Today in History

1770 – British explorer James Cook inadvertently identifies Banks Island, later recognised as a peninsula, during an expedition to map the South Island’s east coast.

1923 – English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of Egyptian King Tutankhamen.

1933 – England regain the Ashes from Australia in the infamous ‘‘bodyline’’ series.

1959 – Fidel Castro becomes premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

1983 – ‘‘Ash Wednesday’’ bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim more than 70 lives.

1985 – The radical Shi’ite group Hizbollah issues its manifesto, declaring its objective to fight against ‘‘American and Israeli imperialism’’.

1986 – Soviet cruise liner Mikhail Lermontov, left, hit rocks off the Marlborough Sounds and sinks. Rescuers save all but one of the 738 passengers and crew.

1998 – Former New Zealand prime minister Jim Bolger announces his departure from Parliament, two months after being rolled as the National Party’s leader.

2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, binding industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, comes into force.

2006 – A referendum on the South Pacific island of Tokelau, population about 1500, narrowly fails to reach the two-thirds majority needed to move from being a colony of New Zealand to independence.

2020 – The US evacuates about 400 citizens from Covid-19-infected cruise ship Diamond Princess, quarantined in Yokohama, Japan.

Birthdays

Bruce Beetham, NZ politician

(1936-97); Laurie Mains, rugby coach (1946-); Kim Jong Il, North Korean leader (1941-2011); Michael Holding, West Indies cricketer (1954-); Vincent Ward, NZ film director (1956-); John McEnroe, US tennis player (1959-).