TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Friday, October 23, the 297th day of 2020. There are 69 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1641 — The Great Irish Massacre occurs after the discovery of a conspiracy against the English.
1861 — The first transcontinental telegraph message is sent from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington. On the same day, the Pony Express completed its final run.
1869 — The design of the New Zealand ensign to be flown by ships owned by the colonial government is established by a proclamation by Governor George Bowen. 1871 — The first cloth is produced at Mosgiel. 1895 — The first US Open golf tournament is held at the Newport Golf Club, Rhode Island. It is won by Horace Rawlins (19), who had come from England earlier in the year to work at the club.
1900 — New Zealand’s first electric tram service, at Maori Hill, Dunedin, begins.
1901 — Anna Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls, in the United States, in a barrel and survive. She was trying to raise enough money to pay her mortgage.
1911 — The first aerial reconnaissance mission is flown by an Italian pilot over Turkish lines during the ItaloTurkish War.
1913 — The Union Steam Ship Company locks Wellington waterside workers out over a pay dispute. A nationwide strike follows.
1915 — Ten New Zealand nurses are among 32 New Zealanders who die when the troopship SS Marquette is sunk by torpedo off Greece; physician and cricketer William Gilbert (W.G.) Grace dies. In a career that lasted from 1868 to 1908, he made 126 centuries and scored almost 55,000 runs; some 25,000 women march in New York City, demanding the right to vote.
1929 — With panic selling on New York’s Wall Street, the big banks step in to prop up prices, but their efforts cannot stave off the coming collapse, leading to the Great Depression.
1946 — The United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing Meadow.
1948 — An NAC Lockheed Electra crashes on Mt Ruapehu, killing all 13 on board.
1956 — An anticommunist revolution breaks out in Hungary.
1962 — The Soviet Union warns that a US blockade of arms shipments to Cuba risks a thermonuclear war.
1969 — The Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill lowering the legal drinking age in New Zealand from 21 to 20 is passed, without opposition, through its final three stages; scientists examining the 3000yearold mummy of King Tutankhamun of Egypt determine the boy had been murdered by a sharp blow to the head.
1977 — Palaeontologist Elso Barghoorn announces discovery of a 3.4billionyearold onecelled fossil, one of the earliest life forms on Earth.
1983 — New Zealander Rod Dixon becomes the first nonAmerican to win the New York Marathon.
1992 — The Government approves $27.6 million in funding for Dunedin’s new central police station between Cumberland and Great King Sts. Work is expected to be completed by August 1994.
1996 — A Swiss historian reveals that the bank accounts of presumed Holocaust victims were used to ease Switzerland’s postwar compensation disputes with Poland and Hungary.
2009 — The spectacular lighting of the Oamaru Opera House wins a national award.
2011 — New Zealand defeats France 87 in a nailbiting final to win the Rugby World Cup at Eden Park. Stephen Donald, the fourthchoice first fiveeighth, achieves nationalhero status after kicking what proved to be the winning points.