Word of the day

Dacryops – watery state of the eyes; excessive tears.

Farmy army moving mountains

When the country is hit by snow and floods,  town people often mobilise to help with the clean up.

The Farmy Army is returning many past favours by taking people power, tools and machinery to Christchurch to help with the earthquake recovery effort.

The student Volunteer Army is doing an amazing job of recruiting and mobilising volunteers to help in the city but many of the recruits aren’t used to the physical demands of the work.

Farmers have diggers and tractors to move the mountains of dirt and silt and are accustomed to the  heavy physical work which must be done where machinery can’t be used.

(RivettingKate Taylor has a photo here).

CRT and Federated Farmers are taking bus loads up from North Otago to join the recovery effort tomorrow.

North Otago Young Farmers has another way farmers can help. They are asking for donations of stock to be sold at the Waiareka sale on Monday with all proceeds going to the earthquake appeal.

Sometimes the gulf between rural and urban New Zealand seems unbridgeable but when it really counts, we are all there for each other.

It’s not just New Zealanders, either. Steve Wyn-Harris who flew down from Hawkes Bay to help found an American who had got airpoints from friends to fly to San Francisco then took out  a loan to fly to Auckland and flew south to join the recovery effort. Steve introduced him to Jamie MacKay on the Farming Show today.

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. What are the missing words and who said this: “Never give in, never give in, …; ….; …. – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”

2. It’s vaillance  in French, valentía in Spanish and  māia in Maori, what is it in English?

3. Who said: “Courage is resistence to fear -mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”?

4. How much household bleach do you add to a litre of water to purify it?

5. Which is Simon Power’s electorate?

Points for answers have been complicated by the bleach question but my source was: http://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/industry/food-safety-in-the-canterbury-earthquake.htm

David got two right and a bonus for the warning about bleach going off.

JC got 1 and a near enough for Churchill and two of three nevers.

Bearhunter got 3 1/2.

Rob got three and a bonus for sounding erodite by name dropping Leonard Cheshire.

Andrei got four right which wins him an electronic box of chocolates.

Cadwallader got two right, a good guess for the bleach and a bonus for wit.

Gravedodger got two right and a bonus for humour.

Adam got two, 1/2 (you got the nevers but left out Churchill) – and  a bonus for knowing bleach would be altered by age and strength.

Answers follow the break:

Helping Christchurch rebuild

A conference I’m helping to organise is scheduled to take place in Christchurch in May.

The earthquake has complicated our plans. But on Monday I phoned my counterpart in Canterbury and said that if it was safe and practical to keep to our plans we should do so. If not we should move to another venue in or as near to Christchurch as possible.

There is no use putting pressure on the city’s infrastructure by going there now unless you’re helping with the recovery. But once that’s over and the rebuilding begins Christchurch will need the support of its own people and visitors.

So will the rest of the country.

After reading Ben Groundwater’s in the Sydney Morning Herald saying Friendliest people on earth. . .  need you to visit Whaleoil came up with a plan:

What I have come up with is a mas­sive inter­net cam­paign ask­ing peo­ple to take hol­i­days in New Zealand. Increased tourist num­bers will give a mas­sive boost to our econ­omy, and is the one way our friends over­seas can per­son­ally help us.

So I am ask­ing all my fam­ily over­seas to come home for their hol­i­days every hol­i­day for the next few years to show they care. I am ask­ing my kiwi mates over­seas to do the same thing. And I am ask­ing all my for­eign mates to come here for their hol­i­days to help us all out.

I’ll be doing this with my blog, on Face­book and on Twit­ter. I’ll email all my friends in the next week or so, and I will call a few peo­ple too.

Can you all con­sider post­ing some­thing along these lines, and encour­age your read­ers to change their face­book sta­tus to

“Help New Zealand Rebuild. Take your next hol­i­day in New Zealand”

Christchurch has suffered more than enough. The city and the rest of the country will suffer even more unless tourists keep coming.

Colour the country red and black for Canterbury

 

My plea to make Tuesday Red and Black Day was premature – today is the day New Zealand is being asked to colour the country in Canterbury’s colours.

The aim is to show Christchurch we care and to raise money for the earthquake appeal.

Ribbon borrowed – again – from Scrubone at Something Should Go Here Maybe Later.

March 4 in history

On March 4:

51 Nero, was given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

303 or 304  Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.

852  Croatian Duke Trpimir I issued a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.

932  Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs.

1152 Frederick I Barbarossa was elected King of the Germans.

 

1215 King John of England made an oath to the Pope as a crusader to gain the support of Innocent III.

                        

1238 The Battle of the Sit River was fought between the Mongol Hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Russia.

Bishop Cyril finds headless body of Grand Duke Yuri 

1351 Ramathibodi became King of Siam.

1386 Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) was crowned King of Poland.

1394  Henry the Navigator, was born (d. 1460).

1461 Wars of the Roses: Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.

1492 King James IV of Scotland concluded an alliance with France against England.

1493  Christopher Columbus arrived back in Lisbon aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what is now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.

 

1519 Hernán Cortes arrived in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and their wealth.

1570 King Philip II of Spain banned foreign Dutch students.

1611 George Abbot was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a Royal charter.

1665 King Charles II declared war on the Netherlands which marked the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

1675 John Flamsteed was appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.

1678  Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer, was born  (d. 1741).

 

1681 Charles II granted a land charter to William Penn for the area that became Pennsylvania.

1756 Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter, was born  (d. 1823).

 The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, The Skating Minister

1778 The Continental Congress voted to ratify both the Treaty of Amity and Commerce  and the Treaty of Alliance with France – the first treaties entered into by the United States government.

 

1789 In New York City, the first United States Congress met, putting the Constitution of the United States into effect.

1790 France was divided into 83 départements, which cuts across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.

1791 – A Constitutional Act iwa introduced by the British House of Commons which envisaged the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).

1793 French troops conquered Geertruidenberg, Netherlands.

1794 The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress.

1797 In the first ever peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in modern times, John Adams was sworn in as President of the United States, succeeding George Washington.

1804 Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales.

1813 Russian troops fighting the army of Napoleon reaced Berlin  and the French garrison evacuated the city without a fight.

1814 Americans defeated the British at the Battle of Longwoods .

1824 The “National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck” was founded in the United Kingdom, later to be renamed The Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1858.

1837 Chicago was incorporated as a city.

1848 Carlo Alberto di Savoia signed the Statuto Albertino that became the first constitution of the Regno d’Italia

1855 Sheep rustler James Mackenzie was caught in the Upper Waitaki with 1000 sheep from the Levels Station near Timaru.

 1861  First national flag of the Confederate States of America (the ‘Stars and Bars’) was adopted.

1877 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s ballet Swan Lake received its première performance at the Bolshoi Theatre.

 

1882 Britain‘s first electric trams run in East London.

1887 Gottlieb Daimler unveiled his first automobile.

 

1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, was opened by Edward the Prince of Wales.

1891 Lois Wilson, founder of Al-Anon, was born (d. 1988).

1893 The army of Francis, Baron Dhanis attacked the Lualaba, enabling him to transport his troops across the Upper Congo and, capture Nyangwe almost without an effort.

1894 Great fire in Shanghai. Over 1,000 buildings are destroyed.

1899 Cyclone Mahina swept in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metre (39 ft) wave that reached up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.

1902 The American Automobile Association was established.

 

1908 The Collinwood School Fire, Collinwood, Ohio, killed 174 people.

 

1911 Victor Berger (Wisconsin) became the first socialist congressman in U.S.

1917 Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1917 – Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich’s renunciation of the throne was made public, and Tsar Nicholas II publicly issued his abdication manifesto. The victory of the February Revolution.

1918 The first case of Spanish flu occurred, the start of a devastating worldwide pandemic.

 

1925 Calvin Coolidge became the first President of the United States to have his inauguration broadcast on radio.

1928 Alan Sillitoe, English writer, was born (d. 2010).

1929 Charles Curtis became the first native-American Vice President of the United States.

1930 Floods ransacked Languedoc and the surrounding area in south-west France, resulting in twelve départements being submerged by water and causing the death of over 700 people.

1931 The British Viceroy of India, Governor-General Edward Frederick Lindley Wood and Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) met to sign an agreement envisaging the release of political prisoners and allowing salt to be freely used by the poorest members of the population.

 

1933 Frances Perkins became United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet.

1933 – The Parliament of Austria was suspended because of a quibble over procedure – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiated authoritarian rule by decree.

1941 The United Kingdom launched Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands.

1944 Michael “Mick” Wilson, drummer (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich), was born.

1945 Princess Elizabeth, joined the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service as a driver.

1945 – Lapland War: Finland declared war on Nazi Germany.

1948 Lindy Chamberlain, who maintained a dingo stole her baby and whose conviction for murdering the baby was overturned, was born.

1948 Chris Squire, English bassist (Yes), was born.

1949 Carroll Baker, Canadian country singer and songwriter, was born.

1954 Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, announces the first successful kidney transplant.

1957 The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.

1960 French freighter ‘La Coubre’ exploded in Havana, killing 100.

1962 The United States Atomic Energy Commission announced that the first atomic power plant at McMurdo Station in Antarctica was in operation.

1966  Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 exploded on landing at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 people.

1970 French submarine Eurydice exploded.

1976 The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention was formally dissolved resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via the British parliament.

1976 – The last flight of the second Concorde prototype aircraft to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at the Royal Naval Air Station, Yeovilton.

1976 – The first Cray-1 supercomputer was shipped to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.

 

1977 The 1977 Bucharest Earthquake in southern and eastern Europe killed more than 1,500.

 

1979 The first encyclical written by Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (“The Redeemer of Man”) was promulgated.

1980 Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe won a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe‘s first black prime minister.

1982 NASA launched the Intelsat V-508 satellite.

1983 Bertha Wilson was appointed the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada.

1985 The Food and Drug Administration approved a blood test for AIDS. 

1986 The Soviet Vega 1 began returning images of Comet Halley and the first images ever of its nucleus.

1991 Sheikh Saad Al-Abdallah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, the Prime Minister of Kuwait, returns to his country for the first time since Iraq‘s invasion.

1994 Space shuttle STS-62 (Columbia 16) launched into orbit.

1994 – Bosnia’s Bosniaks and Croats signed an agreement to form a federation in a loose economic union with Croatia.

1997 U.S. President Bill Clinton banned federally funded human cloning research.

1998 Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services: The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

2001 4 March 2001 BBC bombing: a massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre  seriously injuring 11 people. The attack was attributed to the Real IRA.

2001 Hintze Ribeiro disaster, a bridge collapses in northern Portugal, killing up to 70 people.

2002 Canada bans human embryo cloning but permits government-funded scientists to use embryos left over from fertility treatment or abortions.

2002 Multinational Force in Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed as they attempt to infiltrate the Shahi Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.

2005 The car of released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena was fired on by US soldiers after it ran a roadblock in Iraq, causing the death of an Italian Secret Service Agent and injuring two passengers.

2007 Approximately 30,000 voters took advantage of electronic voting in Estonia, the world’s first nationwide voting where part of the votecasting is allowed in the form of remote electronic voting via the Internet.

2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur – the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia