Today in history
Today is Friday, March 27, the 87th day of 2020. There are 279 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1713 — Spain agrees at Utrecht to cede Gibraltar and Menorca to Britain.
1773 — The first batch of beer is brewed in Dusky Sound, New Zealand, by the crew of the
Resolution as instructed by Captain Cook. Ingredients for the brew included rimu branches, molasses and yeast.
1794 — The United States Navy officially comes into being when Congress votes to provide a naval armament.
1836 — The first Mormon temple is dedicated, in Kirtland, Ohio.
1860 — M.L. Byrn of New York is granted the first patent on a corkscrew (a ‘‘gimlet screw’’ with a Tshaped handle).
1883 — Two young English Salvation Army officers, Captain George Pollard and Lieutenant Edward Wright, arrive at Port Chalmers. Their mission was to establish a New Zealand branch of the Christian evangelical movement, which had been founded in the slums of London’s East End in 1865.
1899 — The first international radio transmission is sent when inventor Guglielmo Marconi sends a wireless message from England to France.
1913 — A 24hour torrential downpour begins that will flood most areas of Otago and Southland and parts of Canterbury, causing widespread damage. Worst affected are the townships of Gore, Mataura and Wyndham. 1940 — New Zealand prime minister Michael Joseph Savage dies in Wellington after a long illness. Peter Fraser takes over as prime minister on April 1.
1941 — Yugoslavia’s Prince Paul is deposed in a coup following the signing of the Tripartite Pact with the Axis powers.
1943 — Former New Zealand governorgeneral Lord
Galway dies aged 61.
1945 — Germany launches its last V2 rocket from The Hague and it crashes in Orpington, southeast of London; Argentina declares war on Germany and Japan.
1968 — Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut who flew the world’s first manned space mission, is killed in the crash of a training plane; General Suharto is elected Indonesia’s second president, replacing President Sukarno, who lost power in March 1966.
1970 — An earthquake strikes western Turkey,
killing at least 1087 and leaving 90,000 homeless.
1977 — Two Boeing 747s, owned by KLM and
Pan Am, collide and burst into flames on a runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people.
1980 — The Alexander Kielland, a floating platform for offduty oil workers, capsizes in the North Sea, killing 123 people.
1982 — Auckland’s Round the Bays fun run attracts 80,000 participants, at the time, making it the largest jogging event in the world.
1984 — A bomb explodes at the Wellington Trades Hall, killing the caretaker. Noone has been charged with the crime and no clear motive has been established.
1989 — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leading a new wave of militancy in Iran’s 10yearold Islamic revolution, prompts the resignation of his moderate successordesignate, Ayatollah HusseinAli Montazeri.
1998 — The US Food and Drug Administration
approves the drug Viagra.
2013 — New Zealand cricket star Jesse Ryder is
severely beaten outside a Christchurch bar and left fighting for his life after celebrating the end of the cricket season with his Wellington representative teammates. Two men are charged with the assault.
Today’s birthdays:
John Balance, 14th premier of New Zealand (183993); Michael York, English actor (1942); Andrew Farriss, Australian musician (1959); Quentin Tarantino, US film director (1963); Mariah Carey, US singer (1970); Jarrod McCracken, New Zealand rugby league captain (1970); Andrew Blowers, All Black (1975); Fergie (Stacy Ann Ferguson), US singer (1975); George Whitelock, All Black (1986); Alex Pledger, New Zealand basketballer (1987); Kimbra (Kimbra Lee Johnson), New Zealand singer (1990).
Quote of the day:
‘‘Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive, because your words become your behaviour. Keep your behaviour positive, because your behaviour becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.’’ — Mahatma Gandhi, Indian lawyer and anticolonial nationalist (18691948).