Making the news

Good journalists are supposed to report the news not make it.

This has escaped Australia’s Channel 9 which was disappointed by the handful of people who turned out to see Prince William arrive.

A reporter from Channel Nine’s Today show was asked by her bosses to find some fans holding signs.

When she couldn’t, the reporter says she was told by the studio in Sydney to “make some up herself”.

The Channel Nine reporter wrote signs in pen saying “I love William” and gave them to a small group of women.

The reporter then did a live cross in front of the signs but did not mention they were her own creation.

The reporter told the ABC it was a “light hearted running joke on breakfast television” and the signs will not be on the news tonight.

Had the reporter been on the ball she’d have realised the real news story is that royal visits don’t really rate with the public any more which is a symptom of the slow but inevitable move towards a republic.

Journalists following the prince seem to be a lot more excited than the locals:

“It’s low-key to say the least,” said Hello! reporter Judy Wade, a longtime royal watcher who has followed Prince William since the day he was born.

“Compared to people back home, those here really don’t seem that interested at all.

“As one Kiwi I spoke to put it: I think they’d rather spend a nice day like this at the beach.”

Quite.

But while the lack of interest might be a symptom of a move towards a republic, No Right Turn thinks it might also be a hand brake because too few people care enough to agitate for change:

The British royal-watchers call this “a distinct pro-republican feeling”, but its more that we just don’t give a damn – the monarchy is simply utterly irrelevant to our lives. Though from a republican view, that irrelevance is a two-edged sword; not giving a damn also tends to mean not giving a damn about getting rid of them. Hence the slow drift to republicanism; no-one cares about them, but no-one cares enough to finally sign the paperwork to get them out of our lives either…

I think a republic is inevitable,  I’m generally supportive of that in theory and have no problem with people not turning out in droves to meet the Prince. But I am not impressed by those who plan to protest at the opening of the Supreme Court building today.

I won’t second Alf Grumble’s desire to behead anti-royalists but I think the anti royal protest, and another by Justice staff who want a pay increase, are merely displaying bad manners and a desire for publicity.

Though at least this time the crowd will probably bring their own placards  which will save the reporters from having to make some themselves.

Hat Tip: NBR

Monday’s quiz

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.” ?

Too much information

One of the supposed strengths of  NCEA is that it shows what pupils know and that should be helpful to employers.

In our experience it’s not.

In the old system we could look at results and see percentage marks which would tell us quite a bit about an applicant’s ability to read, write, remember and reason.

The new system has far too much information much of which means nothing to anyone outside the education system and most of which is irrelevant to employers.

Even in practical subjects it’s not as much help as it should be. It appears the ability to explain what you’re doing has too much weight and in farming many of theyoung  people we employ are better at what they do than explaining why and how they do it.

That’s not to say the ability to communicate and explain isn’t important. It is, but often young people in general and young blokes in particular, haven’t learned to do that yet.

The old system was far from perfect but I’m yet to be convinced the new one is any better.

The curse of opposition

Guyon Espiner ended his North & South column on his predictions for government initiatives in the coming year by saying:

Which brings us to Labour, well it doesn’t really, but I guess I have to mention them. Right at the end.

There. I think that’s accorded them an amount of space commensurate with their level of relevance.

That’s the curse of opposition, especially when you’ve been there a short time after a very long time in government.

It’s even more difficult when the new government and the Prime Minister are as popular as this National-led one and John Key are at the moment.

If Labour highlight a problem or propose new policy they’ll be asked why they didn’t do something about it when they were in power.

That’s if anyone takes any notice which isn’t likely when, as Espiner points out, they’re barely relevant.

January 18 in history

On January 18:

1535  Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, the capital of Peru.

1591 King Naresuan of Siam killed Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in single combat,  this date is now observed marked as Royal Thai Armed Forces day.

1670  Henry Morgan captured Panama.

1778 James Cook was the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the “Sandwich Islands“.

1779 Peter Mark Roget, British lexicographer, was born.

1788 The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australa arrived at Botany Bay.

The Charlotte at Portsmouth before departure in May 1787

1813 Joseph Glidden, American farmer who patented barbed wire, was born.

1849  Sir Edmund Barton, 1st Prime Minister of Australia, was born.

1854 Thomas Watson, American telephone pioneer, was born.

1871 – Wilhelm I of Germany was proclaimed the first German Emperor in the ‘Hall of Mirrors’ of the Palace of Versailles towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. The empire was known as the Second Reich to Germans.

1882 A. A. Milne, English author, was born.

1884 Dr. William Price attempted to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.

1886 Modern field hockey was born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.

1889 Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer, was born.

1892  Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor, was born.

1896 The X-ray machine was exhibited for the first time.

1903  President Theodore Roosevelt sent a radio message to King Edward VII: the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.

1904 Cary Grant, English actor, was born.

1911 Eugene B. Ely landed on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.

1913  Danny Kaye, American actor, was born.

1916  A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite struck a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.

1919  The Paris Peace Conference opened in Versailles.

“The Big Four” during the Paris Peace Conference (from left to right, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson)

1919  Ignacy Jan Paderewski became Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.

1919 Bentley Motors Limited was founded.

1933 Ray Dolby, American inventor (Dolby noise reduction system), was born.

Dolby (left)  inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

1943  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

A group of SS men on the street of Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising

1944 Paul Keating, twenty-fourth Prime Minister of Australia, was born.

Paul Keating in 1979

1944 The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosted a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.

1944 – Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending a three year Nazi siege, known as the Siege of Leningrad.

Diorama of the Siege of Leningrad, in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, in Moscow

1945 Liberation of the Budapest ghetto by the Red Army.

1954  Tom Bailey, English musician (Thompson Twins), was born.

1955  Battle of Yijiangshan.

1958 – Willie O’Ree, the first African Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut.

1969  United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay resulting in the loss of all 32 passengers and six crew members.

1974 A Disengagement of Forces agreement was signed between the Israei and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.

1977  Scientists identified a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.

1977 – Australia’s worst rail disaster at Granville, Sydney killed 83.

1978  The European Court of Human Rights found the United Kingdom government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.

1980 Upper Hutt’s Jon Stevens made it back-to-back No.1 singles when ‘Montego Bay’ bumped ‘Jezebel’ from the top of the New Zealand charts.

1994 The Cando event, a possible bolide impact in Cando, Spain. Witnesses claimed to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute.

1997  Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.

1998 Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge broke the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair story on his website The Drudge Report.

2000 The Tagish Lake meteorite hit the Earth.

A 159 gram fragment of the Tagish Lake meteorite

2002 Sierra Leone Civil War declared over.

2003 A bushfire killed 4 people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.

2005 The Airbus A380,, the world’s largest commercial jet, was unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse.

2007 The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years killed 14 people, Germany’s worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Hurricane Kyrill, caused at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. Other losses included the Container Ship MSC Napoli destroyed by the storm off the coast of Devon.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop and Charely Horse

Shari Lewis would have been 77 today.

A Town Like Alice

Nevil Shute would have been 111 today.

The first of his books I read was Requiem For A Wren. It made such an impact I sought out his other novels and read several other before I came across his best known novel, A Town Like Alice.

This is from an ABC mini-series.

NCEA inconsitencies

Her teacher praised her art work and said she was a very talented artist with a unique style. Then she warned that NCEA assessors might not mark her work highly.

The teacher was right. The pupil who had been top of the class all year just scraped through the external assessment.

His teacher said he’d never seen a better graphics project but he failed the external assessment.

NCEA is criticised for the potential for massaging internal assessment results to make schools look good but this wasn’t the case in either of these examples.

Even allowing for a large degree of subjectivity in assessing creative endeavours this sort of discrepancy in the view of teachers and external assessors  is ridiculous.

There is something wrong with a system which has such inconsistent results between internal and external assessments.

How far can seagulls fly?

The conversations started with a question about why there were seagulls in Wanaka which is so far inland.

That  led to the observation that so  far inland is relative because no where in New Zealand is very far from the sea when compared with most other countries.

That led to the recollection of a conversation with someone who lived in the top corner of Victoria who mentioned they got seagulls there too.

That led to the next question, to which none of us had an answer: how far can seagulls fly?

January 17 in history

On January 17:

1377 Pope Gregory XI moved the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon.

1524 Beginning of Giovanni da Verrazzano‘s voyage to find a passage to China.

1608 Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia surprised an Oromo army at Ebenat; his army reportedly kills 12,000 Oromo at the cost of 400 men.

1648 England’s Long Parliament passed the Vote of No Addresses, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.

1773 Captain James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle.

1820  Anne Brontë, British author, was born.

1852 The United Kingdom recognised the independence of the Boer colonies of the Transvaal.

1853 The New Zealand Constitution Act (UK) of 1852, which established a system of representative government for New Zealand, was declared operative by Governor Sir George Grey.

1863  David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister, was born.

1865 Charles Fergusson, Governor-General of New Zealand, was born.

1877  May Gibbs, Australian children’s author, was born.

 A “Banksia Man” abducting Little Ragged Blossom, from Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

1899 Al Capone, American gangster, was born.

 

 

1899 Nevil Shute, English author, was born.

1904 Anton Chekhov‘s The Cherry Orchard received its premiere performance at the Moscow Art Theatre.

1905  Peggy Gilbert, American jazz saxophonist and bandleader, was born.

1912 Sir Robert Falcon Scott (Scott of the Antarctic) reached the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.

 Scott’s group took this photograph of themselves using string to operate the shutter on 17 January 1912, the day after they discovered Amundsen had reached the pole first.

1917 The United States paid Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.

 

 

 

1928 Vidal Sassoon, English cosmetologist, was born.

Sassoon (left) with Figaro Claus Niedermaier

1929 Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appeared in the Thimble Theatre comic strip.

1933  Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, French-born Pakistani diplomat (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), was born.

1933  Shari Lewis, American ventriloquist, was born.

 Shari’s daughter,Mallory Lewis with Lamb Chop

1941 Dame Gillian Weir, New Zealand organist, was born.

1942 Muhammad Ali, American boxer, was born.

1942 Ita Buttrose, Australian journalist and businesswoman, was born.

1945  Soviet forces capture the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw.

1945 – The Nazis began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in.

1946 The UN Security Council held its first session.

1949 Mick Taylor, British musician (The Rolling Stones), was born.

1949 The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, first aired.

1950 The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 thieves stolel more than $2 million from an armored car Company’s offices in Boston, Massachusetts.

1956 Paul Young, English musician, was born.

1961 President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warned against the accumulation of power by the “military-industrial complex“.

1962 Jim Carrey, Canadian actor and comedian, was born.

1964  Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States, was born.

1966 A B-52 bomber collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea in the Palomares incident.

 The B28RI nuclear bomb, recovered from 2,850 feet (869 m) of water, on the deck of the USS Petrel.

1973 Ferdinand Marcos became “President for Life” of the Philippines.

1982 “Cold Sunday” in the United States  -temperatures fell to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.

 National Weather Service surface weather map from January 17, 1982.

1983 The tallest department store in the world, Hudson’s, flagship store in downtown Detroit closed due to high cost of operating.

1989 Stockton massacre: Patrick Purdy opened fire with an assault rifle at the Cleveland Elementary School playground, killing five children and wounding 29 others and one teacher before taking his own life.

1991  Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm began early in the morning.

1991 – Harald V became King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V.

1995 The Great Hanshin earthquake: A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit near Kobe, Japan, causing extensive property damage and killing 6,434 people.

2002 Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people.

2007 The Doomsday Clock was set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea nuclear testing.

Sourced from NZ History Online & WIkipedia.

Poi E

Dalvanius Prime would have been 62 today.

Chariots of Fire

Eric Liddell, the Scottish athlete probably best known to most of us from Chariots of Fire, was born on this day in 1902.

Several scenes which featured him as the “muscular Christian” are here.

On-line reselling has dangers for buyers and producers

The Food Safety Authority is invetigating claims that Chinese people are buying large amounts of New Zealand infant  milk powder here to sell on-line in their home country.

It’s understandable that parents in China don’t trust their own milk powder in the wake of the Sanlu melamine poisoning, but buying on-line has risks too.

Producers are concerned that their product may be sold in a damaged state which may compromise the safety of the product and reflect badly on them.

Another concern is that the contents of the tins may not even be New Zealand milk powder.

Immense damage could be done to New Zealand’s reputation for safe food products if their were problems with the standard of something purporting to be our produce.

It is difficult to police internet sales and the buyer should always beware. But there is little a company can do to stop people buying their produce and selling it on-line in other countries, or using their containers to sell an inferior substitute.

January 16 in history

On January 16:

27 BC  The title Augustus was bestowed upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian by the Roman Senate.

 1120 The Council of Nablus was held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

 Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jeruslaem

1362 A storm tide in the North Sea destroyed the German city of Rungholt on the island of Strand.

1412 The Medici family was appointed official banker of the Papacy.

1492 The first grammar of the Spanish language, was presented to Queen Isabella I.

1547  Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible) became Tsar of Russia.

 

1556  Philip II became King of Spain.

1581 The English Parliament outlawed Roman Catholicism.

1605 The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.

Bronze statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, at the Plaza de España in Madrid

1707  The Scottish Parliament ratified the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.

1853 – Andre Michelin, French industrialist, was born.

1853  Gen Sir Ian Hamilton, British military commander, was born.

1874  Robert W. Service, Canadian poet, was born.

 

1883 The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, was passed.

1896  defeat of Cymru Fydd at South Wales Liberal Federation AGM, Newport, Monmouthshire.

1900 The United States Senate accepted the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounced its claims to the Samoan islands.

1901 Frank Zamboni, American inventor, was born.

1902 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner, was born.

1903 William Grover-Williams, English-French racing driver and WWII resistance fighter, was born.

 William Grover-Williams at the 1929 Monaco Grand Prix

1906  Diana Wynyard, British actress, was born.

1908 – Ethel Merman, American actress and singer, was born.

1909 Ernest Shackleton‘s expedition found the magnetic South Pole.

 Nimrod Expedition South Pole Party (left to right): Wild, Shackleton, Marshall and Adams

1919  The United States ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition in the United States one year after ratification.

1941 The War Cabinet approved the formation of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) to enable the Royal New Zealand Air Force to release more men for service overseas. Within 18 months a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and Women’s Royal Naval Service had been created.

 1942  Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.

1944 Jim Stafford, American singer and songwriter, was born.

1948 Dalvanius Prime, New Zealand entertainer, was born.

1952 – King Fuad II of Egypt, was born.

1959 Sade, Nigerian-born singer, was born.

1970  Buckminster Fuller received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.

1979 The Shah of Iran fled Iran with his family and relocated in Egypt.

1986 First meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force.

1991  The United States went to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War (U.S. Time).

1992 El Salvador officials and rebel leaders signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City ending a 12-year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.

2001 – The First surviving wikipedia edit was made: UuU

2001  Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.

2001  US President Bill Clinton awarded former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish-American War.

2002 The UN Security Council unanimously established an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.

2003  The Space Shuttle Columbia t00k off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.

2006 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia’s new presiden becoming Africa’s first female elected head of state.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Technical question

Some blogs have RSS feeds in the sidebar which change place so the most recent is at the top.

If anyone knows how to do this and can provide instructions in  ETC (English-for-the-Technically Challenged) the happiness fairy will shower you with happy dust.

Challenge Wanaka

Wanaka’s population used to build up to New Year’s Eve, then taper off through January.

Challenge Wanaka, which started on Sunday with a children’s event and finishes on Saturday with a triathlon,  has changed that.

Instead of tapering off, visitor numbers have been building up as 1000 elite athletes from 23 countries and their supporters arrive in town.

Challenge Wanaka is billed as the world’s most scenic long distance triathlon. However, if the concentration evident on the faces of the people I’ve seen training are anything to go by the participants will be focussed on their performance rather than the scenery.

People can contest as individuals or in teams to do the 226 kilometre full iron distance or the 113 kilometre half. Some are professional athletes, others participate for the personal challenge, all are to be admired for giving it a go.

The organisers and the 500 volunteers required to help on Saturday also deserve praise. It’s a very big event for a small town and ensuring it runs smoothly takes a lot of work from a lot of people.

Thais that bind

Regular readers will be aware that frequent visitor Paul Tremewan toured Thailand on a Honda Phantom bike last year.

His report of the tour, Thais that Bind, is here.

Trout farming should get tick

Federated Farmers’ President Don Nicolson is calling for the prohibition on commercial trout farming to be lifted.

In a submission to the government’s review of aquaculture he said aquaculture,  minerals and the agricultural sector, provide three pillars for the transformation of the New Zealand economy.

“It’s time for New Zealand to back the sectors that represent the sunrise,” . . .

“By making water storage an infrastructural priority, New Zealand will future proof itself against climate variation.  This infrastructure can further create new opportunities by way of in land and freshwater aquaculture.

“It’s not that New Zealand’s running out of rain but the rain is literally running out of New Zealand. . .

“This is also about evolving farm practices and the species we farm commercially.  It’s about sensibly harvesting the fruits of the environment that benefit every New Zealander.

Nicolson points out that Fish and Game is one of the largest trout farmers in New Zealand through its trout hatcheries. But the ODT reports the organisation is opposed to lifting the prohibition.

Any benefits from allowing commercial trout farming would be “heavily outweighed” by the risks to New Zealand’s wild trout fishery, Otago Fish and Game chief executive, Niall Watson, says. . .

. . . Risks came from the commercialisation of what was a non-commercial fish species and would encourage trout poaching in vulnerable spawning streams of the Central North Island lakes.

“Commercial-scale poaching would be a very serious risk in that area as well as elsewhere in the country.

Monitoring and enforcement costs would be considerable and successful protection of wild fish stocks would be difficult.”

A proliferation of fish farm operations could mean a much greater risk of disease transfer, he said.

I don’t understand why this would be a problem with trout farming when it hasn’t been with salmon farming.

That’s created businesses, provided jobs, added to the variety of locally produced food in supermarkets and restaurants and earned export income.

Friends who fish tell me that, rather than threatening recreational fishing, salmon farming has enhanced it. Why would trout farming be different?

Providing any risks were managed, and that might mean restricting the location and number of trout farms, we’d have lots to gain from lifting the prohibition.

January 15 in history

On January 15:

1559  Elizabeth I was crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London.

1622  Molière,  (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) French playwright, was born.

1759 The British Museum opened.

1842 Blessed Mary McKillop, Australian  saint, was born.

 

1870  A political cartoon for the first time symbolised the United States Democratic Party with a donkey (“A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly).

 

1889 The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, was originally incorporated in Atlanta.

 

1892 James Naismith published the rules of basketball.

1893  Ivor Novello, Welsh composer and actor, was born.

1902  King Saud of Saudi Arabia, was born.

1906 Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate, was born.

 Statue of Onassis at Nydri.

1909 Jean Bugatti, German-born automobile designer, was born.

1913  Lloyd Bridges, American actor, was born.

1914  Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian, was born.

1919  Maurice Herzog, French mountaineer, first to ascend an 8000m peak, Annapurna in 1950, was born.

1919 – Boston Molasses Disaster: A large molasses tank in Boston burst and a wave of molasses poured through the streets, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.

 Aftermath of the disaster

1929 Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born.

1936 The first building to be completely covered in glass was completed in Toledo, Ohio ( built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company).

1943 – The world’s largest office building, The Pentagon, was dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

1966  The government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in Nigeria was overthrown in a military coup d’état.

1969 The Soviet Union launched Soyuz 5.

1970 After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrendered.

1970 United States Vice-President Spiro Agnew’s three-day visit to New Zealand sparked some of the most violent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations seen in this country.

 

1970 – Muammar al-Qaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya.

1973 Citing progress in peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.

1977  The Kälvesta air disaster kills 22 people, the worst air crash in Sweden‘s history.

1986 The Living Seas opens at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida.

1991  The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

1992  The international community recognizes the independence of Slovenia and Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

1993  Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as ‘The Beast’, is arrested in Sicily after three decades as a fugitive.

2001 Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, went online.

2005 – ESA’s SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovered elements including calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon.

 2009 US Airways Flight 1549 made an emergency landing into the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. All passengers and crew members survived.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

The Good Life

Fairfacts Media pointed out on the post below that Richard Briars is best known for his role in  The Good Life.