TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Monday, February 22, the 53rd day of 2021. There are 312 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1879 — Frank Winfield Woolworth opens a 5 cent store in Utica, New York.
1886 — The Times becomes the first British newspaper to institute a personal column in its classified pages.
1902 — A cable tram service in Wellington begins operating, transporting passengers between Lambton Quay and Kelburn.
1927 — The Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) arrive on HMS Renown in Auckland.
1933 — Malcolm Campbell establishes a world land speed record speed of 272.46mph (438.48kmh) driving his famous Blue Bird car at Daytona Beach, Florida.
1935 — US president Franklin D. Roosevelt bans all aircraft from flying over the White House, because they disturbed his sleep. The ban is still in effect today, serving as a security measure.
1941 — Sir Cyril Newall assumes office as New Zealand GovernorGeneral. He holds the post until April 1946, and is best remembered for his controversial reference in a speech to the ‘‘men of the navy, men of the army and gentlemen of the air force’’.
1967 — The 82day military operation conducted by US and South Vietnamese forces begin during the Vietnam War. It is the largest US airborne operation since World War 2, and one of the largest US operations of the war; Indonesia’s President Sukarno surrenders power to premier General Suharto, remaining president in name only.
1972 — Qatar’s heir apparent, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, overthrows the oil state’s emir, Sheikh Ahmed, in a bloodless coup.
1980 — The Israeli government introduces a new currency, the shekel, replacing the Israeli pound; in what has become known as the ‘‘Miracle on Ice’’, the United States ice hockey team defeats the Soviet Union 43 at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
1985 — Labour prime minister David Lange in a speech says New Zealand’s policy is ‘‘neither antiAmerican, nor antialliance [Anzus]. It is simply antinuclear’’.
1989 — British physicist Stephen Hawking calls the proposed missile defence system known as Star Wars a ‘‘deliberate fraud’’.
1991 — US president George Bush demands that Saddam Hussein begin an unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait by noon the following day or risk a ground war with the allied forces.
1997 — Dolly the Sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal (from an adult cell), is announced by the Roslin Institute in Scotland.
2006 — At least six men steal £53 million from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent. It remains Britain’s biggest robbery.
2011 — A magnitude6.3 earthquake centred 5km below the surface near Lyttelton strikes Christchurch at 12.51pm, leaving the central business district and Lyttelton township in ruins. Christchurch Cathedral and a number of other historical buildings are destroyed. The Canterbury TV and Pyne Gould Corporation buildings collapse and become the focus of rescue attempts. With 185 people losing their lives around the city and an estimated 2000 injured prime minister John Key declares a national state of emergency and describes the event as ‘‘New Zealand’s darkest day’’. The earthquake triggered a spectacular glaciercalving at the Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake, a 30 milliontonne iceberg breaking off the glacier.
2014 — President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine is impeached by the Ukraine parliament by a vote of 3280, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.
2017 — President Donald Trump’s administration revoke a landmark guidance to public schools letting transgender pupils use the bathrooms of their choice, reversing a signature initiative of former Democratic president Barack Obama.
2018 — Wanaka 16yearold Zoi SadowskiSynnott wins New Zealand’s first Olympic Winter Games medal in 26 years, and just New Zealand’s second winter games medal ever, when she wins a bronze medal in the women’s snowboard big air at Pyeong Chang; two hours later New Zealand has further success when fellow Wanaka teenager Nico Porteous wins the bronze medal in the men’s freestyle ski halfpipe.
Today’s birthdays:
John Hobbs, New Zealand missionary/interpreter (180083); W.D.H. Baillie, New Zealand politician (18271922); Henry Widenham Maunsell, New Zealand physician/ surgeon (184595); James Wright Munro, New Zealand businessman/ politician (18701945); Frank Worsley, New Zealand sailor/explorer (18721943); Patrick Joseph Twomey, New Zealand leprosy fundraiser (18921963); Sydney Carleton, All Black (190473); Theo Allen, New Zealand middledistance runner (19142003); J. Alexander Grant, New Zealand ballet dancer (19252011); Vance Drummond, New Zealandborn Australian/US combat pilot (192767); Con Devitt, New Zealand trade unionist (19282014); Ivan Mercep, New Zealand architect (19302014); Alan Kirton, New Zealand agricultural scientist (19332001); Don Merton, New Zealand conservationist (19392011); Fleur Beale, New Zealand fiction writer (1945); Julie Walters, English actress (1950); Dennis Marsh, New Zealand country music singer (1951); Brad McGann, New Zealand film director/screenwriter (19642007); Jeri Ryan, US actress (1968); Thomas Jane, US actor (1969); James Blunt, British singer/songwriter (1974); Drew Barrymore, US actress (1975); Zach Roerig, US actor (1985); Lesley Cantwell, New Zealand racewalker (19872013).
Quote of the day
‘‘It’s the combination of marrying a beautiful woman three decades younger and my iPad that keeps me young.’’ — Sir Bruce Forsyth, British entertainer, who was born on this day in 1928. He died in 2017, aged 89.