Today in history
Today is Wednesday, April 24, the 114th day of 2019. There are 251 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1558 — Mary, Queen of Scots, aged 16, marries the
Dauphin of France, the future Francois II.
1617 — Concino Concini, Marquis d’Angre, is assassinated by order of France’s King Louis XIII, and Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes, takes charge of the government of France.
1792 — The French national anthem, La Marseillaise, is composed by ClaudeJoseph Rouget de Lisle.
1807 — Deserter George Bruce and his wife, Te Atahoe, employed as New Zealand guides for the ship the General Wellesley, are abducted. Bruce is left stranded in Malacca and Te Atahoe is taken to Penang and sold as a slave.
1871 — Auckland becomes New Zealand’s fourth
city.
1877 — American federal troops are ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s postCivil War rule in the South.
1887 — Dunedin’s Robert Burns statue is unveiled
by Sir George Grey.
1888 — Eastman Kodak is founded by
George Eastman.
1898 — Spain declares war on the United States after receiving an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1908 — Jacob M. Murdock packs his family into a 1908 Packard ‘‘Thirty’’ touring car, leaves Los Angeles and arrives in New York on May 26, becoming the first to travel across the United States by motor vehicle. Resting only on Sundays and covering 3693.8 miles, the trip took 32 days, 5hr 25min.
1913 — The Woolworth Building in New York is opened. At the time it was the world’s tallest building.
1916 — Some 1600 Irish nationalists launch the Easter Uprising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. The rising is put down by British forces several days later.
1920 — The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) arrives in Auckland to thank New Zealand for its support during the war.
1953 — British statesman Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
1962 — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieves the first satellite relay of a television signal, between Camp Parks, California, and Westford, Massachusetts.
1967 — Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when the parachute straps of his spacecraft become entangled and he plunges to earth.
1970 — China launches its first satellite.
1971 — Soviet cosmonauts link up with an unmanned satellite prior to an attempt to build the world’s first orbiting space laboratory.
1975 — Thousands of Vietnamese refugees are flown to the US island of Guam as communists take over South Vietnam.
1980 — The US launches an abortive attempt to free American hostages in Iran, a mission that results in the deaths of eight US servicemen.
1989 — Replacing school committees and PTAs, the first school boardoftrustee elections are held. Reforms to New Zealand’s education system as outlined in the Tomorrow’s Schools policy document of August 1988, are intended to increase community and parent involvement in the running of schools.
1990 — The US space shuttle Discovery takes the
Hubble space telescope into orbit.
2000 — A Cessna aircraft whose passengers had been attending the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow crashes into the side of a hill in Central Otago, killing the pilot and five others.
2009 — A lastminute attempt to stop construction from going ahead on Dunedin’s covered stadium is dismissed by the High Court.
2012 — Sam Johnson becomes the first nonmilitary person to be honoured with the RSA’s Anzac of the Year award. Johnson marshalled an army of 9000 students who volunteered their services following the Christchurch earthquake in February 2011.
Today’s birthdays:
St Vincent de Paul, French priest and founder of charity orders (15761600); Shirley MacLaine ,US actress (1934); Fergie McCormick, All Black (19392018); John Williams, Australian classical guitarist (1941); Barbra Streisand, US singer/songwriter/actress (1942); Bill Osborne, All Black (1955); Matthew Randall, New Zealand cycling representative (1978); Kelly Clarkson, US singer (1982); Lydia Ko, New Zealand golfer (1997).
Thought for today:
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. — Buddha, founder of Buddhism.