Today in history
Today is Friday, May 17, the 137th day of 2019. There are 228 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
352 — Liberius begins his reign as Catholic pope. 884 — Adrian III begins his reign as Catholic pope.
1198 — Frederick II, the last of the great medieval emperors, is crowned king of Sicily at the age of 3.
1521 — Edward Stafford, claimant to the English
throne, is executed for treason.
1536 — Archbishop Cranmer declares invalid the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn.
1792 — The New York Stock & Exchange Board, now called the New York Stock Exchange, is started when 24 merchants, meeting under a buttonwood tree located outside 68 Wall St, sign the Buttonwood Agreement.
1814 — Norway declares its independence from
Sweden with the adoption of a new constitution.
1833 — James Busby arrives at Paihia with a brief to oversee the settlement and traders, apprehend escaped convicts and to prevent the mistreatment of local Maori.
1861 — The first package holiday for a popular market is arranged by Thomas Cook: a ‘‘Whitsuntide Working Men’s Excursion’’ from London to Paris for six days.
1875 — The first Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Maryland; Aristides wins. It was originally raced over a mile and ahalf, the distance it would remain until 1896, when it was changed to its present mile and aquarter.
1900 — A small British cavalry force finally relieves the garrison under Colonel
Robert BadenPowell at Mafeking after 217 days of siege by the Boers in South Africa. 1920 — Edward, Prince of Wales, visits Dunedin. 1954 — The United States Supreme Court overturns an 1896 ruling that education should be ‘‘separate but equal,’’ thus outlawing racial segregation in the state school system.
1962 — George Wilder, convicted of burglary, escapes from New Plymouth jail and will evade recapture for over two months, becoming a folk hero in the process. He escapes two more times, including being on the run for almost six months during 1963.
1965 — A New Look at Olde England, a television programme made by NBC, becomes the first transatlantic transmission in colour. It was transmitted by the US commercial communications satellite Early Bird.
1968 — In France, after many days of rioting,
striking students and workers march in protest over conditions in schools and universities in Paris and many other cities.
1970 — Fourteen new Skyhawk jet
fighterbombers arrive for the RNZAF.
1973 — The Otago Daily Times reports on the end of an era for bus operator Richard Bryant, who ended 44 years of service over the 12 graveltrack miles of the Routeburn Valley with the construction of a bridge over the Dart River at the head of Lake Wakatipu.
1974 — New Zealand’s first abortion clinic opens in Remuera, Auckland, despite patients being subjected to harassment by protesters and the clinic suffering damage by arson.
1980 — Rioting claims 18 lives in Miami after an allwhite jury in Tampa acquits four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie.
1984 — A lastminute bid by Otago woolgrowers to have all Otago and Southland wool sold through Dunedin is turned down, with the introduction of centralisation.
1987 —Thirtyseven American sailors are killed when an Iraqi warplane attacks the US Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf. Iraq and the US later called the attack a mistake.
1998 — Captained by Dunedin’s Farah Palmer, the New Zealand women’s rugby team wins the women’s world cup, beating the US 4612 in the final, played in Amsterdam.