Today in history
Today is Wednesday, August 15, the 227th day of 2018. There are 138 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1057 — Macbeth, king of Scotland, is killed in battle by Malcolm (later King Malcolm III), son of the late King Duncan.
1534 — The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) is founded in
Paris by St Ignatius of Loyola.
1843 — Copenhagen’s famous Tivoli Gardens open.
1862 — Goldminers Horatio Hartley and Christopher Reilly deposit 100oz of gold at Dunedin. They then accept a reward of £2000 to divulge the location of the goldfield on the Clutha River near Dunstan.
1903 — In New Zealand’s first official international rugby match, the New Zealand team, captained by
Dave Gallaher, beats Australia 223 at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
1914 — Two troopships and 1400 men forming an advance guard from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force leave Wellington for World War 1; the Panama Canal opens with the passage of the vessel Ancon.
1938 — RMS Queen Mary sets a record for the eastbound crossing of the Atlantic, two minutes short of four days.
1939 — The MGM musical The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
1945 — New Zealand prime minister Peter Fraser announces that Japan has surrendered, ending World War 2. More than 200,000 New Zealanders served and more than 11,500 were killed; Korea is liberated from 35 years of colonial rule with Japan’s defeat in World War 2, but the peninsula is divided into the communist North and capitalist South.
1947 — Jawaharlal Nehru becomes the first prime minister of an independent India and delivers his inaugural address titled ‘‘Tryst with Destiny’’. He held office until his death in 1964.
1951 — The New Zealand troopship Wahine is wrecked when it strikes a reef at Masela Island in the Arafura Sea, while taking servicemen to Japan. No lives were lost.
1953 — A red granite memorial to Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) is unveiled at Urenui, Taranaki. The renowned Maori anthropologist, who died in Hawaii in 1951, was described at the time as ‘‘the greatest New Zealander to emerge since Rutherford’’.
1954 — The Franz Josef Glacier Hotel in South
Westland is razed by fire.
1961 — East German workers begin to build the
Berlin Wall. 1964 — The All Blacks, captained by John Graham
(Canterbury), beat Australia 149 at Carisbrook.
1965 — A crowd of 55,600 attend a Beatles concert at Shea Stadium, New York, creating world attendance and revenue records.
1969 — The Woodstock Music and Art Fair opens
in upstate New York.
1975 — Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is assassinated, along with most of his family, in a successful military coup.
1998 — Otago wins the Caltex Cup interprovincial netball championship, beating Wellington 6054 in the final.
2011 — Snowfalls sweep up the country, isolating Dunedin and parts of Christchurch. Snow also falls throughout the North Island and is seen in Auckland for the first time since 1939.
2016 — First reports emerge of a water supply contamination in the Havelock North area, which is linked to thousands of people falling ill with a gastric bug and three deaths. Many people were hospitalised and schools were closed.
— On the first anniversary of the water contamination in the Havelock North water supply, the Dunedin City Council issues a boilwater notice covering the central city and north end after millions of litres of untreated ‘‘raw’’ water from the Ross Creek Reservoir entered the city’s water supply.
Today’s birthdays:
Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor (17691821); William Fitzherbert, New Zealand politician (18101891); T(homas) E(dward) Lawrence (of Arabia), British soldier and author (18881935); Leslie Comrie, New Zealand astronomer (18931950); John (Derek) Freeman, New Zealand anthropologist (19162001); Hamish Keith, New Zealand writer (1936); Princess Anne (1950);
Riki Ellison, New Zealand American football player (1960); Peter Hermann, US actor (1967); Debra Messing, US actress (1968); Paul Steel, New Zealand professional squash player and coach (1970);
Ben Affleck, US actor (1972); Kendall Brown, New Zealand Winter Olympian (1989).
Quote from history:
‘‘When two people love each other, they don’t look at each other, they look in the same direction.’’ — American comedian Will Rogers, who died in a plane crash in Alaska on August 15, 1935.
ODT and agencies