Today in history
Today is Saturday, May 19, the 139th day of 2018. There are 226 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1536 — Anne Boleyn, second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, is beheaded.
1585 — English shipping in Spanish ports is confiscated, serving as a declaration of war.
1649 — England is declared a commonwealth.
1772 — The first felling of a kauri tree by a European occurs in New Zealand, by French explorer Marion du Fresne, in the Bay of Islands.
1802 — Napoleon Bonaparte’s Order of the Legion of Honour is created in France, an order of distinction for civil or military service.
1847 — Te Mamaku and his warriors raid the settlement at Wanganui, looting supply stores and burning buildings. His men blockade the settlement for two months.
1849 — Irishman William Hamilton is arrested after firing blank shots at Queen Victoria in London.
1888 — Dunedin’s Joe Scott is proclaimed world champion when he wins the world championship belt in a 72hour walking match at the Royal Agricultural Hall, London, defeating an international field of 20 and breaking all records over the distance. He walked 363 miles 1510 yards.
1906 — The Simplon Tunnel through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland is officially opened by the king of Italy and the president of the Swiss Republic.
1915 — John Simpson Kirkpatrick, who with his donkey, Duffy, saved many Australian lives at Gallipoli, is killed by a sniper’s bullet; a Turkish counterattack on Gallipoli fails, with 10,000 Turks being killed or wounded. The counterattack, which sought to drive the Australians and New Zealanders from Anzac Cove, is the greatest disaster for the Turks in the campaign.
1919 — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk lands at Samsun on the Black Sea coast, beginning the Turkish War of Independence.
1930 — White women are enfranchised in South Africa.
1945 — Dunedin is affected by flooding.
1966 — A Christchurch to Picton mixed train dubbed the ‘‘Cabbage Train’’ derails at Dashwood Pass near the southern portal of Tunnel 22, after the driver takes a curve at twice the recommended speed, killing one person and injuring two others.
1967 — The Soviet Union ratifies a treaty with the United States and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space.
1971 — Canada’s prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, and Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin sign an agreement in Moscow to establish regular highlevel contacts between the two nations.
1987 — Three flight crew are held hostage when an attempt to hijack an Air New Zealand jet is made at Nadi Airport. The incident ends when the flight engineer hits the hijacker over the head with a bottle of whisky.
2000 — Masked men storm Fiji’s parliament and seize the island’s prime minister, his cabinet ministers and lawmakers of the ruling coalition. The coup leader claims the coalition discriminated against ethnic Fijians.
2004 — The world’s first embryonic-stemcell bank opens in Britain.
2007 — About 60 Otago people take up the option of spending a night at the new Milburn Prison before it opens for business, raising $18,000 for the Milton Area Promotions group.
2008 — PPCS confirms plans to close Dunedin’s Burnside venisonprocessing works, with the loss of 138 jobs. The decision meant total closure of the 126yearold meatprocessing plant.
2012 — Skeletal remains on Port Waikato’s Sunset Beach are later discovered to be those of Jane Furlong, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances on May 26, 1993.
Today’s birthdays:
Dame Nellie Melba, Australian opera singer (18611931); Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey (18811938); Malcolm X, US civil rights leader (19251965); Nancy Kwan, US actress (1939); Pete Townshend, British musician (1945); David Helfgott, Australian concert pianist (1947); Grace Jones, Jamaicanborn singeractress (1948); Phil Rudd, Australian musician (1954); Jenny Berggren, Swedish pop singer (1972); Jamie How, New Zealand cricketer (1981); Sherwin Stowers, New Zealand rugby sevens representative (1986).
Quote from history:
‘‘It was a very spasmodic courtship, conducted mainly at long distance with a great clanking of coins in dozens of phone booths.’’ —
Jacqueline Kennedy, on her romance with John F. Kennedy. She died on May 19, 1994.