TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY is Saturday, October 16, the 289th day of 2021. There are 76 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1847 — Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre is published.
1848 — Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, the first and largest in a cluster of earthquakes to strike central New Zealand causes extensive damage in
Wellington. Three people died.
1861 — The first site of the Bank of New Zealand opens in Auckland. Within six months, 10 branches are operating around the country.
1865 — A reluctant Edward William Stafford takes up the post of premier for the second time. He first served from June 1856 to July 1861. His second term lasts until June 1869. A third term in 1872 lasts for just a month. His total time in office is the fifthlongest of any New Zealand leader and the longest of any leader without a political party.
1875 — The Dunedin City Council buys the gasworks for £43,500.
1914 — The New Zealand Expeditionary Force departs Wellington for war service in Europe.
1936 — New Zealander Jean Batten arrives in Mangere, Auckland, having completed the first solo direct flight from England to New Zealand.
1953 — Seven RNZAF servicemen are killed in a midair collision in Christchurch.
1962 — The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when US President John F. Kennedy is informed by his aides that reconnaissance photographs reveal the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
1963 — The Indecent Publications Act, which establishes New Zealand’s Indecent Publications Tribunal, becomes law.
1964 — Defending champion Peter Snell wins the 800m final at the Tokyo Olympic Games; China detonates its first atomic bomb; Harold Wilson becomes British prime minister.
1968 — During their 200m medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City, AfricanAmerican athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a blackgloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem.
1973 — Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize but the Vietnamese general declines the award.
1978 — The College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chooses Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to be the new pope. He takes the name John Paul II and is the first nonItalian pope in 456 years.
1981 — In a Royal Command Performance at the St James Theatre in Auckland, Howard Morrison sings the Maoritranslated version of How Great Thou Art and receives sustained applause.
Whakaaria Mai, when released as a single, remains in the charts for more than six months.
1999 — A New York Air National Guard plane rescues Dr Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole research centre after she spent five months isolated by the Antarctic winter. She had also been treating herself for breast cancer.
2012 — Orokonui Ecosanctuary, near Dunedin, becomes home to 44 wild tuatara. It is the farthest south tuatara have been free to roam in more than 100 years.