TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Saturday, July 24, the 205th day of 2021. There are 160 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1883 — Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel (in 1875), drowns while trying to swim the rapids above Niagara Falls.
1901 — The barque Lizzie Bell is wrecked off the Taranaki coast, with the loss of 12 lives.
1909 — UFOs are again reported when a group of boys playing on the beach at Kaka Point report seeing a ‘‘huge illuminated object moving about in the air’’. It was witnessed the following day at 8.30pm and 10.30pm.
1911 — Yale University professor Hiram Bingham discovers the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru.
1929 — Herbert Hoover, in a room filled with representatives from the other nations that had ratified the pact, heralds the KelloggBriand Pact, which renounces war as an instrument foreign policy, in a presidential speech directed at the American people.
1939 — A record snowstorm begins in Dunedin. It will paralyse traffic and isolate the city.
1955 — The electrification of the WellingtontoUpper Hutt train line is completed, allowing the start of New Zealand’s first electric passenger train service.
1965 — Prisoners attempt to set fire to Mt Crawford prison in Wellington.
1969 — The US Apollo 11 astronauts, including the first men to walk on the moon, splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1974 — The US Supreme Court orders President Richard Nixon to surrender 64 White House tape recordings to the Washington District Court conducting the Watergate proceedings; Konstantinos Karamanlis returns from exile and is sworn in as Prime Minister of Greece after the junta relinquishes control. 1976 — The US spacecraft Viking 1 lands on Mars and starts tests to determine whether life exists in the soil of the planet. 1983 — Australian golfer Jack Newton loses an arm and an eye when struck by the propeller of a light aircraft in Sydney. 1987 — Ninetyoneyearold Hilda Crooks climbs Mt Fuji and becomes the oldest person to climb Japan’s highest peak. 1996 — Danyon Loader, of Dunedin, wins a second gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games, in the 400m freestyle. He won the 200m freestyle on July 20. 2018 — Wildfires near Athens, Greece, kill 91 and injure 104. More than 600 people are rescued from the coast by boats.
2019 — The 10millionth Mini car is produced during its 60th anniversary year in Oxford, England.