February 12 in history

On February 12:

881 Pope John VIII crowned Charles the Fat, the King of Italy.

 

1429  English forces under Sir John Fastolf defended a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orleans from attack by the Comte de Clermont and John Stuart in the Battle of Rouvray (also known as the Battle of the Herrings).

1502 Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon on his second voyage to India.

1541 – Santiago, Chile was founded by Pedro de Valdivia.

1554 A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey was beheaded for treason.

1567 Thomas Campion, English composer and poet, was born (d. 1620).

1700 The Great Northern War began in Northern Europe.

1719 The Onderlinge van 1719 u.a., the oldest existing life insurance company in the Netherlands was founded.

1771 Gustav III became the King of Sweden.

1809 Charles Darwin, English naturalist, was born (d. 1882).

1809 Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was born (d. 1865).

1816 The Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest working opera house in Europe, was destroyed by fire.

 

1817 An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeated Spanish troops on the Battle of Chacabuco.

1818 Bernardo O’Higgins formally approved the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.

1825 The Muscogee (Creek )ceded the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government, and migrate west.

1828 George Meredith, English writer, was born (d. 1909).

1832 Ecuador annexed the Galápagos Islands.

1855 Michigan State University was established.

1870 Women gained the right to vote in the Utah Territory.

1879 The first artificial ice rink in North America opened at Gilmore’s Park in New York City.

1881 Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina, was born  (d. 1931).

1894 Anarchist Émile Henry hurled a bomb into Paris’s Cafe Terminus, killing one and wounding 20.

 

1909 SS Penguin was wrecked in Cook Strait.

1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.

1911 Stephen H. Sholes, American recording executive, was born  (d. 1968).

1912  Xuantong Emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the last Emperor of China, abdicated.

1914 The first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was put into place.

1915 Lorne Greene, Canadian actor, was born  (d. 1987).

1923 – Franco Zeffirelli, Italian film and opera director and designer, was born.

1924  Calvin Coolidge became the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio.

1934 The Austrian Civil War began.

1934 In Spain the national council of Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista was inaugurated. 

1938 Judy Blume, American author, was born.

1945 David Friedman, American economist, was born.

 

1946 Operation Deadlight ended after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

 52 surrendered U-boats moored at HMS Ferret,Lisahally, Northern Ireland

1948 Raymond Kurzweil, American inventor and author, was born.

1949 – Joaquín Sabina, Spanish singer and songwriter, was born.

1950 Steve Hackett, English guitarist (Genesis), was born.

1961 U.S.S.R. launched Venera 1 towards Venus.

1966 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, announced the Six Points in Karachi as the election manifesto of Awami League, that led to formation of Bangladesh.

1973 The first United States prisoners of war were released by the Viet Cong.

1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature was exiled from the Soviet Union.

1990 Carmen Lawrence became the first female Premier in Australian History when she became premier of Western Australia.

1997 Hwang Jang-yop, secretary in the Workers’ Party of Korea and a prime architect of North Korea’s Juche doctrine, defects at the South Korean embassy in Beijing along with his aide, Kim Dok-hong.

1999 President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

2001 NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

2002 The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević began.

2002 – An Iran Air Tupolev Tu-154 crashed in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing at Khorramabad Airport, killing 119.

2004 The city of San Francisco,  began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

2006 A powerful winter storm blanketed the Northeastern United States dumping 1 to 2 feet of snow from Washington D.C. to Boston, and a record 26.9 inches of snow in New York City.

2007 A gunman opens fire in a mall in Salt Lake City killing 5 people wounding 4 others in the Trolley Square shooting.

Candlelight vigil for victims of the Trolley Square shooting.

2009 Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York killing 50 people.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Word of the day

Journullism -  news stories which have no news value.

Hat Tip: Another neogilism needed at Dim Post (There’s other clever sugestions in the comments).

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. Who said : “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”?

2. Who wrote: How to Win Friends and Influence People?

3. It’s bibliothèque in French, biblioteca in Italian and Spanish and whare pukapuka in Maoir, what is it in English?

4. Where did Texel sheep originate?

5. How many South Island electorates are there and how many people (more or less) in an electorate.

Marks for answers:

Andrei got four right and a bonus for added information which wins him an electronic red rose (in anticipation of Valentine’s Day).

Graeme got one right.

Gravedodger got four right with a bonus for added info which also earns an electronic rose.

Paul got three right (that he was able to state the obvious was my fault for not being specific about Texel) with a bonus for noting the typo, humour and for backing off the Dilligaf.

Answers follow the break.

Edwards 1 – SST 0

The media is supposed to be one of the guardians of free speech, why then would a national newspaper seek to muzzle a blogger?

Brian Edwards has had a series of blog posts on Amanda Hotchin and the Sunday Star Times. 

His second last post on the matter was a carefully worded one in which he reported on four affidavits from witnesses who backed Ms Hotchin’s story. It was a model of how to give the facts without disclosing an opinion.

The SST has responded by threatening him with defamation.

The email informing him of that is headed not for publication:

I have chosen to ignore that advice. The Sunday Star Times is a national newspaper with a circulation massively bigger than my website. It has a large and powerful voice. If it is unhappy with what is said about its content or its writers, it has the opportunity, not available to the average citizen, to make a public response which will reach a large audience. Instead, in this case, it has chosen to send me a lawyer’s letter, marked “Not for Publication.” My response is that I am not prepared to be bullied or intimidated, and certainly not in secret.

Edwards 1 – SST 0.

The blog is probably read by only a few hundred thousand people but the threat ensures it will be read by many more.

It was referred to a post on the journalist’s chat group Journz last night.

It’s made the  NZ Bloggers Union see red. Cactus Kate , Kiwiblog and Whaleoil,   three  of New Zealand’s most widely read blogs, have taken up the fight for free speech.

And the paper’s only rival, The NZ Herald, is loving it.

What would have been a story read by a few hundred people is now reaching 10s of thousands.

6/10

6/10 in the Herald’s weekly news quiz.

Who does the public service serve?

Before the last election National was criticised for being Labour-lite.

There is no danger of  that this time.

Just a week after the election date was announced there are some very clear differences in the two major parties’ policies and goals.

Trans Tasman’s noticed one of the bigger ones:

Key’s underlying message is the Govt is going to structure the public sector for the people who use its services: Labour is going to defend the current structure because it suits the people who work in it.

The public service grew too big under Labour. It’s a costly burden which is weighing down the private sector.

Back room functions are necessary to support front line staff and leave them free to do the work that matters most. But when the back room expands too much and uses scarce funds needed more for services and those who provide them it’s time for rebalancing.

The public service is supposed to serve the people who need its services not those who staff it.

February 11 in history

On February 11:

660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.

1531 Henry VIII  was recognised as supreme head of the Church of England.

1752  Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, opened.

1790 Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitioned U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.

1794 First session of United States Senate open to the public.

1808 Anthracite coal was first burned as a fuel, experimentally.

 

1809 Robert Fulton filed a patent for improvements to steamboat navigation.

1812 Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry “gerrymandered” for the first time.

1814 Norway‘s independence was proclaimed, marking the ultimate end of the Kalmar Union.

1826 University College London was founded under the name University of London.

1826 Swaminarayan wrote the Shikshapatri, an important test within the Swaminarayan faith.

1840 Gaetano Donizetti‘s opera La Fille du Régiment received its first performance in Paris.

1843 Giuseppe Verdi‘s opera I Lombardi received its first performance in Milan.

1847 Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor, was born (d. 1931).

1855 Kassa Hailu was crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III.

 

1861 United States House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state.

1864 Charles Heaphy was recommended for a VC for rescuing a soldier while under fire.

  1873 King Amadeus I of Spain abdicated.

1904 Sir Keith Holyoake, Prime Minister of New Zealand, was born  (d. 1983).

 

1905 Pope Pius X published the encyclical Vehementer nos.

1916 Emma Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control.

 

1917 Sidney Sheldon, American author, was born  (d. 2007).

1919 Eva Gabor, Hungarian-born actress, was born (d. 1995).

1919 Friedrich Ebert (SPD), was elected President of Germany.

1920 King Farouk I of Egypt, was born  (d. 1965).

1929 Italy and the Vatican signed the Lateran Treaty.

1934 Mary Quant, English fashion designer, was born.

1936 Burt Reynolds, American actor, was born.

1938 BBC Television produced the world’s first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of  the Karel Capek play R.U.R., which coined the term “robot“.

 A scene from the play, showing three robots.

1938 Bevan Congdon, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1939 A Lockheed XP-38 flew from California to New York in 7 hours 2 minutes.

1941 The first gold record was presented to Glenn Miller for “Chattanooga Choo Choo“.

1943 General Dwight Eisenhower was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

 

1948 John Costello succeeded Éamon de Valera as Taoiseach of Ireland.

1963 Julia Child‘s show The French Chef premiered.

1964 Sarah Palin, 11th Governor of Alaska, was born.

1969 Jennifer Aniston, American actress, was born.

1971 Eighty-seven countries signed the Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons in international waters.

1973 First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam took place.

1978  China lifted a ban on works by Aristotle, Shakespeare and Dickens.

1979 Islamic revolution of Iran achieves victory under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

1987 Philippines constitution went into effect.

1990 Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison.

1991 UNPO, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, formed in The Hague.

1997 Space Shuttle Discovery was launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

2006 Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington in the face, neck, and upper torso while hunting quail.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Recherché – elegant, exquisite, tasteful; uncommon, rare; forced, over-refined; pretentious.

Thursday’s quiz

1. Who said : “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”?

2. Who wrote: How to Win Friends and Influence People?

3. It’s bibliothèque in French, biblioteca in Italian and Spanish and whare pukapuka in Maoir, what is it in english?

4. Where did Texel sheep originate?

5. How many South Island electortes electorates are there and how many people (more or less) in an electorate.

6/10

6/10 in NZ History Online’s weekly quiz.

Confusing consequence with cause

Green co-leader Metiria Turei gave a very moving speech in Parliament on Tuesday using the sad story of her father’s difficult life and early death.

But she made a mistake when she said:

The economic reforms of the 1980′s failed my Dad and are now failing our children and grandchildren. We have hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders struggling to survive, just like my Dad did.

It wasn’t the reforms of the 80s which failed the poor, it was the misguided policies which preceded them that failed us all.

The reforms of the 80s weren’t the cause of the problem, they were the consequence of earlier economic mismanagement by successive governments which spent more than they earned.

From the early 70s when export income fell governments tried to make up for that with high taxes, increased spending and misguided attempts to protect the economy with measures such as high tariffs and import cottrols.

The reforms of the 80s were necessary medicine to treat the very sick economy which resulted from that.

They were hard times for many people and Turei is right that many are still struggling, but the answers she suggests are a return to the policies which caused the problem in the first place.

Real growth based on exports which provide real jobs are the solution, not higher taxes and more government spending.

February 10 in history

On February 10:

1306  Robert the Bruce murdered John Comyn, his leading political rival sparking revolution in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

1355 The St. Scholastica’s Day riot broke out in Oxford leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.

1567 An explosion destroyed the Kirk o’ Field house in Edinburgh. The second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, Lord Darnley was found strangled, in what many believe to be an assassination.

 1567 drawing of Kirk o’ Field after the murder of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley drawn for Cecil (William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley) shortly after the murder.

1763 The 1763 Treaty of Paris ended theFrench and Indian War and France ceded Quebec to Great Britain.

1775 Charles Lamb, English essayist, was born  (d. 1834).

1798 Louis Alexandre Berthier invaded Rome.

1814 Battle of Champaubert

1840 Queen Victoria  married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

 Marriage of Victoria and Albert by Sir George Hayter

1846 First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon – British defeated Sikhs in final battle of the war.

 Raja Lal Singh, who led Sikh forces against the British during the First Anglo-Sikh War, 1846

1870 The YWCA was founded.

1893 Jimmy Durante, American actor/comedian, was born  (d. 1980).

1894  Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister, was born  (d. 1986).

1906 HMS Dreadnought (1906) was launched.

1920 – Jozef Haller de Hallenburg performed a symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.

 

1923 Texas Tech University was founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock.

1930  Robert Wagner, American actor, was born.

 

1931 New Delhi became the capital of India.

1933 The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.

1934 Fleur Adcock, New Zealand poet, was born.

1937 Roberta Flack, American singer, was born.

1947 Italy ceded most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia.

1950 Mark Spitz, American swimmer, was born.

1952 Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, was born.

1955  – Greg Norman, Australian golfer, was born.

1962 Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers was exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

  

1964 – The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (R21) collided with the destroyer HMAS Voyager (D04) off the south coast of New South Wales.

 Animation showing the courses and positions of the two ships leading up to the collision

1967 The provision of free milk in schools ended.

1967 - The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.

1981 – A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino killed eight and injured 198.

1982  Iafeta Paleaaesina, New Zealand rugby league player, was born.

1989 Ron Brown became the first African American to lead a major American political party when he was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

1996 The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov for the first time.

 

2008 The 2008 Namdaemun fire severely damaged Namdaemun, the first National Treasure of South Korea.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

13/15

The Dominion Post hasn’t started its weekly political quiz yet but does have a daily trivia quiz – I managed 13/15 today.

Word of the day

Malversation – misbehaviour, corruption, misuse of public or other funds; misconduct in public office; corrupt administration.

Poets

Poets by Janet Frame is this Tuesday’s Poem.

Among other Tuesday poems linked in the side bar are:

Taupiri by Robert Sullivan.

Bipolar Opposites Detract by Andrew Bell.

The Way Through The Woods by Rudyard Kipling.

Dating by Mary McCallum.

The Weather Cock Points South by Amy Lowell.

What happened to what’s his name?

Does anyone know what happened to what’s-his-name, the MP for that electorate in Auckland, the one who has a list of 17 colleagues who want to change leader?

He was at or near the top of news bulletins off and on for weeks while he was cauisng a fuss in his caucus but once he was expelled the media was no longer interested in him.

That’s how the media works. Scrapping is newsworthy, a lone MP adrift on the back benches isn’t.

Hone Harawira and the hullabaloo he’s causing the Maori Party is attracting the same level of attention. But if he’s kicked out of the party he’ll find he’s in the same waka as what’s-his-name, just another loner paddling in the political shallows.

Ministry of Primary Industry good start

A government has two main ways to influence the economy – by facilitating increased productivity and by reducing its own costs.

In his speech to parliament yesterday Prime Minister made a commitment to do both by improving efficiency and lowering the cost of the public service.

Front-line public services are the priority for this Government. We want to free up money for these services by reducing the costs of back-office and administrative functions.

We have already taken several steps to achieve that.

Since coming into office we have reduced the number of full-time equivalent staff positions in the core government administration by five per cent.

We began procurement reforms last year, and from the first four projects we expect to save around $115 million over the next five years.

We have also made progress in reducing the number of government agencies, for example; by bringing Archives New Zealand and the National Library into the Department of Internal Affairs; and by merging two science agencies to create the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Even so, the government bureaucracy is still a long way from being a lean and efficient organisation.

The Government machine still consists of more than 80 Crown Entities each with their own Board, 38 Departments, more than 70 portfolios and more than 60 separate Budget Votes. The costs of running this machinery are still too high.

Clearly, there is more to be done to make the government bureaucracy smaller and better.

Therefore, I have asked for advice on further reforms to streamline and improve the performance of the government bureaucracy.

Amalgamating ministries or departments with a similar focus is one easy way to reduce overheads without compromising services.

TV1 said the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry and Fisheries were likely to be turned into a single Ministry of Primary Production.

MAF used to stand for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. 

They have a lot in common. Bringing them back into a single super-ministry with forestry makes sense and will save money.

It would be a good start in the government’s programme to build better public services.

Which among the more than 80 Crown entities,  38 departments, more than 70 portfolios and more than 60 separate Budget votes offer similar potential for saving money and improving service?

February 9 in history

On February 9:

474 Zeno was crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

1555 Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper was burned at the stake.

 The Martyrdom of John Hooper as depicted in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

1621 Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.

1770 Captain Cook completed his circumnavigation of the North Island.

1773 William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States, was born (d. 1841).

1789 Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, German inventor of the stenography, was born (d. 1849).

 1825 After no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the United States House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams President.

1849 New Roman Republic was established.

1865 Mrs. Patrick Campbell, British actress (b0rn Beatrice Stella Tanner), was born (d. 1940).

 

1870 – The U.S. Weather Bureau was established.

1874 Amy Lowell, American poet, was born (d. 1925).

1885 The first Japanese government-approved immigrants arrived in Hawaii.

1889 The United States Department of Agriculture was established as a Cabinet-level agency.

1891 Ronald Colman, English actor, was born (d. 1958).

1895 William G. Morgan created a game called Mintonette, which was soon referred to as volleyball.

1897 – Charles Kingsford Smith, Australian pilot, was born  (d. 1935).

 

1900 Wanganui Opera House opened.

 1900 The Davis Cup competition was established.

 Monument to the Davis Cup at Stade Roland Garros in Paris

1920 Under the terms of the Spitsbergen Treaty, international diplomacy recognised Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago Svalbard, and designated it as demilitarized.

1926 Garret FitzGerald, 7th Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, was born.

1934 The Balkan Entente is formed.

1936 Stompin’ Tom Connors, Canadian country singer, was born.

1940  Brian Bennett, British musician (The Shadows), was born.

1940 – J. M. Coetzee, South African author, Nobel laureate, was born.

1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time was re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.

1942 Carole King, American singer, was born.

1943 World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.

1944  Alice Walker, American writer, was born.

1945 Mia Farrow, American actress, was born.

1945 The Battle of the Atlantic - HMS Venturer sank U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.

1947 Carla Del Ponte, Swiss UN prosecutor, was born.

1950 Second Red Scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.

1955 Charles Shaughnessy, British actor, was born.

1960 Joanne Woodward received the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1960 Holly Johnson, British singer (Frankie Goes to Hollywood), was born.

1962 Jamaica became independent.

1964 The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a “record-busting” audience of 73 million viewers.

1965 The first United States combat troops were sent to South Vietnam.

1969 First test flight of the Boeing 747.

1970 Glenn McGrath, Australian cricketer, was born.

1971 The 6.4 Richter Scale Sylmar earthquake hits the San Fernando Valley area of California.

1971  Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1971 Apollo 14 returned to Earth after the third manned moon landing.

1975 The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returned to Earth.

1991 Voters in Lithuania voted for independence.

1994 Vance-Owen peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina was announced.

1995 Space Shuttle astronauts Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and Michael Foale became the first African American and first Briton, respectively, to perform spacewalks.

  

1996 The Irish Republican Army declared the end of its 18 month ceasefire shortly followed by the explosion of a large bomb in London’s Canary Wharf.

2001 The submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) accidentally struck and sunk the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel.

 Divers inspect the wreckage of Ehime Maru off Oahu, November 5, 2001.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Greens out before race starts

The Green Party candidate is out of the race for the Botany by-election before it’s started.

The Greens announced in a press release late last night that it had selected former staffer Richard Leckinger to stand.

Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden confirmed that the Green candidate had not made it.

“A completed nomination form from the Green Party was not received before the legal deadline of noon today and therefore the Electoral Commission could not accept the nomination,” he said.

Mr Leckinger was upset.

“Gutted. In one word gutted. My heart is broken for the Green Party folk in Botany who had pulled all this together. I am gutted, it’s a real disappointment that I got stuck in traffic on Ti Rakau Drive.”

He told NZPA he showed up at the registrar’s office at 10am but the official discovered one of his nominees had, by moving a couple of blocks, moved to the Hunua electorate rather than Botany. Mr Leckinger dashed back to Botany to get another signature but did not make it back on time.

“I was two minutes too late.”

Misfortune or carelessness?  More of the former than the latter but a well organised party and its candidate ought to know the rules and meet all requirements well before a legal deadline.

Word of the day

Whatabouts – matters with which one is occupied.