Today in history
Today is Friday, September 7, the 250th day of
2018. There are 115 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1701 — The Treaty of the Hague, known as the Grand Alliance, is signed between England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the United Provinces, creating an alliance against France that led to the War of the Spanish Succession.
1776 — Turtle, the first submarine used in warfare, makes an unsuccessful attempt to attach a mine to British admiral Richard Howe’s flagship Eagle in New York Harbour.
1813 — The nickname ‘‘Uncle Sam’’ is first used as a symbolic reference to the United States in an editorial in the Troy Post of New York.
1850 — The first settlers selected by the Canterbury Association leave Plymouth aboard the ships Charlotte Jane, Randolph and Cressy.
1878 — The Christchurch to Dunedin railway line opens. Among the first passengers are the governor (George Phipps), the Marquess of Normanby, and a number of MPs.
1880 — The Auckland Free Public Library is
officially opened.
1892 — At the Olympic Club in New Orleans, the first boxing match under Marquess of Queensberry rules is held, with Gentleman Jim Corbett knocking out John Lawrence Sullivan in the 21st round.
1901 — The Peace of Peking ends the Boxer
Rebellion in China.
1909 — A gold nugget named the ‘‘Honourable
Roddy’’ is discovered at Bullock Pt, near the Ross goldfields. Weighing 99.63oz (3.09kg), and the size of a person’s hand, it is the biggest nugget found in New Zealand. It is bought from the miners for £400 and then sold to the Government, which gifted it to King George V for his coronation.
1927 — American television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth succeeds in transmitting the image of a line through purely electronic means with a device called an ‘‘image dissector’’.
1936 — What was said to be the last Tasmanian
tiger dies in Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo.
1940 — In World War 2, the German air force, under Hermann Goering, begins its Blitz bombing campaign on London.
1942 — The Gisborne to Napier railway opens.
1962 — Sir Guy Richardson Powles (57) is chosen as New Zealand’s first ombudsman. He took up the post on October 1.
1969 — The multimilliondollar Manapouri power
scheme begins generation.
1977 — The Panama Canal treaties, calling for the US to eventually turn over control of the waterway to Panama, are signed.
1986 — Armed leftwing opponents ambush former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet’s motorcade with bazookas and automatic gunfire in a failed assassination attempt; Bishop Desmond Tutu is enthroned as Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa.
1993 — The white Government of South Africa agrees to share political power with a multiparty transition committee in the months before the scheduled universal election.
2000 — Cuban president Fidel Castro shakes the hand of US counterpart Bill Clinton, believed to be the first time he had shaken the hand of a US president since he took power in 1959.
2001 — Lightning strikes a tree on the edge of a municipal soccer field in central Mexico, killing six children and injuring four.
2006 — A fire in a Siberian gold and metals mine kills 25 miners, who had fought the blaze or tried to escape through long underground tunnels. 2010 — A magnitude5.2 earthquake shakes the Hawke’s Bay region. There are no reports of injury or damage. It follows the devastation left by a 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch three days earlier.
2016 — Wind gusts of up to 142kmh batter Otago, downing trees and power lines across Dunedin, cutting power to an estimated 380 households.
Today’s birthdays:
England’s Queen Elizabeth I (15331603); Sir Michael Myers, New Zealand Chief Justice (18731950); Ewen Solon, New Zealandborn actor (19171985); Buddy Holly, US singer (193659); Vic Pollard, New Zealand cricketer (1945); Gloria Gaynor, US singer (1949); Julie Kavner, US actress (1950); Chrissie Hynde, US singer (1951); Corbin Bernsen, US actor (1954); Tea Ropati, New Zealand rugby league international (1964); Guy Callaghan, New Zealand swimming international (1970); Shannon Elizabeth, US actress (1973); Glen Collins, New Zealand football international (1977); Piri Weepu, All Black (1983).
Thought for today:
My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done . . . you can be sincere and still be stupid. —
Charles F. Kettering, American inventor (18761958).