History Today

 
1040: King Duncan of Scotland is murdered by Macbeth, who then becomes king and rules for 17 years.
1778: Death of Augustus Toplady, English hymn writer who wrote Rock of Ages.
1863: First Kanakas arrive in Brisbane for employment on a cotton plantation.
1880: Australia’s first soccer club, The Wanderers, plays its first match, against Kings School, Parramatta, NSW.
1893: France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration plates.
1917: China declares war on Germany and Austria during World War I.
1924: Australia’s Cobb & Co stagecoach service makes its last run, from Surat to Yeulba in Queensland.
1945: Japan surrenders to the United States, ending World War II.
1949: West Germans vote for the first time since the end of World War II.
1951: Death of William Randolph Hearst, US newspaper owner and publisher.
1958: Death of Gladys Presley, Elvis’s mother.
1968: Reports from Bombay say floods in India claim more than 1000 lives in seven days.
1969: British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1973: US bombing in Cambodia ends, marking official halt to 12 years of combat activity in Indochina.
1974: Greece withdraws troops from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) after the breakdown of Geneva peace talks and new fighting on Cyprus.
1989: PW Botha resigns as South African president.
1990: King Hussein of Jordan flies to Washington in an attempt to mediate US- Iraq confrontation, as Syrian troops begin arriving in Saudi Arabia.
1991: Scientists report that worldwide band of volcanic dust from eruption of Mount Pinatubo in Philippines could be cooling the world’s climate.
1992: Death of Judge John Sirica who was a central figure in America’s Watergate scandal.
1994: Several thousand IRA supporters rally outside Belfast’s city hall, 25 years after Britain deployed troops in Northern Ireland as would-be peacekeepers.
1996: Ian Macfarlane is appointed new head of Australia’s Reserve Bank.
1997: Timothy McVeigh is formally sentenced to death in the US for the Oklahoma City bombing.

By day nine of the 2016 Rio Olympics, Australia had won gold in three events including the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay. Picture: Clive Rose/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

1998: President Laurent Kabila flees the capital Kinshasa as rebels advance through Congo.
2004: At least 189 Tutsi children, women and men are hacked or shot to death by Hutu rebels raiding a UN refugee camp in western Burundi.
2005: All 21 people are killed on-board a Cypriot airliner when it crashes into mountains north of Athens.
2006: Australian security contractor Jon Hadaway, 34, dies in Germany from injuries suffered in a roadside bombing in Iraq on August 3.
2008: The US bans lead from children’s toys.
2010: The deadly waterborne disease cholera surfaces in flood-ravaged Pakistan adding to the misery of an estimated 20 million people made homeless by the disaster.
2011: At least 25 people are killed when Syria uses gunboats for the first time to crush the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
2013: About 421 people are killed after riot police smash two protest camps established by supporters of Egypt’s deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
2014: Iraq’s prime minister Nouri-al-Malaki ends a political deadlock by relinquishing his post to his nominated successor the Iranian-backed Haider Al- Abadi.
2015: US Secretary of State John Kerry officially reopens the American embassy in Havana, Cuba.
2016: Australia scores a medal in every colour by day nine of the Olympic Games, with three gold, three bronze and two silver in Rio de Janeiro.
2017: A female stunt driver dies on the set of 20th Century Fox’s superhero movie Deadpool 2 in Vancouver while filming a stunt on a motorcycle.
2018: The Morandi Bridge partially collapses and kills 43 people in Genoa, northern Italy.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“Do not look back, and do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward — your destiny — are here and now” — Dag Hammarskjold, UN secretary-general (1905-1961).