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From our archivesi

How the South China Morning Post covered occasions, news, happenings and events big and small since its founding in 1903

 

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  • The British sculptor’s works were displayed in various locations around Hong Kong in 1986, in an exhibition opened by the Duchess of Kent
  • The Museum of Art published an extensive catalogue of Moore’s works in Chinese and English, showing his development over the decades

At 19, Philip Au-yeung won a scholarship, in a contest open to all Hong Kong residents, to study fashion in New York. Upon his return, he criticised Hong Kong fashion’s lack of individuality.

On the 30th anniversary of Jean-Michel Jarre’s performance during the reopening night of the Hong Kong Stadium, we look at how the Post covered the event on March 11, 1994.

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Ship brokers warned potential buyers off sinking their money into the Trump Princess when the future US president tried to offload in Hong Kong the yacht he’d bought from the Sultan of Brunei in 1987.

A triple-decker Cheung Chau ferry and a Macau hydrofoil collided in Hong Kong waters at night in 1977, sinking the ferry and injuring at least 21, in a accident blamed on human negligence.

In February 1964, four armed men kidnapped Vee Meng Shaw – the son of Hong Kong film mogul Run Run Shaw – and his driver. Freed after nearly 12 days, he said he had been kept blindfolded the whole time.

Disaster struck a Lunar New Year parade in Tsim Sha Tsui in February 1997 when a float whose driver was apparently overcome by carbon monoxide ran into the crowd, killing a British tourist and injuring others.

A fight between 14K and Wo Shing Wo triads in Hong Kong in 1975 left a 18-year-old man dead. A man was killed the next night in a revenge attack. A teenager was sentenced to death for the first murder.

With fish supplies in Hong Kong waters severely depleted in the 1990s, an attempt was started to save the marine environment and boost dwindling fish stocks, starting with artificial reefs.

Four decades after the Fringe Club found a home in a heritage building at the junction of Wyndham Street and Lower Albert Road, we look back at how the Post covered the lead up its opening.

In 1959, a Spanish crew imitating mariners during the days of ancient China sailed a junk boat from Hong Kong to Barcelona, becoming the first people to sail a Chinese junk into the Mediterranean.

Stabbed 16 times, doused in boiling oil, his head wrapped in plastic – yet a jealous wife pleaded not guilty to murdering her husband. At the third attempt, a jury concluded the case, finding her guilty.

More than 50 years after the former ocean liner was gutted by fire while being converted into the floating Seawise University, we look at how the Post covered the blaze on January 9, 1972.

In 1963, gunshots rang out in Central, Hong Kong, when a police officer fired at an armed robber who’d turned his gun on him. In court the suspect, a former Chinese solider, unexpectedly pleaded guilty.

When Hong Kong Governor Sir Anthony Grantham retired in 1958, he and his wife Lady Grantham sailed away from the city as thousands lined the both sides of Victoria Harbour to bid farewell.

Crime, crime and more crime: these were the stories from Post archives that most interested readers in 2023, from the grisly Hello Kitty murder case to the underworld assassination of Jet Li’s manager.

At a Christmas concert at the Hongkong Hotel in 1948, a subdued choir of schoolchildren singing carols before Hong Kong’s then-governor had their ‘cloak of shyness’ lifted when the audience joined in.

Work on one of Hong Kong’s most Instagram-friendly places, the rainbow-coloured Choi Hung Estate, was approved in 1960. Governor Sir Robert Black called it ‘something of incalculable importance’.

Following the disappearance of 15 Hong Kong recreational sailors in 1969, it was learned they were being held by Chinese authorities. All were released within weeks bar the two Americans among them.

In 2002, a wealthy businessman was shot dead while eating breakfast at Hong Kong’s Luk Yu Tea House. The trail led to a former TV actor, who was jailed for life for paying triads to carry out the hit.

Accused of living beyond his means and of taking bribes, a Hong Kong civil servant claimed some of his money had come from his wife, who had a passion for gambling – and who had disappeared.

Assassins in motorcycle helmets gunned down Andely Chan, known as the ‘Tiger of Wan Chai’, and two associates outside a Macau hotel in November 1993. Unusually, two women bystanders were injured.

Thirty years after a China Airlines Flight 605 skidded off the runway at Kai Tak Airport and fell into Victoria Harbour, we revisit our coverage of the historic event on November 4, 1993.

A Hong Kong policeman who fatally shot a young man in an interrogation room in 1997 had been seeing psychologists, it turned out. Convicted of manslaughter, he was sent to a psychiatric centre.

60 years ago, a woman’s body was found in a village well in Hong Kong. A hawker claimed to have seen a man drop what looked like a corpse there, and her partner was charged with her murder.