- A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history
New York City being threatened by human biters, a young American suing his parents over education, and a necklace fit for a queen being sold for a song made the headlines 40 years ago this week.
December 30, 1979
● The Colorado Appeal Court in the US had rejected the case of a 25-year-old man who sued his parents for US$350,000 (about HK$1.75 million at the time) for providing him with a bad education. The court heard that the man had behaved poorly during adolescence and was expelled twice from schools, once for marijuana trafficking. In dismissing the case, the court ruled that his parents had tried to give him the best education possible, but it was he who refused to take advantage of it.
● A young man, abandoned in Korea by American military parents 25 years before rushed into the arms of his adopted mother on arrival in Los Angeles. James Daniel Bronson was the illegitimate son of an Army officer and a member of the Women's Army Corps, who left him behind when they were shipped out of Korea. He was raised by a Korean family until he was 12 when he was abandoned again because of social pressure because of his Caucasian appearance. His new American mother met him 18 months before while working for the Red Cross in Korea.
December 31, 1979
● A group of prisoners in Oklahoma City were taken to hospital after drinking antifreeze solution while trying to get into the Christmas spirit. The 15 inmates all had severe stomach cramps after trying to get drunk on the solution manufactured for tractor tyres. Two were in serious condition. The solution was smuggled into the prison in a shampoo bottle.
● The Town Council of Lars in southern Iran decided to sell a necklace, once intended as a gift for the then Empress Farah, to buy much needed rubbish bins for the city.
January 1, 1980
● A plain-clothes police sergeant was knocked unconscious when he was assaulted by two men in a Wan Chai ballroom the night before. The attackers also grabbed his service revolver and fled. The officer was the driver of the deputy police commissioner attached to the police headquarters.
● A man died after being stuck for about 14 hours in the coal chute leading to the cellar of his house in Paris. Police said the 51-year-old had apparently locked himself out of his home and then tried to get in by squeezing his way through the chute.
January 2, 1980
● More than 400 suspended cradles of the Hopewell Construction Company had been grounded following investigations into an accident in which two workers were killed. The pair plunged 10 storeys while working in a suspended cradle at the site of a Hopewell residential complex in Tsuen Wan two weeks earlier.
January 3, 1980
● Crime-plagued New York City being a hotbed of thieves, muggers and arsonists had added human biters to its list of dangers. According to the US Health Department, more than three times as many people in New York were bitten by humans than by rats the year before.
January 4, 1980
● Sixteen local property tycoons advised the government of what they regarded as dangers in the government's proposed extended rent control. They said the proposed extension would only benefit foreign businessmen and not small landlords. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation joined a growing chorus of demands that the government make more land available for housing. Michael Sandberg said the release of more land for housing could be the real solution to the housing problem.
January 5, 1980
● Naturalist Joy Adamson, famous for her books on Elsa the lioness, was killed by a lion at a remote Kenyan game reserve. A game warden radioed the news from Samburu near Adamson's camp 230 miles north of Nairobi. According to the warden, Adamson, 69, had been walking near her camp that morning when she saw a lion chasing a buffalo. She walked towards the animals and the lion turned on her and killed her.
● A night jetfoil service between Hong Kong and Macau was expected to begin in time for the heavy Lunar New Year traffic in February that year. Initially, there would be two round trips per night at 11pm and midnight.
Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history
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