This Week In History
DECEMBER 5
1973 – Paul McCartney and Wings release their album Band On The Run in the US.
1974 – Final episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus airs on BBC TV.
2001 – While anchored on the Amazon River, New Zealand yachtsman Peter Blake (above) is shot and killed by pirates. He was 53.
2002 – The Two Towers, the second Lord Of The Rings film, directed by Peter Jackson, premieres in New York.
2013 – Former South African President Nelson Mandela dies, aged 95, of a lung infection.
DECEMBER 6
1877 – US inventor Thomas Edison uses his phonograph to record himself reciting Mary Had A Little Lamb.
1969 – A free concert featuring the Rolling Stones, in Altamont, California, is attended by 300,000 people but is marred by four deaths and violence.
1988 – US musician Roy Orbison dies, aged 52, of a heart attack.
2002 – The movie Adaptation, with Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage, premieres.
DECEMBER 7
1941 – Japanese planes attack the US fleet at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii, killing 2403 people.
1967 – Otis Redding, 26, records Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay, which went on to become a huge hit. Three days later he died in a plane crash.
1972 – Apollo 17, the US’s final manned lunar landing mission, is launched. The crew takes the famous “blue marble” photo of Earth.
1979 – Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first movie of the series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, premieres.
2011 – US actor Harry Morgan, who played Colonel Sherman T. Potter in M*A*S*H, dies in his sleep. He was 96.
DECEMBER 8
1978 – The Deer Hunter, starring Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, premieres in Los Angeles. It won the Oscar in 1979 for Best Picture.
1980 – Former Beatle John Lennon, 40, is shot and killed outside his New York apartment by Mark Chapman.
1982 – Sophie’s Choice, starring Meryl Streep (below) and Kevin Kline, is released. The following year Streep won the Oscar for Best Actress.
1983 – Former New Zealand Prime Minister and Governor General Sir Keith Holyoake (above) dies, aged 79, of a stroke.
DECEMBER 9
1960 – Coronation Street broadcasts for the first time, on Britain’s ITV.
1967 – Jim Morrison is arrested on stage at the New Haven Arena, Connecticut, for disturbing the peace, making him one of the first rock stars to be taken into custody during a performance.
1989 – Baywatch’s David Hasselhoff, 37, weds actress Pamela Bach, 26, at Studio City, California.
2015 – Brokeback Mountain, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, is released.
2017 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi (right), starring Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, premieres in Los Angeles.
2019 – White Island/ Whakaari in the Bay Of Plenty erupts, killing 21 people (including two whose bodies were never recovered). Of the 26 survivors, several suffered severe injuries.
DECEMBER 10
1962 – David Lean’s film Lawrence Of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole, premieres at the Odeon, Leicester Square. It won the 1963 Oscar for Best Picture.
1978 – Superman: The Movie, starring Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, premieres in Washington DC.
1985 – Out Of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, premieres in Los Angeles. It won the 1986 Oscar for Best Picture.
2001 – The Fellowship Of The Ring, the Lord Of The Rings film directed by Peter Jackson, premieres in London.
2016 – Bob Dylan is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at a ceremony he does not attend in Stockholm.
DECEMBER 11
1907 – New Zealand’s Parliament buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire.
1936 – King Edward VIII (above right) announces in a radio broadcast that he is abdicating the British throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson (above left).
1967 – The movie Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, premieres in New York.
1980 – Magnum, PI, starring Tom Selleck, premieres on CBS.
1987 – The film Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen, is released.