January 26 in history

On January 26:

340  King Edward III of England is declared King of France.

1500  Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil.

1531  Lisbon was hit by an earthquake–thousands die.

1564 The Council of Trent issued its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

1565 Battle of Talikota, fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Islamic sultanates of the Deccan, led to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent.

1589  Job was elected as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

1699  Treaty of Carlowitz was signed.

 Poland after the Treaty of Karlowitz

1700 A magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America.

1714 Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor, was born.

1722 Alexander Carlyle, Scottish church leader, was born.

1736 Stanislaus I of Poland abdicated his throne.

1788 The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sailed into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.

1808 Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.

A contemporary propaganda cartoon of Bligh’s arrest produced to show Bligh as being a coward^[1]

1813 Juan Pablo Duarte, Dominican Republic’s founding father, was born.

1838 Tennessee enacted the first prohibition law in the United States.

1841 The United Kingdom formally occupied Hong Kong.

1844 Governor Fitzroy arrived to investigate the Wairau incident. 

 

1855 Point No Point Treaty was signed in Washington Territory.

1857 Trinley Gyatso, Tibetan, The 12th Dalai Lama, was born.

1880 Douglas MacArthur, American general, was born.

1885 Troops loyal to The Mahdi conquered Khartoum.

1892 Bessie Coleman, American pioneer aviator, was born.

1904  Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, Nobel Prize Laureate, was born.

1905 The Cullinan Diamond was found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria.

 Glass copies of the nine diamonds cut from the Cullinan

1905 Maria von Trapp, Austrian-born singer, was born,

1907 The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III was officially introduced into British Military Service, and remains the oldest military rifle still in official use.

1908  Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist, was born.

1911 Glenn H. Curtiss flew the first successful American seaplane.

1911 – Richard Strauss‘ opera Der Rosenkavalier debuted at the Dresden State Opera.

1913 Jimmy Van Heusen, American songwriter, was born.

1918 Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romanian dictator, was born.

1920 Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launchedthe Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer.

1922 Michael Bentine, British comedian and founding member of The Goons, was born.

1924 St.Petersburg was renamed Leningrad.

1925  Paul Newman, American actor, philanthropist, race car driver and race team owner, was born.

1930 The Indian National Congress declared 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence) which occurred 20 years later.

1934 The Apollo Theater reopened in Harlem.

1934 – German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact was signed.

1939 Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to nationalist General Francisco Franco and aided by Italy took Barcelona.

1942 World War II: The first United States forces arrived in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.

1945  Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist, was born.

1950 The Constitution of India came into force, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad was sworn in as its first President. 

1952  Black Saturday in Egypt: rioters burnt Cairo’s central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.

1955  Eddie Van Halen, Dutch musician (Van Halen), was born.

1958 Japanese  ferry Nankai Maru capsised off southern Awaji Island, 167 killed.

1958 Ellen DeGeneres, American actress and comedian, was born.

1961 Janet G. Travell  was the first woman to be appointed physician to the president (Kennedy).

1962  Ranger 3 was launched to study the moon.

1965  Hindi became the official language of India.

1978  The Great Blizzard of 1978, a rare severe blizzard with the lowest non-tropical atmospheric pressure ever recorded in the US, struck the Ohio – Great Lakes region with heavy snow and winds up to 100 mph (161 km/h).

1980 – Israel and Egypt established diplomatic relations.

1984 Floods devestated Southland.

 

1988  Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s The Phantom of the Opera had its first performance on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre.

1991  Mohamed Siad Barre was removed from power in Somalia, ending centralized government, and was succeeded by Ali Mahdi.

1992  Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.

1998 Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denied having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2001 An earthquake in Gujarat, India, caused more than 20,000 deaths.

2004 President Hamid Karzai signs the new constitution of Afghanistan.

2004 – A decomposing  whale exploded in the town of Tainan, Taiwan.

Sourced from NZ History Online & WIkipedia.

Haggis Rap

In spite of my tartan genes I haven’t learned to like haggis.

But since it’s Burns’ night, here’s a rap Address To The Haggis from which Robbie was mercifully spared by a couple of hundred years.

My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose

In honour of Robert Burn’s birthday, My Love is Like A Red Red Rose, sung by Eddi Reader.

Monday’s quiz

1. What is Boyle’s law.

2. Which yacht won the last America’s Cup and who was the skipper?

3. Who said, “I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.”?

4.Who wrote, Dust to Gold?

5. Who was the musterer who found the hermit merino Shrek?

Saved by a flasher

A few kilometres out of Tarras I came up behind four vehicles.

The front one was driving at speeds varying from 80 – 90 kph but there was no opportunity to pass safely; and even had there been, I was conscious that a car coming towards us had flashed its lights.

The road went up a hill, round a corner, down another hill and round some more corners before we came to a straight stretch where any or all of the four of us following the front vehicle could have passed with ease.

None of the others did and I was tempted to pass the lot because there was good visibility and plenty of space to do so.

But I remembered the flasher and held back. Moments later I spotted a police car, parked half way along the straight in the shade of a large tree which made it difficult to see until you were very close.

Had it not been for the flasher at least one of those of us following the slow vehicle would have been passing it, we’d have been over the speed limit and the cop would have caught us doing it.

Smart politics

How very clever of the Ratana church to ask for four places high on Labour’s list as a condition of the church’s ongoing support of the party.

Labour couldn’t accept that ultimatum without causing mayhem within the party and losing support from outside.

That leaves Ratana free to take its support elsewhere, using Labour’s refusal to meet its request as an excuse.

January 25 in history

On January 25:

41 Claudius was accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.

1327 Edward III becomes King of England.

1494 Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.

1533 Henry VIII secretly married his second wife Anne Boleyn.

1554  Founding of São Paulo city, Brazil.

          

1627  Robert Boyle, Irish chemist, was born.

1755 Moscow University established on Tatiana Day.

1759 Robert Burns, Scottish poet, was born.

 

1791 The British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.

1792 The London Corresponding Society  was founded.

1796 William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist, was born.

1841 Jackie Fisher, British First Sea Lord, was born.

1858 The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn became a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia.

1874  W. Somerset Maugham, English writer, was born.

1879  The Bulgarian National Bank was founded.

1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.

1882 Virginia Woolf, English writer, was born.

1890  Nellie Bly completed her round-the-world journey in 72 days.

1909 Richard Strauss‘ opera Elektra receive its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera.

1915  Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.

1918 The Ukrainian people declare independence from Bolshevik Russia.

 

 

 

 

1919 The League of Nations was founded.

1924 The first Winter Olympics opened in Chamonix.

1942 : Thailand declared war on the United States and United Kingdom.

1945 World War II: Battle of the Bulge ended.

American soldiers of the 75th Division photographed in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge.

1949  The first Emmy Awards were presented.

1954 Richard Finch, American bass player (KC and the Sunshine Band), was born.

1955 Terry Chimes, English musician (The Clash), was born.

1960 The National Association of Broadcasters reacted to the Payola scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accepted money for playing particular records.

1961 John F. Kennedy delivered the first live presidential television news conference.

1971 – Idi Amin led a coup deposing Milton Obote and became Uganda‘s president.

1974 Dick Taylor won the 10,000 metre race on the first day of competitions at the Christchurch Commonwealth Games.

 1981 Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, was sentenced to death.

1986 The National Resistance Movement toppled the government of Tito Okello in Uganda.

1990 The Burns’ Day storm hits northwestern Europe.

1994 The Clementine space probe launched.

1995 The Norwegian Rocket Incident: Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after it mistook Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.

1996 Billy Bailey became the last person to be hanged in the United States of America.

1999 A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hit western Colombia killing at least 1,000.

2004 Opportunity rover (MER-B) landed on surface of Mars.

2005 A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi in India kills at least 258.

2006 Three independent observing campaigns announced the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb through gravitational microlensing, the first cool rocky/icy extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Sweet Caroline

It’s still Neil Diamond’s birthday.

Is there anyone who was a teenager in the 70s who hasn’t danced to this?

Hot August Night

Happy birthday Neil Diamond, 69 today.

It wasn’t a hot August night, but it was a very warm January evening when Diamond played at QE II Park in 1970 something (75 or 76?).

A friend and I had bought tickets from our holiday earnings. We were determined to get value for our money and we did – we danced and sang and had a ball.

The Album was called Hot August Night but this song is Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show.

Rabbits galore

My father used to tell us of hillsides moving with rabbits on Ashridge in the Hakataramea Valley where he worked in the late 1930s.

A concerted eradication programme, helped by the establishment of Rabbit Boards got the pests under control.

Numbers increased again until the 1990s when someone – illegally – introduced rabbit calicivirus disease (RCD).

The rabbit population dropped but it’s on the rise again.

It’s not unusual to see several rabbits in a very short distance on the road at night. In spite of regular shoots and the efforts of Pepper, the dog, we often see them on the farm and our lawn.

RCD comes in waves and it must be ebbing now. But even at its peak it needs to be complemented by traditional methods of culling – poisoning and/or shooting.

Unfortunately when farm budgets are strained pest destruction may not be a priority for everyone and rabbits don’t stop at the boundaries of farms which don’t do their bit.

We’re not getting back to the moving hillsides my father witnessed but when we came down Mt Iron a couple of weeks ago we counted more than 30 rabbits on a sunny face about the size of a couple of netball courts.

When numbers are getting that bad on the edge of town they’re even worse in the country.

Is it time to consider reinstating pest destruction boards?

Duntroon renaissance

Duntroon is a small township in the Waitaki Valley.

Like the rest of North Otago it was hard hit in the ag-sag of the 1980s. The school roll dropped, the shop and garage closed as farmers stopped spending and jobs on farms and in supporting businesses were lost.

But gradually Duntroon is returning to life. Irrigation has brought more people and prosperity to the valley. The developing wine industry has added to work opportunities and visitor attractions. The Flying Pig cafe opened, a group of volunteers resurrected the old forge then developed a base for the Vanished World Fossil trail.

More recently they spruced up the old gaol which has now been enhanced by the presence of a post policeman handcuffed to the culprit of a crime which is left to the viewer’s imagination.

January 24 in history

On January 24:

41 Gaius Caesar (Caligula), known for his eccentricity and cruel despotism, is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. Claudius succeeded his nephew.

76 Hadrian, Roman Emperor, was born.

1670  William Congreve, English playwright, was born.

1679 – King Charles II disbanded Parliament.

1742 – Charles VII Albert became Holy Roman Emperor.

1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento.

1857 The University of Calcutta was formally founded as the first full-fledged university in south Asia.

1859  Political union of Moldavia and Wallachia; Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected as ruler.

1862  Bucharest proclaimed capital of Romania.

             

 

 

1864 Marguerite Durand, French feminist leader, was born.

1865 General Cameron left Wanganui with 1200 Imperial troops to invade southern Taranaki.

1872 Ethel Turner, Australian author, was born.

1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the federal income tax constitutional.

1924 –Petrograd, formerly Saint Petersburg, was renamed Leningrad.

1928 Desmond Morris, British anthropologist, was born.

1941 Neil Diamond, American singer, was born.

1952 Vincent Massey was sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada.

1957 Adrian Edmondson, English comedian, was born.

1961 – 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs broke up in mid-air over North Carolina. One weapon nearly detonated.

One of the nuclear weapons at Goldsboro, largely intact, with its parachute still attached

1972 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.

1977 Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, during the Spanish transition to democracy.

1978 Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor onboard, burnt up in Earth’s atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada’s Northwest Territories.

 First found Kosmos 954 debris

1984 The first Apple Macintosh went on sale.

 The original 1984 Mac OS desktop featured a radically new graphical user interface. Users communicated with the computer not through abstract lines of code but rather using a metaphorical desktop that included items that the user was already familiar with.

1986 Voyager 2 passed within 81,500 km (50,680 miles) of Uranus.

2003 The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.

2009 Pope Benedict XVI rescinded the excommunications of four bishops consecrated without papal consent in 1988 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Love Story

Erich Segal died last week.

The Guardian obituary, says the fame his first book Love Story brought him: shouldered aside a litany of other accomplishments: as classics scholar and teacher, literary critic and sports commentator, essayist and scriptwriter, historian and practitioner of comedy.

I don’t disagree with that.

I had known little of his other accomplishments until I read the obituary. But like most women, and perhaps a few men, of my generation I’d  sobbed my way through the film when I was a teenager. Then I bought the book and sobbed some more.

It Don’t Mean a Thing

Duke Ellington first played at Carnegie Hall 67 years ago today.

Kiwis love a bargain

Hemi Te Hipkins Senior Cultural Policy Analyst Cultural Policy Section Ministry of Internal Affairs Wellington has found a good reason why few of us are agitating to become a republic.

In a confidential de-briefing to Prince William he writes:

Ignore the gloomy republicans, Sir. Most of us are happy to maintain 1000 years of tradition (or whakapapa as we usually call it here), especially since we basically get the lot on the cheap.

Kiwis love a bargain, Sir, and what we’ve got is a bit like belonging to a library rather than buying the book. We get a Governor General, a couple of posh houses, nice visits (like yours), the odd Speech from the Throne, your Gran’s message at Christmas, and it all costs us about the same as the French pay for Mrs Sarkozy’s posh frocks – and a lot less than the Yanks cough up to run Obama’s chopper!

Apropos of William and our constitutional relationships, Chris Trotter at Bowalley Road has found historical precedents for not following strict rules of succession and has come up with a cunning plan:

WHY NOT KING BILLY? Seriously. It would make the monarchy interesting again – and God knows it needs it!

The alternative is Keith Locke’s worthy (but dull) Head-of-State Referenda Bill, which, if it becomes law, will almost certainly deliver some worthy (but dull) former judge or prime minister (Dame Sylvia Cartwright. Jim Bolger? Helen Clark!) as New Zealand’s first president.

No, if the monarchists are serious about preserving our current constitutional monarchy, HRH Prince William is their best bet. . .

 

. . .  So come on Prime Minister, introduce your own “Royal Succession Bill” and turn HRH Prince William into our very own “King Billy”.

If he refuses his antipodean subjects, he’ll be effectively declaring the New Zealand Republic.

President Helen Clark – anyone?

Now there’s a thought to turn some republicans back into monarchists, but it might also strengthen the resolve of some republicans.

 

Triumph, trials and tragedy in centennial yacht race

The Peninsula Cruising Club’s Canterbury centennial race from Wellington to Lyttelton, set off on this day in 1951.

Only one yacht finished the race and two were lost with all their crew.

Thirteen of the 24 starters were from the South Island including these three:

They were the Aurora, from Dunedin, the Galatea from Lyttelton and the Caplin  from Oamaru.

One of those crewing the Caplin,  was my father.

He kept a log of the voyage which recorded worsening weather.

Tuesday 23rd Jan, 1500 hours: Big jib tore when wind freshened . . . Heavy swell.

Wednesday 245h Jan, 1200 hours: Reefed mainsail again. Seas really mountainous . . . Caplin will not come about in heavy seas when under short sail. . .

1800 hrs: Wind gale force, seas breaching fully . Taking heavy pounding. In past 60 miles sailing have not gained any distance . . . Hove to.

Thursday Jan 26: Hove to all last night. Remained hove to. Did not need a sea anchor . . . Seas breaching badly but only one broke over us so far . . .

1600 hours: Weather forecast advised all shipping yachts in the area of Cook Strait or Kaikoura to take shelter. Decided to run for Cape Campbell about 40 miles away to leeward. Ran under staysail made rapid passage. Caplin runs beautifully.

2020: Cape Campbell light a-beam. Took 4 hours to tack our way round protecting reef. But nervous 10 minutes when the wind dropped completely. Considered starting engine. Wind returned with renewed fury. Dropped anchor.

2400 hours: Anchor started to drag, Broke seals, started engines . . .

Once they’d broken the seals and started the engine they were disqualified from the race. When the weather calmed they set sail and finally reached Lyttelton Harbour on January 30, a week after starting the race.

The race was won by the Nelson sloop Tawhiri. Windswift, from the Banks Peninsular Cruising Club, was second, although somewhat controversially, Dad wrote:

Windswift did not breach engine seals. Anchored in Kaikoura. Received help from fishermen and lay extra anchors. One of crew went ashore & was replaced. New sails taken on board. Only a very poor sportsman would try to claim second prize in these circumstances, more so after the loss of Husky had been confirmed.

Dad was not alone in his view. A newspaper report in the journal records:

“The committee has confirmed the Nelson yacht Tawhiri as the winner of the prizes for first and fastest times in the race,” said a statement issued by the committee of the Banks Peninsula Cruising Club which staged the race after a meeting last night.

“The committee has decided that under the rules of the Yacht Racing Association, the rules which governed the race, there was no other finisher,” the statement said.

But finishing at all was an accomplishment when two yachts were lost. The Husky was wrecked and all crew presumed dead. A second yacht, Argo, failed to make port and in spite of extensive air and sea searches no sign of the boat or crew was found.

Another race entrant, Astral,  was dismasted. A trawler, Tawera, took the yacht in tow but as the weather worsened the tow rope chafed through.

A newspaper report in Dad’s journal records the account of the trawler skipper, George Brasell:

“Astral was carrying a light and all we could do was to stand by alongside her and keep her in view. This was a tremendous task as it was blowing a full gale and a light was only visible when she topped the seas. My crew were tried to their utmost that night and did a wonderful job in trying to keep the Astral in sight. Visibility was very bad. We only picked up land once after leaving Lyttelton.

“About midnight on Friday the crew of the Astral signalled us to put oil on the water. We did as requested until daylight when we started to take the crew off by means of a line dragging each member through the water. Luckily the rescue was carried out successfully. I felt proud of my crew. The rescue was carried out at the height of the gale. . . “

The skipper and crew of Tawera were presented with Humane Society Gold Awards, the society’s highest honour, in recognition of their bravery.

An editorial in the Otago Daily Times of January 30 asked if the race should have been started:

Ocean racing is a most exacting pastime, and even in the best of circumstances, when all human skill and care have been called into play, it is a hazardous once. The sea and the air are truly elements of chance. The history of the classic sea-going yacht races is studded with narratives of accidents, perilous ordeals – and tragedy. . .

One question which clamours for elucidation is whether the race should have been started last Tuesday, when the weather was already deteriorating and the ordinary forecasts . . . were forbidding. . .

. . . Dangers allowed, for it is not in New Zealanders to eschew as element of danger in their recreations, this race should be a test of seamanship, not a struggle for survival.

January 23 in history

On January 23:

971 In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han were soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops. The Southern Han state was forced to submit to the Song Dynasty, ending not only Southern Han rule, but also the first regular war elephant corps employed in a Chinese army that had gained the Southern Han victories throughout the 10th century.

1368  Zhu Yuanzhang ascended to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that lasted for three centuries.

1510  Henry VIII, then 18 years old, appeared incognito in the lists at Richmond, and was applauded for his jousting before he reveals his identity.

1556 The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hit Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.

1570  The assassination of regent James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray threw Scotland into civil war.

1571 The Royal Exchange opened in London.

1579 The Union of Utrecht formed a Protestant republic in the Netherlands.

 

1656 Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales.

1719 The Principality of Liechtenstein was created within the Holy Roman Empire.

 

 

 

1789  Georgetown College, the first Roman Catholic college in the United States, was founded.

1793 Second Partition of Poland: Russia and Prussia partitioned Poland for the second time.

 

Poland after the Second Partition (1793).

1813 Camilla Collett, Norwegian writer and feminist, was born.

 

1832  Edouard Manet, French artist, was born.

1849  Elizabeth Blackwell the USA’s first female doctor, was awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York.

1855 John Moses Browning, American inventor, was born.

1855 A magnitude 8.2 earthquake hit the Welington region.

1855  The first bridge over the Mississippi River opened.

1870 U.S. cavalrymen killed 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in the Marias Massacre.

1897  Sir William Samuel Stephenson, Canadian soldier, W.W.II codename, Intrepid. Inspiration for James Bond., was born.

1897 Elva Zona Heaster was found dead.The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.

 

1899 Emilio Aguinaldo was sworn in as President of the First Philippine Republic.

1904 Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund was devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead.

 Ålesund in 1900 before the fire

1907 Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first Native American U.S. Senator.

1912 The International Opium Convention was signed at The Hague.

1920  The Netherlands refused to surrender ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.

1943 Troops of Montgomery‘s 8th Army captured Tripoli in Libya from the German-Italian Panzer Army.

1943  World War II: Australian and American forces defeated the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marked the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.

1943 Duke Ellington played at Carnegie Hall  for the first time.

1948  Anita Pointer, American singer (Pointer Sisters), was born.

1950 – The Knesset passed a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

1951 Yachts left Wellington bound for Lyttelton in an ocean yacht race to celebrate Canterbury’s centenary.  Only one, Tawhiri, officially finished the race. Two other yachts, Husky and Argo, were lost along with their 10 crew members.

 

1951  Chesley Sullenberger, Captain of US Airways Flight 1549, a flight that successfully ditched into the Hudson River, was born.

1957  Princess Caroline of Monaco, was born.

 

1958 Overthrow in Venezuela of Marcos Pérez Jiménez

1960 The bathyscaphe USS Trieste broke a depth record by descending to 10,911 m (35,798 feet) in the Pacific Ocean.

1964 The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, was ratified.

1973 President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.

1973 A volcanic eruption devastated Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.

1985  O.J. Simpson became the first Heisman Trophy winner elected to the Football Hall of Fame.

1986  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

 

1997 Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.

2003 Final communication between Earth and Pioneer 10

Artist’s Concept of Jupiter Encounter

2009 Dendermonde nursery attack occurred in Dendermonde, Belgium.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Happy birthday Steven Adler, 45 today.

Showing my age and ignorance of modern music, this was the only song of the choices offered for Guns ‘N’ Roses which I recognised.

Making more without raising taxes

The public sector has a responsibility to spend money wisely but there is only so much fat to cut out before it effects services.

Some governments are happy to get more money by raising taxes. Thankfully, this one is not.

But it does have a third option.

Trans Tasman reports:

Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee this week received a report detailing the results of a stock-take of the nation’s mineral wealth and it’s expected it will go through Cabinet consideration in the next few weeks. Brownlee will initiate a consultation process on proposed changes to Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act which rules out mining on listed areas of the conservation estate, (except underground mining which does not disturb the land surface) . . .

The idea of doing a stock-take caused an uproar from the dark green corner, acting on the information will be even more controversial.

But not all conservation land is pristine and beautiful. Some of it is weed and pest infested wasteland.

If there is mineral wealth beneath low value conservation land and it can be extracted with minimum impact on the surrounding area the economic and social benefits will outweigh the environmental cost.

More money available for improved health and education services vs a minor impact on low value conservation land? No contest.

Avoiding tax not only preserve of wealthy

A drop in the tax rate doesn’t always mean a drop in the tax take.

 Kiwiblog reminds us that in the 1980s when tax rates dropped the tax take increased. I rememberthen- Finance Minister Ruth Richardson showing a graph which illustrated the same thing happened in the early 1990s.

The inverse is also the case. If tax rates go up the tax take may not increase as expected because people find ways to avoid paying.

The Tax Working Groups said:

. . .  an Inland Revenue sample of 100 of the highest wealth individuals in New Zealand, data indicate that only about half are paying the highest marginal tax rate on their income. These taxpayers are not necessarily doing anything wrong but are merely taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the current system to shelter income from higher rates.

Tax evasion is illegal, avoidance isn’t. When the top tax rate increased to 38% and Working for Families was introduced, lawyers and accountants had a field day with clients looking to minimise their tax liability.

It wasn’t just minimising tax, it was minimising their income so they’d qualify for WfF and this isn’t confined to the wealthy.

A friend has a business in which employees often work a lot of over time. When WfF was introduced he found several of his staff didn’t want paid for all the hours they worked because the reduction in what they got from WfF had the effect of giving them a high marginal tax rate and it wasn’t worth their while.

Some wanted to work the extra hours and be paid cash or in kind so that their earnings could escape the notice of the IRD. That is not avoidance, it’s evasion and our friend declined to abet them.

Not everyone will be that honest.

That’s why rises in tax rates, or measures like WfF which have a similar effect, don’t necessarily result in a corresponding increase in the tax take and might even reduce it.

And cuts in the rate may increase the take because people stop trying to avoid taxes and put their efforts into earning more instead.