Today in history
Today is Thursday, February 7, the 38th day of 2019. There are 327 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1554 — Troops under Sir Thomas Wyatt the
Younger march on London.
1816 — Simon Bolivar is entrusted by the Congress of New Grenada with political and military control of the invasion of Venezuela from Haiti.
1831 — The Belgian Constitution is proclaimed. 1863 — HMS Orpheus founders in Manukau Harbour due to a navigational error. Of the 259 on board, 190 lose their lives in the tragedy, making it the most deadly shipwreck in New Zealand waters.
1876 — The Otago Daily Times reports on the completion of a substantial wooden building in Woodhaugh for the manufacture of paper.
1892 — Heavy rain begins to fall in Dunedin,
flooding many areas and isolating the city.
1904 — The biggest fire in the United States since the great Chicago blaze of 1871 breaks out in Baltimore, destroying more than 2600 buildings.
1946 — A fire near Taupo engulfs 247,000 acres (100,000ha), destroying pine plantations and threatening the township. It is regarded as a national disaster.
1962 — A coalmine explosion in Saarbruecken,
Germany, kills 298 miners.
1963 — A chartered bus returning from Waitangi Day celebrations attended by Queen Elizabeth II, plunges off the road near Maungaturoto in Northland after its brakes fail. Fifteen of the 35 passengers are killed.
1964 — The Beatles begin their first American tour, greeted at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport by thousands of screaming fans; US heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay changes his name to Muhammad Ali after becoming a Muslim.
1966 — The Telford Farm Training Institute, near Balclutha, is officially opened by Minister of Agriculture Brian Talboys.
1968 — Canada’s 10 provincial premiers agree to draft a new constitution giving the French language equal status with English throughout Canada.
1971 — Women in Switzerland win the right to
vote.
1972 — Jack Marshall assumes office as prime minister when Sir Keith Holyoake steps down from National Party leadership.
1973 — Alexandra is put on alert when more than 8000 gallons (36,800 litres) of petrol boil in a railway tanker as temperatures reach 38degC.
1984 — Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart go on the first untethered space walk.
1986 — Haiti’s President JeanClaude Duvalier goes into exile, ending a 29year family dynasty in the Caribbean republic.
1990 — The Central Committee approves the end of the Soviet Communist Party’s constitutional guarantee of power.
1996 — A chartered jetliner carrying German tourists crashes into the Caribbean Sea minutes after taking off from Puerto Plata, in the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 aboard.
2000 — Stipe Mesica, who pledged to lead Croatia away from its authoritarian past, easily wins a presidential runoff election to replace the late Franjo Tudjman.
2005 — Dunedin’s drainage system fails to cope when the city is hit by 34mm of rain that fell in 20min just before 6pm. Scores of businesses and homes were flooded and the surge down Lower Rattray St was at times 1m deep. Power was cut to 236 consumers and around town manhole covers were sent skyward by the pressure of water passing through the drains.
Today’s birthdays:
James Busby, New Zealand’s first jurist (18021871); John Deere, US manufacturer (18041886); Charles Dickens, English novelist (18121870); Sinclair Lewis, US writer (18851951); Heinrich (Arnold) Nordmeyer, New Zealand politician (19011989); Morton W. Coutts, New Zealand inventor/brewer (19042004); Aisin Gioro Henry Puyi, last emperor of China (19061967); Witi Ihimaera, NZ author (1944); Pete Postlethwaite, English actor (19452011); Gerald Davies, Welsh and British Lions rugby player (1945); James Spader ,US actor (1960); Garth Brooks, US country singer (1962); David Bryan, US musician (1962); Ashton Kutcher, US actor (1978);
Hayley Saunders, New Zealand netball player (1989); Louisa Lytton, British actress (1989).
Thought for today:
There are only two classes of mankind in the world, doctors and patients. — Rudyard Kipling, English author and poet (18651936).
ODT and agencies