Today in history
Today is Tuesday, April 28, the 119th day of 2020. There are 247 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1770 — British Captain James Cook, aboard the
Endeavour, lands at Botany Bay in Australia
1789 — On a return journey from Tahiti, the crew of the British ship Bounty mutinies and sets Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in the South Pacific.
1864 — In the main action of the Tauranga campaign, the bombardment of Gate Pa begins. The 1700strong British force under Lieutenantgeneral Cameron is heavily armed as it engages 230 mostly Ngai Te Rangi defenders.
1876 — Queen Victoria is declared Empress of India.
1888 — A precursor to the British and Irish Lions, the first British rugby team to tour New Zealand and Australia plays its first match of the tour against Otago, at Dunedin’s Caledonian Ground in front of 10,000 spectators. It scored two dropped goals and a try to win 83. Four days later, it won a return match 43. It returned in September for a third match against Otago, drawing nilall.
1910 — Grafton Bridge in Auckland is offically opened. With an arch almost 98m wide, it was at the time the largest singlespan concrete bridge in the world; the first night air flight by Claude GrahameWhite in England.
1936 — King Farouk ascends the throne in Egypt. 1937 — The first commercial flight across the Pacific is operated by Pan Am.
1941 — Southlander Jack Hinton’s actions at
Kalamata during the evacuation from Greece, despite being wounded and taken prisoner, are recognised when he is awarded the Victoria
Cross for bravery.
1944 — A rehearsal for DDay ends with 750 American soldiers dead after their convoy ships are attacked by German torpedo boats off Slapton Sands, Southwest England.
1945 — Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress are executed by partisans in World War 2.
1947 — A sixman expedition sails from Peru aboard a balsawood raft named the KonTiki on a 101day journey across the Pacific to Polynesia.
1967 — Heavyweight boxing champion
Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the US army.
1969 — Peter McKeefry, the Catholic archbishop of Wellington, is proclaimed New Zealand’s first cardinal; Charles De Gaulle resigns as French president after voters reject major government reforms in a referendum.
1977 — Andreas Baader and members of terrorist group the Red Army Faction (BaaderMeinhof Gang) are jailed for life following a trial lasting almost two years in Stuttgart, Germany.
1987 — Australian businessman and adventurer Dick Smith becomes the first person to fly over the North Pole in a helicopter.
1995 — Fourteen people plunge 30m to their deaths when a viewing platform at Cave Creek, in the West Coast’s Paparoa National Park, collapses.
1996 — Gunman Martin Bryant (28) kills 35 people and wounds 18 others at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Among his victims was New Zealand winemaker Jason Winter.
1998 — British explorer David Hempleman Adams reaches the geographic North Pole, becoming the first person to reach the earth’s magnetic and geographic poles. He has also climbed the highest peaks in all seven continents.
2001 — A Russian rocket lifts off from central Asia bearing the first space tourist, Californian businessman Dennis Tito, and two cosmonauts
on a journey to the International Space Station. 2011 — Heavy rain falls in the central North Island, causing widespread flooding in Hawke’s Bay.
— Otago and the remaining areas of the South Island move to digital television. Westland and Nelson areas had changed earlier.
Today’s birthdays:
King Edward IV of England (14421483); James Monroe, US president (17581831); AnnMargret (born AnnMargret Olsson), Swedishborn US actress (1941); Jay Leno, US television personality (1950); Jimmy Barnes, Scottishborn Australian singer (1956); Bridget Moynahan, US actress (1971); Andrew Mehrtens, All Black (1973); Penelope Cruz, Spanish actress (1974); Kris Gemmell, New Zealand triathlete and 2002 world aquathon champion (1977);
Thomas Waldron, New Zealandborn English rugby union representative (1983).
Quote of the day:
‘‘That period afterwards, just hating being the winner of the Tour de France, hating cycling, hating the media for asking me questions about Lance Armstrong.’’ — Bradley Wiggins, former British professional road and track racing cyclist, who was born on this day in 1980.