January 22 in history

On January 22:

 1506 The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrived at the Vatican.

1521 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, opened the Diet of Worms.

1561 Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, was born.

1771 – Spain ceded Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands to England.

 

1788 George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (Lord Byron), English poet, was born.

1824 – Ashantis defeated British forces in the Gold Coast.

 Map of the Ashanti Region within Ghana

1840 The New Zealand Company’s first settler ship, the Aurora, arrived at Petone, marking the official commencement of the settlement that would eventually become Wellington.

 

  1889 Columbia Phonograph was formed in Washington, D.C.

1899 Leaders of six Australian colonies met in Melbourne to discuss confederation.

1901 Edward VII was proclaimed King after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1905 Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution.

1906 SS Valencia ran aground on rocks on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, killing more than 130.

 SS Valencia shipwreck, seen from one of the rescuing ships

1919 Act Zluky was signed, unifying the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the West Ukrainian National Republic.

 Signing of the Act Zluky, on the St. Sophia Square in Kiev.

1924 Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1927 First live radio commentary of a football match anywhere in the world, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury.

1931 Sir Isaac Isaacs was sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1934 Graham Kerr, British-born, New Zealand chef, was born.

1940 John Hurt, English actor, was born.

1941 British and Commonwealth troops captured Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass.

1946 Iran: Qazi Muhammad declared the independent people’s Republic of Mahabad at Chuwarchira Square in the Kurdish city of Mahabad. He was the new president; Hadschi Baba Scheich was the prime minister.

1946 – Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

1952 The first Jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, entered service for BOAC.

1957  Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.

1957 The New York City “Mad Bomber”, George P. Metesky, was arrested and charged with planting more than 30 bombs.

1959 Knox Mine Disaster: Water breaches the River Slope Mine near Pittston City, Pennsylvania in Port Griffith; 12 miners are killed.

1960 Michael Hutchence, Australian singer (INXS), was born.

1962 Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin of Terengganu, Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia, was born.

1963 The Elysée treaty of cooperation between France and Germany was signed by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer.

1965 Steven Adler, American drummer (Guns N’ Roses), was born.

1968 Apollo 5 lifted off carrying the first Lunar module into space.

 

1973  The Supreme Court of the United States delivered its decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.

1984  The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, was introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous “1984″ television commercial.

 

1987  Pennsylvania politician R. Budd Dwyer shot and killed himself at a press conference on live national television, leading to debates on boundaries in journalism.

1990 Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. was convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet Computer worm.

 Disk containing the source code for the Morris Worm held at the Boston Museum of Science.

1992 Space Shuttle program: STS-42 Mission – Dr. Roberta Bondar became the first Canadian woman in space.

 

1999 Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned alive by radical Hindus while sleeping in their car in Eastern India.

2002 Kmart Corp beccame the largest retailer in United States history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

2006 Evo Morales was inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country’s first indigenous president.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Nessun Dorma

Happy Birthday, Plácido Domingo – 69 today.

Ambassador Moore

Isn’t the response to the appointment of Mike Moore as our next Ambassador to the USA entertaining?

In the media release announcing the appointment Foreign Minister Murray McCully said:

“As a former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation and co-chair of the US-NZ Partnership Forum, Mr Moore is the best possible candidate for this important role.

 Phil Goff welcomed the appointment but Kiwiblog notes Red Alert has not yet managed any congratulatory messages.

Many National supporters were unhappy when Labour appointed Jim Bolger to chair KiwiBank and KiwiRail but the government support of those institutions was anathema to many from the right. Moore’s appointment can’t be directly compared with those when Labour worked hard to advance free trade when it was in power and International relations usually have cross party support.

Audrey Young points out Moore beat McCully in his first election to parliament. Obviously the Minister has long got over that but maybe Labour people have longer, and more bitter, memories.

Moore has earned a good international reputation since leaving parliament. I think he’ll be a strong advocate for New Zealand in the post – as long as the Americans can understand his sometimes idiosyncratic use of the English language

You can’t:

The Tax Working Group says our tax system is sick.

One of the symptoms of that sickness is this:

The top 10% of income earners now pay 44% of all personal income tax (if the impact of WfF, New Zealand Superannuation and other benefits including the unemployment benefit are included, the top 10% of taxpayers now pay 76% of net tax).

Andrei Zen Tiger referred to that in a comment three posts back and said ouch.

Ouch indeed.

That is unsustainable, unfair and reminds me of this quote, attributed (wrongly I think) to Abraham Lincoln:

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Northland drought official

It’s official – Northland is suffering from drought.

Agriculture Minister David Carter said:

The Government has declared Northland as a medium-level drought zone, following a recent meeting of the Northland Rural Support Trust, and a drought recovery package is now in place to help affected farmers,” says Mr Carter.

All three of Northland’s districts – the Far North, Whangarei and Kaipara – are affected.

Drought relief measures offered by the Government include tax assistance for farmers under the Income Equalisation Scheme, farm management advice, welfare support and funding for Rural Support Trusts to provide help.

In the bad old days this sort of help would have been regarded as very parsimonious, but these days farmers know that it’s not the government’s job to bail them out of bad weather.

Those of us who remember farming pre-1984 might recall that the expectation of government assistance could encourage bad practices.

Farmers sometimes delayed making decisions in the hope that the government would step in. When it did, those who had sensibly destocked early, for example, got no help but those who’d delayed got subsidies.

It wasn’t good for farming and it wasn’t good for taxpayers either.

Drought is difficult and depressing, but it’s not an excuse for subsidies.

What is needed is practical help and sustained wet weather.

Federated Farmers has started on the practical assistance, It  has reactivated its Droughtline - 0800 DROUGHT (0800 376 844), – which matches farmers with surplus feed with those in need.

As for the weather, all we can do is pray – let it rain.

January 21 in history

On January 21:

1189 – Philip II of France and Richard I of England began to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade.

1525 – The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptize each other in the home of Manz’s mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union.

1643 Abel Tasman was the first European to reach Tonga.

Fragment of “Portrait of Abel Tasman, his wife and daughter” attributed to Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp,

1749 – The Verona Philharmonic Theatre was destroyed by fire.

1789 The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, was printed in Boston, Massachusetts.

1793 – After being found guilty of treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France was executed by guillotine.

1824   Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, American, Confederate army general was born.

1864 – The Tauranga Campaign started during the New Zealand Land Wars.

1887 – Brisbane received a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres (18.3 inches), a record for any Australian capital city.

1893 – The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, was formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate, which is now Botswana.

1899 – Opel manufactured its first automobile.

1905 Christian Dior, French fashion designer, was born.

Christian Dior

1908 – New York City passed the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, but the measure was vetoed by the mayor.

1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally.

1915 – Kiwanis International  was founded in Detroit, Michigan.

1919 – Meeting of the First Dáil Éireann in the Mansion House Dublin. Sinn Féin adopted Ireland’s first constitution. The first engagement of Irish War of Independence, Sologhead Beg, County Tipperary.

1921 The Italian Communist Party was founded at Livorno.

1924 Benny Hill, English actor, comedian, and singer, was born.

1925  Albania declared itself a republic.

1938 Wolfman Jack, American disk jockey and actor, was born.

1940  Jack Nicklaus, American golfer, was born.

1941 Plácido Domingo, Spanish tenor, was born.

 

1942,  Mac Davis, American musician, was born.

1944 New Zealand & Australia signed the Canberra Pact, which was an undertaking by both countries to co-operate on international matters, especially in the Pacific.

1950 Billy Ocean, West Indian musician, was born.

 1953 Paul Allen, American entrepreneur, co-founder of Microsoft, was born.

1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), was launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the United States.

1958 – The last Fokker C.X in military service, the Finnish Air Force FK-111 target tower, crashed, killing the pilot and winch-operator.

1960 – Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey, lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia, aboard Little Joe 1B – an unmanned test of the Mercury spacecraft.

 

1968 Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicised and controversial battles of the Vietnam War began.

1974 Rove McManus, Australian television host and comedian, was born.

1976 – Commercial service of Concorde began with London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.

1976 Emma Bunton, English singer (Spice Girls), was born.

1977 – President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders.

1981 – Tehran released United States hostages after 444 days.

1997 – Newt Gingrich became the first leader of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.

1999 – War on Drugs: In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepted a ship with over 4,300 kg (9,500 lb) of cocaine on board.

2002 – The Canadian Dollar set all-time low against the US Dollar (US$0.6179).

2008 – Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 11 September 2001, and Asian stocks dropped as much as 15%.

Sourced from NZ hisotry Online & Wikipedia.

It’s not fair

The report of the Tax Working Group was still warm from the printer when the usual suspects started saying, “It’s not fair, the rich benefit most from tax cuts.”

They do for the simple reason they pay more in the first place. I’ve yet to find a better illustration of that fact than this fable which has been circulating by email for years.

Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten people went out for dinner. The bill for all ten came to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

 The first four — the poorest — would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth diner— the richest — would pay $59.

 That’s what they decided to do. The ten diners ate in the same restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement — until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).

 ”Since you are all such good customers,” she said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.” So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.

 The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six — the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?”

 The six remaining diners realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, the fifth and sixth  diners would end up being paid to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each diner’s bill by roughly the same amount, and she proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

 And so the fifth diner paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth with a bill of $52 instead of the earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.

 But once outside the restaurant, the diners began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth who pointed to the tenth. “But he got $7!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth, “I only saved a dollar, too . . . It’s unfair that she got seven times more than me!”.

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh, “why should she get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four diners in unison, “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

 The nine diners turned on the tenth and accused her of being greedy. The next night she didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without her. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late, they were $52 short of paying the bill!

And that is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in other places which tax less.

Where would that leave the rest who can’t afford to go there for dinner?

This is of course simplistic. It doesn’t take into account their are taxes other than income tax, like GST, which everyone regardless of their income pays.

But wealthier people have more disposable income which means they usually consume more and pay more consumption tax too.

Hold Me, Touch Me

Happy birthday Paul Stanley, 58 today.

George Burns hosts Muppet Show

George Burns would have been 114 today.

Summer was there but now I’m here

Wanaka was basking under a cloudless sky and enjoying a lovely 26 degrees when I left at 2 yesterday afternoon.

North Otago skies were cloudy and it was only 16 degrees when I got home 2 1/2 hours later.

It tried to rain overnight and we woke to a cool, misty morning.

Summer was there, but now I’m here in two layers of merino.

Sigh.

Water’s running out

Meridian Energy is spilling water from the Waitaki dams – Benmore, Aviemore and Waitaki – becasue the hydro lakes are too full.

The water pouring over the Waitaki Dam reminded me that Federated Farmers keeps reminding us our problem isn’t that New Zealand is running out of water but that the water is running out of New Zealand.

When we’ve got this much water rushing out to sea, what’s the problem with harvesting some for irrigation, power generation and recreation?

January 20 in history

On January 20:

Emperor Decius began a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome. Pope Fabian was martyred.

1265 In Westminster, the first English parliament conducts its first meeting held by Simon de Montfort in the Palace of Westminster.

1356 Edward Balliol abdicated as King of Scotland.

1523 Christian II was forced to abdicate as King of Denmark and Norway.

1649 Charles I of England went on trial for treason and other “high crimes”.

1788 The third and main part of First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay. Arthur Phillip decided that Botany Bay is unsuitable for location of a penal colony, and decides to move to Port Jackson.

1840  Dumont D’Urville discovered Adélie Land, Antarctica.

 

1840 – Willem II became King of the Netherlands.

1841  Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British.

1885  L.A. Thompson patented the roller coaster.

 Thompson’s Switchback Railway

 1887  The United States Senate allowed the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

1892  At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first official basketball game was played.

 The first basketball court: Springfield College.

1896  George Burns, American actor, comedian, was born.

1899  Clarice Cliff, English ceramic, was born.

1910 Joy Adamson, Austrian naturalist and writer, was born.

1921 The first Constitution of Turkey was adopted, making fundamental changes in the source and exercise of sovereignty by consecrating the principle of national sovereignty.

1926 Patricia Neal, American actress, was born.

1929  In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, was released.

1930  Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut, was born.

1934  Tom Baker, British actor, was born.

1936  Edward VIII became King of the United Kingdom.

 

1937 Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This was the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were scheduled on March 4.

1950  Liza Goddard, British actress, was born.

1952 Paul Stanley, American musician (Kiss), was born.

1957 Scott Base opened in Antarctica.

1959 The first flight of the Vickers Vanguard.

1960 Hendrik Verwoerd announces a plebiscite on whether South Africa should become a Republic.

1961  John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man, and first-ever Roman Catholic, to become elected President of the United States.

1965   Sophie, The Countess of Wessex, was born.

1981 Irann released 52 American hostages twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as U.S. President, the oldest man to be inaugurated at 69.

1987  Church of England envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped in Lebanon.

1990  Black January – crackdown of Azerbaijani pro-independence demonstrations by Soviet army in Baku.

 Soviet tanks in Baku during Black January.

1991 Sudan‘s government imposed Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south.

2001  Philippine president Joseph Estradawas ousted in a nonviolent 4-day revolution, and was succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

2009 Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America – the United States’ first African-American president.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Those were the good old days?

This episode of I Love Lucy  was considered pretty forward when it screened 57 years ago today.

It shows attitudes to pregnancy, birth and women which suggest that those weren’t necessarily the good old days.

Let It Be Me

Happy birthday Phil Everly – 71 today.

Tuesday’s answers

Monday’s questions were:

1. Who is North & South’s editor?

2. Who are the three main characters in A Town Like Alice?

3. Who is the founder and CEO of Ice Breaker?

4. Who was made a Dame for her services to children in the New Year Honours?

5. Who said, “There is something fascinating about science.  One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” ?

Kismet got 2 2/3.

Rob got 2 and a bonus for lateral thinking for 5.

Andrei got one and a wee bonus for giving Twain’s real name as well.

Paul got 2 2/3 and a bonus for satire for his answer to 4.

David got 1.

Lynley Dodd is a Dame but she didn’t get the honour in the New Year honours. She was given the title-less honour a few years ago and became a Dame last year when National reinstated titular honours.

As to the degree of difficulty – that always depends on whether or not you know the answers.

Tuesday’s answers follow the break:

Cash costs too

Why the fuss about some businesses choosing to charge people who pay by credit card?

It’s just user pays.

Credit card companies charge businesses for each transaction they process and if the card user doesn’t pay every customer has to which doesn’t seem fair.

That’s why some businesses offer a discount for cash, although as the   ODT editorial points out, that incurs a cost for businesses too.

Executive vice-president of Visa Europe Steve Perry, reported in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, suggests that for the economy as a whole, using cash is an expensive way of making payments.

The total cost to society of making payments by cash, cheques and cards equates to 2%-3% of GDP, and handling cash accounts for two-thirds of the cost, he estimates.

As well, for a retailer, handling cash costs as much as the transaction fee on a credit card.

He argues cards are less risky than cash, more efficient and better value.

This explains why most shops don’t usually mind if customers ask for some cash when they pay by EFTPOS. It saves them the time and expense of banking notes and coins.

It would be a brave business which took the next step and tried to charge a customer for paying by cash. 

But they could encourage people to stop paying by credit card or cash by offering discounts for EFTPOS or direct payments via the internet.

Another Easter Trading Bill

Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean is preparing a private member’s bill to enable Wanaka businesses to trade legally on Easter Sunday.

Mrs Dean has gained approval from the National Party caucus to spearhead a Bill directed specifically at the Queenstown Lakes district, which she says will address concerns in Wanaka about Easter trading.

It would apply specifically to the Queenstown Lakes District Council and aim to correct the anomalies in the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act (1990), in which Queenstown was granted a general exemption to trade at Easter but Wanaka was not, she said.

The current legislation is full of anomalies, one of which is that retailers in Queenstown can trade when those over the hill in Wanaka can’t.

Another is that Wanaka’s book store and supermarket can’t open but the town’s petrol station can sell magazines and food.

This will be Jacqui’s second bill on the issue, the first which was aimed at Easter Trading in general wasn’t passed. Rotorua MP Todd McLay tried another bill to address the issue last year but that failed by a few votes.

This isn’t an attack on anyone’s faith. It’s what you believe and do which makes a day holy, not what the law allows.

It’s not an attack on workers or families. Most shops in Wanaka open anyway,

This is just an attempt to allow them to do so legally.

January 19 in history

On January 19:

1607 San Agustin Church in Manila, now the oldest church in the Philippines, was officially completed.

1736 James Watt, Scottish inventor, was born.

1764  John Wilkes was expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.

1788  Second group of ships of the First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay.

1795  Batavian Republic was proclaimed in the Netherlands. End of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.

 

 

 

 

1806 – The United Kingdom occupied the Cape of Good Hope.

1807  Robert E. Lee, American Confederate general, was born.

1809 Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet, was born.

1817 An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crossed the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.

1829 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe‘s Faust Part 1 premiered.

1839  Paul Cézanne, French painter, was born.

1839 The British East India Company captured Aden.

  

 

 

 1840 Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigated Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.

1845 Hone Heke cut down the British flag pole for the third time.

1848 Matthew Webb, English swimmer/diver  first man to swim English Channel without artifical aids, was born.

 

1853 – Giuseppe Verdi‘s opera Il Trovatore premiered in Rome.

1883  The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, began service at Roselle, New Jersey.

1893 Henrik Ibsen‘s play The Master Builder premiered in Berlin.

1899 – Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was formed.

1915  Georges Claude patented the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.

1915  German zeppelins bombed the cities of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn killing more than 20, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.

1917 German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sent the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States.

1917 – Silvertown explosion: 73 killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant in London.

1918 Finnish Civil War: The first serious battles between the Red Guards and the White Guard.

1923 Jean Stapleton, American actress, was born.

1935 Coopers Inc.  sold the world’s first briefs.

1935  Johnny O’Keefe, Australian singer, was born.

1937 Howard Hughes set a new air record by flying from Los Angeles, California to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.

1939 Phil Everly, American musician, was born.

1942  Michael Crawford, British singer and actor, was born.

1943 Janis Joplin, American singer, was born.

1943  Princess Margriet of the Netherlands, was born.

1945  Soviet forces liberate the Łódź ghetto. Out more than 200,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived the Nazi occupation.

1946  Dolly Parton, American singer and actress, was born.

1946 General Douglas MacArthur established the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.

1947 Rod Evans, British musician (Deep Purple), was born.

1951  Dewey Bunnell, American singer and songwriter (America), was born.

1953 68% of all television sets in the United States were tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth to Desi Arnaz, Jr., American actor.

1966 Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India.

1972 – Princess Kalina of Bulgaria, was born.

1977 – Snow fell in Miami, Florida for the only time time in the history of the city.

1978  The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany left VW’s plant in Emden.

1981 United States and Iranian officials signed an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.

1983  Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was arrested in Bolivia.

1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, was announced.

1993 – IBM announced a $4.97 billion loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history.

1996  The barge North Cape oil spill occurred as an engine fire forced the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.

 Tug Scandia and tank barge North Cape

1997 Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron after more than 30 years and joined celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city.

2006 – The New Horizons probe was launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Drinking Scene

Oliver Hardy was born on this day in 1892.

Tongue Twisters

Danny Kaye would have been 97 today.

His show was on television in the 60s, we didn’t have TV but our neighbours did and we were allowed to watch Danny Kaye most weeks.