Today is Saturday, July 25, the 206th day of 2026. There are 159 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1593 — King Henry IV of France becomes a Roman Catholic for the second and final time in an effort to gain Paris and be recognised as the legitimate king. 1797 — British naval commander Horatio Nelson’s right elbow is shattered by grapeshot during an assault on Tenerife; the arm had to be amputated. 1814 — George Stephenson tests his first steam locomotive, the ‘‘Blucher’’. 1864 — Maori warriors lay down their arms at Tauranga. As punishment for rebelling, a quarter of their land is confiscated and transferred to military settlers. 1865 — Death of Dr Jane Barry, who became the first female doctor in Britain by disguising herself as a man, James Barry. She became an inspector-general in the British army in 1812 and only revealed her sex on her deathbed. 1871 — William Schneider of Davenport, Iowa, patents the modern merry-go-round. 1909 — Louis Bleriot makes the first crossing of the English Channel by air, flying his monoplane from Les Baraques, near Calais, to Dover. 1917 — Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, the Dutch spy known as Mata Hari, is sentenced to death on being convicted of spying for Germany during World War 1. 1927 — The New Zealand soccer team draws 2-all with Canada, before a crowd of 10,000 at Carisbrook. 1943 — Benito Mussolini is dismissed as Italian premier and arrested on the authority of King Victor Emmanuel III. 1952 — Emergency regulations introduced during the 1951 waterfront strike in New Zealand are revoked. 1956 — The Italian liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish ship Stockholm collide off the coast of New England, with the loss of 50 lives. 1959 — The SR.N1 (Saunders-Roe Nautical 1) becomes the first hovercraft to cross the English Channel from Calais to Dover. The journey took just over two hours. 1965 — At Paparua Prison, Christchurch, prisoners riot and set ablaze the eastern wing. 1968 — Pope Paul VI bans all artificial birth-control methods for Roman Catholics. 1971 — Doctor Christiaan Barnard transplants two lungs and a heart into a man in Cape Town, South Africa, and the operation is described as successful. 1981 — Anti-tour demonstrators invade the pitch at Hamilton prior to the South Africa v Waikato rugby match, forcing the match to be abandoned. 1984 — Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to walk in space. 1988 — A New York judge orders the feuding San Diego Yacht Club and New Zealand’s ‘‘big boat’’ challenge, backed by Michael Fay, to settle the battle for the America’s Cup with a September race. Dennis Conner’s Stars and Stripes syndicate countered by successfully defending the cup in its match against the big boat in bad faith in a very big catamaran. 1997 — Scientists announce the first human stem cells to be cultured in a laboratory using tissue taken from aborted human embryos. 1999 — Dunedin bass singer Jonathan Lemalu wins Australia’s most prestigious opera award, the Operatic Aria, in Sydney. 2000 — An Air France Concorde travelling to New York crashes into a hotel outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing 113 people. 2004 — Israelis form a human chain stretching 90km from Gaza to Jerusalem to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Gaza Strip withdrawal plan. Today’s birthdays: Arthur Balfour, British politician (1848-1930); Elsie Dohrmann, New Zealand scholar/teacher/temperance campaigner (1875-1909); Annie Henry, New Zealand Presbyterian missionary (1879-1971); Sir Thomas Duncan MacGregor Stout, New Zealand medic/soldier/author (1885-1979; Walter Brennan, US actor/singer (1894-1974); Peter Mann, New Zealand Anglican bishop (1924-1999); Jim Belich, New Zealand politician (1927-2015); Bruce Woodley, Australian guitarist (1942-); Verdine White, US singer (1951-); Iman Abdulmajid, model/actress (1955-); Thurston Moore, US musician (1958-); Gary Braid, All Black (1960-); Ricky Gervais, English actor/comedian (1961-); George Michael, British pop singer (1963-2016); Daryl Halligan, New Zealand rugby league international (1966-); Matt LeBlanc, US actor (1967-); Louise Brown, English, first in vitro baby (1‘978-); Scott Waldrom, All Black (1980-); Blair Tuke, New Zealand sailor (1989-); Ellen Halpenny, New Zealand netballer (1990-); Sharlotte Lucas, New Zealand professional road racing cyclist (1991-); Sophie Cocks, New Zealand field hockey player (1994-). Quote of the day: ‘‘He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming.’’ — Arthur Balfour, British politician, who was born on this day in 1848. He died in 1930. ODT and agencies
