Today in history
Today is Saturday, July 7, the 188th day of 2018. There are 177 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1307 — King Edward I of England dies on his way north to subdue a rebellion in Scotland. He is succeeded by Edward II.
1718 — Alexis, heir to Russia’s Peter the Great,
is murdered at the instigation of his father. 1749 — Spain’s Ferdinand VI severs himself
from a ‘‘family compact’’ with France.
1753 — An Act is passed for the naturalisation of
Jews in England.
1801 — Toussaint L’Ouverture, the black general,
proclaims Haiti’s independence from France.
1807 — The first of the Treaties of Tilsit is signed, underwhich France and Russia become allies and divide Europe between them.
1865 — Four people are hanged in Washington after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
1874 — The first meeting of the Otago Harbour
Board is held.
1883 — Pinocchio, written by Carlo Lorenzini
under his pen name of Collodi, is published.
1898 — The United States annexes the island of
Hawaii.
1913 — Britain’s House of Commons passes the
Irish Home Rule Bill.
1924 — Arthur Porritt, a medical student from Wanganui via Dunedin, wins the bronze medal in the 100m at the Olympic Games in Paris. It remains New Zealand’s only medal in an Olympic sprint event. The race was won by Harold Abrahams, and the film Chariots of Fire is based on it. The race, which was scheduled for 7pm, was celebrated each year at this time on the 7th day of the 7th month by Porritt and Abrahams until Abrahams’ death in 1978. Porritt managed the New Zealand Olympic team to Berlin in 1936, and was the first New Zealandborn GovernorGeneral.
1937 — Japanese and Chinese troops clash near Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, an incident that leads to the SinoJapanese War.
1946 — Italianborn Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini is canonised as the first American saint.
1969 — Canada’s House of Commons gives final approval to a measure making the French language equal to English throughout the nation.
1973 — John Walker runs his first subfourminute mile, in 3min 58.8sec, in Victoria, British Columbia. 1982 — Unemployed labourer Michael Fagan makes his way to the Queen’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace and sits on her bed chatting before being arrested.
1983 — General practice registrar Dr Marion Poore speaks of her study into a mystery disease causing havoc for hundreds of West Otago residents. It becomes known as Tapanui flu.
1985 — Boris Becker, aged 17, becomes the youngest player to win the Wimbledon men’s tennis singles title.
1986 — The United Nations secretarygeneral arbitrates an agreement between New Zealand and France allowing the Rainbow Warrior saboteurs to do three years military service in the Pacific, instead of time in New Zealand prisons, in return for $US7 million in compensation.
1997 — The Pathfinder spacecraft yields what
scientists say is unmistakable photographic evidence that floods scoured the Red Planet’s landscape more than a billion years ago.
1998 — A jury in California convicts Mikail Markhasev of murdering Ennis Cosby, Bill Cosby’s only son, during a roadside robbery. 2006 — Spain reports its first case of H5N1 bird flu, discovered in a wild fowl in a marshland area.
Today’s birthdays:
Murray Halberg, champion New Zealand middledistance athlete (1933); Peter Gresham, New Zealand politician (1933); Ringo Starr, British musician (1940); Bill Oddie, British comedianactor (1941); Dail Jones, New Zealand politician (1944); Joe Spano, US actor (1946); Shelley Duvall, US actress (1949); Vonda Shepard, US singer (1963); Sean Becker, New Zealand curling international (1975); Ron Cribb, All Black (1976);
Benjamin Mitchell, New Zealand actor (1979).
Thought for today:
Memory depends very much on the perspicuity, regularity, and order of our thoughts. Many complain of the want of memory, when the defect is in their judgement; and others, by grasping at all, retain nothing. — Margaret Fuller, American critic and social reformer (181050).