TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY is Monday, February 8, the 39th day of 2021. There are 326 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1840 — New Zealand’s first labour movement is established when workers at Port Nicholson, Wellington, negotiate an eighthour day.

1851 — Initially issued fortnightly by John B. Todd, the Otago Witness is first published in Dunedin.

1865 — Wellington’s Evening Post newspaper begins publication.

1924 — The first US execution by gas takes place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

1931 — The first fatal accident on a scheduled air service in New Zealand occurs when all three people on board a Dominion Airlines Desoutter are killed when it crashes near Wairoa in northern Hawke’s Bay; A gas explosion and fire in the Fushun coal mine in Manchuria kills 3000.

1936 — New Zealander Sir Peter Buck is appointed to the chair of anthropology at Yale University.

1960 — In Christchurch, Mrs H.L. Garrett becomes the first woman in New Zealand to serve on a jury in a criminal case. She also becomes the first jury forewoman.

1962 — During a demonstration in Paris nine trade unionists are killed by French police at the instigation of the chief of the Paris Prefecture of Police Maurice Papon.

1963 — Weighing almost four tonnes, the first industrial computer arrives in Auckland for use at Tasman Pulp and Paper’s mill at Kawerau; Abdul Salam Arif leads dissident army elements in a coup against Iraqi premier Abdul Karim Kassem, who is killed. Arif is appointed president of Iraq.

1964 — Holland’s Princess Irene renounces her rights to the throne in order to marry Roman Catholic Spanish prince Carlos Hugo of Bourbon Parma.

1972 — The New Zealand women’s cricket team records its first test victory when it defeats Australia by 143 runs in Melbourne. The match was the first women’s test match to be played over four days. Previously, women’s tests were played over three days.

1980 — Marking New Zealand’s 50 years as a crickettestplaying nation, the first test of a threetest series against the touring West Indies gets under way at Carisbrook. The match is remembered as the most acrimonious in New Zealand cricket history. The fiery temperament of the West Indian side overshadowed New Zealand’s onewicket win and Richard Hadlee becoming New Zealand’s most successful bowler. It is remembered most for West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding kicking over the stumps.

1981 — Twentyone football fans are trampled to death while leaving the Karaiskakis Stadium in Neo Faliro, Greece, after a match between Olympiacos F.C. and AEK Athens F.C.

1983 — A dust storm deposits about 11,000 tonnes of topsoil on Melbourne.

1991 — The Waitangi Tribunal declares that Ngai Tahu has legitimate Otago land grievances.

1997 — Six people are shot dead after a gunman goes on a rampage in the central North Island town of Raurimu.

2005 — English sailor Ellen MacArthur sets a solo aroundtheworld sailing record of 71 days and 14 hours.

2010 — A freak storm in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of avalanches and buries over two miles of road and kills no fewer than 172 people and traps more than 2000 others.

2014 — A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia, kills 15 people and injures 130 others.