins with the arrival of the Westmeath at Auckland.
1888 — Emile Berliner gives the first demonstration of flatdisc recording and reproduction before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
1920 — Joan of Arc is canonised in Rome.
1932 — Japan’s Premier Tsuyoshi Inukai is
assassinated in Tokyo.
1941 — The Icelandic Parliament ends a treaty with
Denmark, and proclaims independence.
1943 — Operation Chastise takes place in World War 2, when British Lancaster aircraft from the 617 Squadron bomb the Mohne and the Eder dams in Germany’s industrial Ruhr Basin, using bouncing bombs in what has become known since as the Dam Busters Raid.
1960 — The Big Four summit conference in Paris collapses on its opening day as the Soviet Union levels spying charges against the US following a U2 spyplane incident.
1961 — Majorgeneral Park Chunghee stages a
military coup in South Korea.
1969 — A Soviet spaceship reaches the vicinity of Venus and drops a capsule that sends back information on the planet’s atmosphere.
1975 — Japanese climber Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mt Everest.
1979 — Police in El Salvador seal off the capital after 10 days of violence by antigovernment terrorists which took 44 lives. 1982 — New Zealand plays its first international football match for 35 years in Dunedin; the League of Ireland defeating the All Whites 21. It was
New Zealand’s only loss in a fivematch series.
1986 — Members of the military junta which led Argentina to defeat in the 1982 Falklands War with Britain are sentenced to between eight and 14 years’ imprisonment and stripped of their rank. Former president Leopoldo Galtieri is sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.
1991 — Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British
monarch to address the US Congress.
1994 — Scotland Yard for the first time approves a plan to allow some London police officers to openly carry firearms.
1996 — Romano Prodi, an economist who led a centreleft coalition dominated by former communists to electoral victory, is chosen as premier in Italy’s 55th postwar government.
2001 — Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen is indicted on charges of spying for Moscow. Hanssen later pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Today’s birthdays:
Henry Fonda, US actor (19051982); Peter Hall, New Zealand flying ace in World War 2 (19222010); Roy Kerr, New Zealand mathematician (1934); Paul Ackerley, New Zealand Olympic hockey gold medallist (19492011); Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor (1953); Debra Winger, US actress (1955); Mare Winningham, US actress (1959); Janet Jackson, US pop singer (1966); Matthew Hart, New Zealand cricketer (1972); Tori Spelling, US actress (1973); Melanie Lynskey, New Zealand actress (1977); Jonathan Duncan, New Zealand Olympic swimming representative (1982).
Quote from history:
‘‘Hollywood . . . was the place where the United States perpetrated itself as a universal dream and put the dream into mass production.’’ — British novelist Angela Carter. The first Academy Award for Best Film went to Wings, directed by William A. Wellman, on May 16, 1929. The awards for best actor and actress went to Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor. The awards were called Oscars from 1931.