Content by F T.Bear
Good morning! Rise and shine!
Today in history is a place for you early risers to exercise your brains as you wait for the day to begin. Please, by all means, bring your own bits of history to the comments section and add your memories of what YOU did on this day however many years ago.
The beauty of an early morning historical post is that the date can mean the event happened today “our time” or today “other side of the world” time.
From the life and death of Plato through to the latest most recent history as it happens, we intend on bringing you stimulating and educational historical knowledge.
23 July
1952: Yvette Williams wins the long jump at the Helsinki Olympics to become the first NZ woman to win an Olympic medal. In the final round she was facing elimination after 2 no jumps, but on her third made the top 6 with 5.9m. She then jumped 6.24m which was 1cm short of the world record but set a new Olympic record to win the gold.
1851: The ‘Maria” is wrecked near Cape Terawhiti on Wellington’s south coast. 26 lives are lost, and the loss added more fuel to the call for a lighthouse, that to that point the government had refused to be convinced on.
1952: The “Society of Free Officers” lead by Col. Gamal Abdal Nasser seize power in Egypt. King Farouk, whose rule had been criticised for corruption, and failures in the first Arab-Israeli war, was forced to abdicate and General Muhammad Naguib, the figurehead of the coup, was installed.
1995: Astronomers Allan Hale in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp in Ariaona (unknown to each other) almost simultaneously discover comet C/1995 01. It would later be known Comet Hale-Bopp and becomes visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months.