Today in history
Today is Saturday, August 11, the 223rd day of 2018. There are 142 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1718 — An English fleet under Admiral George Byng destroys or captures 15 of 22 Spanish ships at the Battle of Cape Passaro off Sicily.
1840 — The British flag is hoisted at Akaroa to
confirm sovereignty over the South Island.
1876 — The registration of women doctors is
permitted by the Medical Act.
1879 — In inland North Otago, a community established by prophet Te Maiharoa on reoccupied tribal land at Omarama is removed by police and armed volunteers. Several of the community die in winter storms on the march back down the Waitaki Valley.
1928 — Ted Morgan, despite an injured hand, wins a boxing gold medal in the welterweight class at the Amsterdam Olympic Games.
1934 — The first federal prisoners arrive at the
island prison Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.
1936 — The Nationalist Chinese forces of Chiang
Kaishek enter Canton in China.
1943 — Flying Officer Lloyd Allan Trigg, a New Zealander serving in the RAF, is awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions over the Atlantic Ocean. Uniquely, he is also put forward for the medal by the captain of the submarine he was targeting when his aircraft came under enemy fire and later crashed.
1945 — The Allies inform Japan that its surrender offer is acceptable as World War 2 in the Pacific nears an end. 1952 — Prince Hussein is proclaimed King Hussein
of Jordan on the termination of King Talal’s reign.
1961 — Thirteen Wellington babies become the first New Zealanders to receive the oral poliomyelitis vaccine.
1962 — New Zealand’s first rollon/rolloff passenger vehicle and rail ferry, GMV Aramoana, undergoes berthing and loading trials at Picton. A blustery southerly gale drifted her away from the berth and she brushed the Waitohi Wharf, damaging the wharf and the vessel itself. She then bumped heavily into the linkspan, shattering concrete and some of the ship’s belting. Many VIPs were aboard, marking a lessthanauspicious beginning for what was to be 22 years of interisland ferry service.
1965 — Rioting and looting break out in the predominantly black Watts section of Los Angeles; in the week that followed, 34 people were killed and more than 1000 injured.
1981 — A group of 27 antitour protesters is
arrested while attempting to disrupt the touring Springbok team’s match with Otago. Several more arrests are made when groups gather outside the Southern Cross Hotel in High St, where the team was staying.
1984 — United States president Ronald Reagan jokes during a radio voice test that he had
‘‘signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes’’.
1998 — British Petroleum announces it has agreed to merge with Amoco Corp of the US in a $US110 billion deal billed as the largest industrial merger.
2000 — A Hungarian prisoner deposited in a
Russian psychiatric hospital after World War 2 and forgotten for five decades returns to Hungary, a homeland he has not seen since the 1940s.
2001 — Australia beats the All Blacks, captained by Otago’s Anton Oliver, 2315 at Carisbrook, in what is the last test to be played in the afternoon at the ground. It also signalled the end of the popular tent city on Bathgate Park.
2002 — US Airways Group Inc, the sixthlargest US
airline, seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, in the first bankruptcy filing by a major aircarrier since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.
Today’s birthdays:
Enid Blyton, British author (18971968); Henry Cecil Dudgeon D’Arcy, New Zealand recipient of the Victoria Cross (18501881); James Munro Bertram, New Zealand Rhodes Scholar (19101993); Denis Moloney, New Zealand cricketer (191042); Donald Cobden, All Black (19141940); Jack Skinner, New Zealand football international (19152002); Arlene Dahl, US actress (1925); Hone Papita Raukura (Ralph) Hotere, New Zealand artist (19312013); Ian McDiarmid, Scottish actor (1944); Ann Michelle, English actress (1952); Hulk Hogan, US actorwrestler (1953); Joe Jackson, British musician (1954); Kevin Hogan, New Zealand football international (1957); Ruth Dyson, New Zealand politician (1957); Grant Waite, New Zealand golfer (1964); Viola Davis, US actress (1965); Terry Hermansson, New Zealand rugby league international (1967); Nigel Harman, British actor (1973).
Thought for today:
Birth, ancestry, and that which you yourself have not achieved can hardly be called your own. — Greek proverb.