TODAY IN HISTORY ODT and agencies
TODAY is Thursday, December 31, the 366th and final day of 2020. Highlights in history on this date:
1759 — Arthur Guinness signs a 9000year lease at £45 per annum on the 4acre brewery at St James’s Gate in Dublin, and starts brewing Guinness.
1853 — Sir George Grey concludes his time as governor of New Zealand and leaves from Auckland on the barque Commodore for England before taking up the post of governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa. He will return to New Zealand eight years later for a second term as governor (186168) and, later still, head the elected government as premier (187779).
1857 — Queen Victoria decides to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
1872 — Governor Sir George Bowen formally opens the Dunedin to Port Chalmers Railway.
1873 — The Surat is wrecked near the mouth of the Catlins River.
1878 — Karl Benz files for a patent on his first reliable twostroke gas engine.
1938 — Dr Rolla Harger’s Drunkometer, the first breath test for cardrivers, is officially introduced in Indianapolis.
1944 — A fire at the military depot at the Palmerston North Showgrounds causes damage worth an estimated £1 million.
1946 — US president Harry Truman formally declares an end to all hostilities in World War 2.
1951 — The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $US13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild western Europe.
1955 — General Motors becomes the first US corporation to make more than $US1 billion in a year.
1958 — A crowd of 30,000 attends Auckland’s Alexandra Park for New Zealand’s first night trotting meeting.
1964 — Indonesian President Sukarno threatens to quit the United Nations if Malaysia is given a seat on the UN Security Council.
1966 — The US says it will halt the bombing of North Vietnam when Hanoi gives an assurance that it will discuss peace terms seriously.
1968 — The UN Security Council censures Israel unanimously for a helicopter commando raid on the airport at Beirut, Lebanon.
1974 — Private US citizens are allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
1978 — After being first witnessed by Safe Air pilot Bill Startup and his crew 10 days earlier, pictures of are claimed to be UFOs are recorded by a television crew from an aircraft over Kaikoura, sparking international interest; Taiwanese diplomats strike their colours (lower their flag) for the final time from the embassy flagpole in Washington, marking the end of diplomatic relations with the US.
1983 — Benjamin Ward is appointed the New York City Police Department’s first African American police commissioner.
1987 — Violent protests erupt in Jerusalem’s West Bank as Palestinians prepare to observe the January 1 anniversary of the
Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) main guerrilla group.
1990 — The Israeli air force attacks a PLO base near Sidon, Lebanon, killing 12 guerrillas belonging to Yasser Arafat’s Al Fatah faction.
1991 — Representatives of North Korea and South Korea agree not to use nuclear weapons.
1992 — Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
1993 — The teenage granddaughter of Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrives in the US for
a reunion with her mother, who had defected from Cuba the previous week.
1994 — A New Year’s Eve assault by Russian forces in Grozny, Chechnya, produces one of the bloodiest days of the Chechen War. Both sides claim success.
1996 — About 4000 people make their way to the remote location of Canaan Downs, Takaka, to take part in the first Gathering, a twoday festival for electronic dance music fans. The event is then held annually for the next six years.
1998 — Ashburton teenager Kirsty Bentley disappears while walking the family dog. Her badly decomposed body is found two and ahalf weeks later in the Rakaia Gorge area. The case has not been solved.
1999 — Boris Yeltsin resigns as president of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting president and his successor; the US government hands control of the Panama Canal and all adjacent land to Panama.
2003 — Middlemarch records a temperature of 36degC, the highestequal December temperature recorded in Otago.
2004 — The Taipei 101, the world’s tallest skyscraper at that time with a height of 509m, is officially opened. 2009 — Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur. The next eclipse in conjunction with a blue moon on New Year’s Eve will occur on December 31, 2028.
2019 — China alerts the World Health Organisation (WHO) to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a port city of 11 million people in the central Hubei province. Several of those infected worked at the city’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which was shut down the next day. The virus is identified on January 7 and named 2019nCoV and is established as belonging to the coronavirus family, which includes Sars and the common cold. China announced its first death from the virus, a 61yearold man who had purchased goods from the seafood market, on January 11. The virus then spreads around the world, causing a global economic meltdown and the cancellation of large gatherings and sporting events.
Today’s birthdays:
Henry Keesing, New Zealand businessman/ community leader (17911879); John Mackintosh Roberts, New Zealand soldier/ magistrate (18401928); Harold Septimus Power, New Zealandborn Australian artist (18771951); Ray Bell, All Black (19252016); Clem Parker, New Zealand sprinter (19262017); Ron Johnston, New Zealand speedway rider (19302014); Billy Apple, New Zealand artist (1935); Anthony Hopkins, English actor (1937); Sarah Miles, British actress (1941); Ben Kingsley, British actor (1943); Jane Evans, New Zealand artist (19462012); Kay Cohen, New Zealandborn fashion designer (1952); Sir Vaughan Jones, New Zealand mathematician (1952); Eric Hertz, New Zealand businessman (19542013); Peta Rutter, New Zealand actress (19592010); Andrew Perkins, New Zealand composer (1961); Andrew Stroud, New Zealand motorcycle racer (1967); Richie McCaw,
All Black captain (1980); Jesse Peach, New Zealand journalist/actor (1983); Marlon
Williams, New Zealand singer/songwriter (1990); Ellesse Andrews, New Zealand cyclist (1999); Reid Walker, New Zealand actor (1999).
Quote of the day:
‘‘A woman is like a tea bag — you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.’’ — Eleanor Roosevelt, US political figure/diplomat/activist (18841962).