1|1|    |New Year's Day
1|1|1531|Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro established
1|1|1785|First issue of London Times published
1|1|1810|Lachlan Macquarie takes office as NSW Governor
1|1|1838|Victoria's first newspaper, The Melbourne Advertiser, founded
1|1|1845|First lawn bowls match in Australia held in Hobart
1|1|1849|Australia's largest life insurer, AMP, opens for business
1|1|1863|Abraham Lincoln signs Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves free
1|1|1877|Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India
1|1|1901|Commonwealth of Australia proclaimed
1|1|1907|Australia's Bureau of Meteorology established
1|1|1915|"Battle of Broken Hill" (2 Muslims fire on train, 4 dead, 7 injured)
1|1|1930|C Kingsford-Smith and C Ulm found Australian Nation Airways
2|1|1813|Bennelong, aborigine befriended by Cap A Phillip, dies
2|1|1878|Australia's first telephone service started
2|1|1913|First Commonwealth postage stamp issued in Australia
2|1|1959|Luna 1 (USSR) (first fly-by of the Moon) launched
2|1|1971|66 dead at soccer match in Glasgow
3|1|1920|Babe Ruth sold to NY Yankees by Boston Red Sox
4|1|1943|Australia introduces conscription in WW II
4|1|1958|Sputnik 1 destroyed on reentry
4|1|1965|TS Eliot, US-born British poet and playwright, dies in London
4|1|1989|US planes shoot down 2 Libyan jet fighters
4|1|1990|Rail disaster in Pakistan kills 307, injures 700
5|1|1056|Saint Edward the Confessor, son of Ethelred the Unready, dies
5|1|1895|German physicist Wilhelm Rntgen announces discovery of X-Rays
5|1|1933|Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president, dies
5|1|1941|English aviatrix Amy Johnson dies in plane crash
5|1|1971|Australia's first One-Day international cricket match (vs England)
5|1|1975|Ship Lake Illawarra hits Tasman Bridge, Hobart; 12 dead
6|1|1838|Samuel FB Morse and Alfred Vail demonstrates the telegraph
6|1|1854|Martial law declared in Ballarat district after Eureka Stockade
6|1|1993|Rudolf Nureyev, Russian ballet dancer, dies in Paris, aged 54
6|1|1993|Dizzie Gillespie, US jazz musician, dies, aged 75
7|1|1610|Galileo Galilei discovers 4 of Jupiter's moons
7|1|1785|Dr J Jeffries and JP Blanchard first to cross Channel in hot-air balloon
7|1|1788|First Fleet sights Van Diemen's Land
7|1|1789|First US presidential election held
7|1|1830|Charles Sturt starts exploration of Murrumbidgee River
7|1|1841|Edward John Eyre arrives in Albany after first crossing of Nullarbor
7|1|1927|The Globetrotters' debut
7|1|1927|Commercial trans-atlantic telephone service inaugurated (New York-London)
7|1|1934|C Kingsford Smith breaks Melbourne-Sydney car round-trip record (17 hours)
7|1|1933|Australian aviator Bert Hinkler dies
7|1|1953|US President H Truman announces US has developed the hydrogen bomb
7|1|1989|Japan's Emperor Hirohito dies after a 63-year reign
7|1|1999|US Senate opens impeachment trial against President B Clinton
8|1|1642|Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, dies
8|1|1878|First Australian demonstration of telephone in Melbourne
8|1|1889|Herman Hollerith patents first data processing computer
8|1|1923|First opera broadcast, Magic Flute, Covent Garden (BBC)
8|1|1969|Bushfires around Geelong, Victoria, kill 23 people
8|1|1980|John Mauchly, US engineer (UNIVAC I, first commercial computer), dies
9|1|1868|Last shipload of convicts arrives in Australia (Freemantle, WA)
9|1|1967|Last man hanged in Australia, Ronald Ryan, Pentridge, Melbourne
9|1|1969|Concorde jetliner makes first test flight (Bristol, England)
9|1|1993|Sir Paul Hasluck, Australian politician and poet, dies, aged 87
10|1|1863|London Underground Railway opens - with steam locomotives
10|1|1917|Buffalo Bill dies
10|1|1958|First Opera House lottery drawn
10|1|1968|"Great Balls of Fire" reaches No. 1
10|1|1971|Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel dies, aged 87
11|1|1569|First lottery in England drawn (in St Paul's cathedral)
11|1|1866|Ship "London" wrecked en route to Australia, 231 lives lost
11|1|1928|Thomas Hardy, English poet and novelist, dies, aged 87
11|1|1964|Surgeon General names cigarettes a health hazard"
12|1|1853|First US west coast university established (Willamette)
12|1|1872|Tin discovered at Tenterfield, NSW
12|1|1896|13-day heat wave in Bourke, NSW, 47 average, 47 die
12|1|1915|US Reps reject proposal to give women right to vote
12|1|1932|Hattie W Caraway becomes first woman US senator
12|1|1939|47.6 in Adelaide, a record for Australian capital
12|1|1960|Neville Shute, Australian author, dies
12|1|1976|Agatha Christie, English author, dies
13|1|1559|Coronation of Elizabeth I of England
13|1|1939|"Black Friday" bushfires kill 71 in Victoria; 45.6C in Melbourne
13|1|1972|NY rules that a woman may become a professional baseball umpire
14|1|1742|Edmund Halley, English astronomer, dies in Greenwich, aged 85
14|1|1784|Peace treaty US-England ratified, ending War of Independence
14|1|1900|Premiere of Puccini's Tosca (Rome)
14|1|1914|Henry Ford introduces the assembly line (1 Model-T,90 min)
14|1|1939|45.3 in Sydney
14|1|1957|Humphrey Bogart, US actor, dies
14|1|1958|QANTAS begins around-the-world flights
14|1|1977|Peter Finch, Australian actor, dies
15|1|1535|Henry VIII assumes title "Supreme Head of the Church"
15|1|1778|Captain James Cook discovers Sandwich Islands (Hawaii)
15|1|1797|Top Hat first worn (John Etherington, London)
15|1|1880|First telephone directory in Britain published (225 names)
15|1|1900|Bubonic plague reported in Adelaide
16|1|1889|53.1 in Cloncurry, Queensland, Australian record
16|1|1920|US introduces prohibition
16|1|1936|Albert the Cannibal Fish, child murderer, executed (Sing Sing)
17|1|1926|George Burns marries Gracie Allen
18|1|1788|Arthur Phillip reaches Botany Bay
18|1|1815|Gov L Macquarie establishes school for aboriginal children
18|1|1838|First racing club in Melbourne formed
18|1|1911|First plane landing on ship (Eugene Ely, Curtiss, USS Pennsylvania)
18|1|1912|Robert Scott reaches South Pole, 35 days after Amundsen
18|1|1936|Rudyard Kipling, English author, dies
18|1|1977|Train crash at Granville - 83 dead, AUS's worst rail accident
19|1|1790|Second Fleet sails with 1006 convicts from England for Sydney
19|1|1853|Premiere of Verdi's Il Trovatore (Rome)
19|1|1900|Bubonic plague spreads from Adelaide to Sydney
19|1|1966|Robert Menzies retires after 16 years as Australian PM
20|1|1265|First sitting of England's parliament
20|1|1892|First officially recognized basketball game played (Springfield,MA)
20|1|1910|Canberra becomes capital of Australia
20|1|1984|Johnny Weissmuller, US swimmer,actor, dies in Acapulco
20|1|1993|Audrey Hepburn dies, aged 63
21|1|1793|King Louis XVI of France is beheaded
21|1|1892|John Couch, English astronomer [Neptune], dies
21|1|1928|George Washington Goethals, US engineer [Panama Canal], dies
21|1|1954|First nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, launched
21|1|1976|First Concorde take off (London-Bahrein and Paris-Rio de Janeiro)
22|1|1655|Oliver Cromwell dissolves Britain's parliament
22|1|1887|Joseph Whitworth, English engineer, dies in Monte Carlo
22|1|1901|Queen Victoria of England dies after reign of 63 years
22|1|1980|Debbie Wardley becomes Ansett's first female pilot
23|1|1570|Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland, assassinated
23|1|1941|Nylon first produced in Britain
23|1|1962|Kim Philby, Soviet spy, defects
24|1|1848|James Marshall finds gold on California starting the Gold Rush
24|1|1879|Heinrich Geissler, German inventor, dies in Bonn
24|1|1907|First Boy Scout troop organized (Sir Baden-Powell, England)
24|1|1965|Sir Winston Chirchill dies
24|1|1978|Russian satellite crashes near Yellow Knife, NW Terr., Canada
24|1|1984|Apple Macintosh launched
25|1|1533|Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn secretly married
25|1|1848|Last convicts disembark from the Marion at Port Phillip
25|1|1909|Premiere of Strauss's Electra (Dresden)
25|1|1924|First Winter Olympics, in Chamonix, France
25|1|1947|Al Capone, US gangster, dies in poverty
25|1|1971|Charles Manson found guilty of the murder of actress Sharon Tate
25|1|1971|Idi Amin seizes power in Uganda
25|1|1974|Flood devastates Brisbane, 13 dead
26|1|1788|First fleet of convicts arrive at Sydney Cove (Australia Day)
26|1|1808|Officers arrest Gov. W Bligh in the Rum Rebellion
26|1|1857|Philadelphia Academy of Music opens
26|1|1905|Cullinan Diamond (3106 ct) found in Pretoria
26|1|1959|Darwin becomes a city
26|1|1976|ABC-FM starts broadcasting
26|1|1993|Australia loses 4th Test in Adelaide to WI by 1 run
27|1|1888|National Geographic Society founded
27|1|1926|Television first demonstrated (John Logie Baird, London)
27|1|1967|Apollo I destroyed by fire, 3 dead
27|1|1972|Aboriginal Tent Embassy set up outside Parliamant House, Canberra
28|1|1596|Sir Francis Drake dies of dysentery off Porto Bello, Panama
28|1|1788|Jean-Francois de la Perouse enters Botany Bay with 2 ships
28|1|1807|First street lights, London
28|1|1871|Paris surrenders to Germany in Franco-Prussian war
28|1|1939|Otto Hahn's discovery of atomic fission published
28|1|1963|Shark kills woman in Middle Harbour, Sydney
28|1|1986|Space shuttle Challenger explodes, killing crew of 7
29|1|1886|First petrol driven car patented (Karl Benz)
29|1|1900|The American Baseball League formed (Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis)
29|1|1957|Danish architect Jorn Utzon wins comp to design opera in Sydney
29|1|1963|Britain's entry into EC vetoed by France
30|1|1835|First presidential assassination attempt (Andrew Jackson)
30|1|1846|Proposal put for railway between Sydney and Goulburn
30|1|1854|First Cobb and Co coach leaves Melbourne for Bendigo
30|1|1870|Townsville and Bowen, North Queensland, damaged by cyclone
30|1|1933|Adolf Hitler appointed as German chancellor
30|1|1948|Mahatma Gandhi shot in New Delhi by Nathuran Vinayak Godse
30|1|1972|Bloody Sunday in Bogside, Ireland, police shoot 14 marchers
31|1|1606|Dutch Willem Janz lands in Australia
31|1|1606|Guy Fawkes executed
31|1|1880|The Bulletin first published
31|1|1928|Scotch tape first sold
31|1|1958|First US earth satellite launched (Explorer I)
31|1|1968|Beginning of the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam
1|2|    |Last month of summer (Australia)
1|2|1709|Alexander Selkirk (basis for "Robinson Crusoe"), rescued
1|2|1955|NSW extends hotel trading hours to 10pm
1|2|1959|Swiss referendum rejects female right to vote
1|2|1981|Trevor Chappell bowls underarm vs New Zealand
2|2|1535|Argentine city of Buenos Aires founded
2|2|1635|New Amsterdam (now New York) incorporated by the Dutch
2|2|1852|First public flushing lavatory for men opened in Fleet St, London
2|2|1880|First frozen meat imported to Britain from Australia
2|2|1943|Sixth German Army capitulates in Stalingrad, > 1 million casualties
2|2|1970|Bertrand Russell, British philosopher/mathematician dies, aged 97
2|2|1979|Sid Vicious [Sex Pistols] over-doses
2|2|1982|Lindy Chamberlain committed for trial
2|2|1984|Medicare health scheme formally adopted in Australia
3|2|1468|Johann Gutenberg dies
3|2|1920|Cyclone hits Cairns, North Queensland
3|2|1945|US Forces recapture Manila
3|2|1953|Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P.Richardson killed in plane crash
3|2|1954|Elizabeth II arrives on her first visit to Australia
3|2|1967|Ronald Ryan becomes last person in AUS to be executed (hanged)
4|2|1783|Hostilities end between United States and England
4|2|1913|Removable automobile wheel first used
4|2|1948|Ceylon becomes self-governing dominion in British Commonwealth
4|2|1962|First winter ascent of north face of Matterhorn
4|2|1974|Patricia Hearst kidnapped
4|2|1983|Karen Carpenter, US singer, dies
4|2|1987|Liberace, US entertainer, dies
5|2|1869|Nugget "Welcome Stranger" (69.92 kg of pure gold) found at Moliagul, Victoria
5|2|1917|Mexico becomes a federated republic with 28 states
5|2|1941|A.B. "Banjo" Patterson, Australian poet, dies
5|2|1945|General Douglas Macarthur returns to Manila
5|2|1976|Earthquake in Guatemala takes almost 25,000 lives
5|2|1982|Laker Airways declared bankruptcy
5|2|1984|Rod Marsh, Australian wicket keeper, retires
6|2|    |Waitangi Day (New Zealand)
6|2|1804|Joseph Priestley, English clergyman and chemist, dies
6|2|1840|Treaty of Waitangi signed between Maori and British
6|2|1851|Black Thursday Bushfires in Victoria, 10 dead
6|2|1906|Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club founded in Sydney
6|2|1935|Monopoly invented
6|2|1938|200 people swept out to sea at Bondi, Sydney; 5 dead
6|2|1952|King George VI dies
6|2|1993|Arthur Ashe, US tennis player, dies, aged 49
7|2|1788|Judge Advocate David Collins proclaims Colony of New South Wales
7|2|1863|HMS Orpheus wrecked near NZ, 190 dead
7|2|1964|Baskin-Robbins introduces Beatle Nut ice cream
7|2|1964|Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan Show
7|2|1967|Bushfires ravage Hobart area, 62 dead
7|2|1971|Switzerland approves votes for women
7|2|1984|First unattached space walk (Bruce McCandles)
8|2|1587|Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded
8|2|1725|Russia's Peter the Great dies, succeeded by his widow Catherine
8|2|1910|Boy Scouts of America chartered (William D. Boyce, Chicago)
8|2|1950|WW II petrol rationing ends in Australia
8|2|1967|Gough Whitlam replaces Arthur Calwell as Labor Opposition Leader
8|2|1983|Storm deposits 11,000 tonnes of dust on Melbourne
9|2|1830|Charles Sturt reaches Lake Alexandrina
9|2|1876|Appalachian Mountain Club founded
9|2|1962|Jamaica becomes independent
9|2|1971|Earthquake in California kills at least 64
9|2|1986|First women (8) ordained as deacons of Anglican Church in Australia
10|2|1842|Gov. Gipps declares Moreton Bay open to free settlers
10|2|1863|Fire extinguisher patented (Alanson Crane)
10|2|1873|NSW miners' 6-week-strike reduces working hours from 12 to 10.5
10|2|1879|Bushranger Ned Kelly holds up the Jerilderie post office
10|2|1923|Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen, German physicist, dies
10|2|1964|"Voyager" collision with "Melbourne" off Jervis Bay, 82 dead
10|2|1973|Australia's first legal casino opens at Wrest Point, Hobart
10|2|1992|Alex Haley, US author ["Roots"], dies
10|2|1993|Prof. Fred Hollows, Australian eye-surgeon, dies, aged 63
11|2|1788|Gov A Phillip convenes first Court of Criminal Judicature
11|2|1990|Nelson Mandela released after 27 years in South African prisons
12|2|1554|Lady Jane Grey executed for treason
12|2|1779|Captain James Cook killed by islanders in Hawaii
12|2|1877|Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated telephone (Boston/Salem, MA)
12|2|1959|Billy Graham arrives in Sydney
12|2|1990|Dr Carmen Lawrence becomes Australia's first woman premier (WA)
13|2|1542|Queen Katherine Howard is executed
13|2|1635|Oldest public school in US founded (Boston Latin School)
13|2|1680|British Parliament adopts Bill of Rights
13|2|1692|Massacre of Scottish Highlanders at Glencoe
13|2|1838|Melbourne is declared a city
13|2|1913|University of Western Australia founded
13|2|1954|Mawson, Antarctica, established
13|2|1978|The Sydney Hilton bombing, 3 dead
14|2|1663|Canada becomes royal province of France
14|2|1779|Captain James Cook stabbed to death by natives in Hawaii
14|2|1893|Hawaii is annexed by treaty to US
14|2|1929|St Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago
14|2|1936|Brisbane River Bridge opens
14|2|1966|Decimal currency introduced in Australia
14|2|1978|First "micro on a chip" patented (Texas Instruments)
15|2|1788|The "Supply" leaves for Norfolk Island to establish penal colony
15|2|1804|Lt Col David Collins arrives in Derwent R. to set up penal colony
15|2|1804|NJ became the last Northern state to abolish slavery
15|2|1879|Bill signed allowing female lawyers before the US Supreme Court
15|2|1882|First frozen mutton leaves NZ for England aboard "Dundedin", arrives 25 May
15|2|1922|First session of the Court of Intl. Justice, The Hague
15|2|1942|Singapore falls to Japan
15|2|1946|ENIAC, first digital computer, is dedicated in Philadelphia
15|2|1954|Queen opens Parliament House, Canberra
15|2|1990|Waterfront Place, Brisbane, opened
16|2|1793|First free settlers arrive in Australia
16|2|1936|Ansett Airways begins operations (Melbourne-Hamilton)
16|2|1937|Nylon patented (DuPont Corp. - developed by Wallace H. Carothers)
16|2|1948|Northern Territory Legislative Council sits for the first time
16|2|1959|Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba
16|2|1973|First meeting of the Australia Council for the Arts
16|2|1983|Ash Wednesday bush fires in Vic and SA, 73 dead
17|2|1883|"vacant/engaged" lavatory sign patented by Mr Ashwell, London
17|2|1929|First inflight movie shown
17|2|1932|"Baby Face" Nelson escapes prison
17|2|1956|Beginning of 10-month shearer strike
17|2|1993|Australia Television International launched
18|2|1564|Michelangelo, Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, dies
18|2|1859|"Temporary insanity" defense first used in America (Dan Sickles)
18|2|1876|Direct telegraph link London-New Zealand established
18|2|1930|Planet Pluto discovered by US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh
19|2|1878|Thomas Alva Edison patents the first gramophone
19|2|1942|First bombing raid on Darwin; 243 dead, 8 ships sunk, 23 planes destroyed
19|2|1951|Last woman hanged in Australia - Jean Lee in Melbourne
19|2|1955|First women elected to House of Assembly in Tasmania
20|2|1935|First woman set foot on Antarctica (Mrs. Karoline Mikkelson)
20|2|1962|John Glenn Jr becomes first American in orbit
21|2|1804|Richard Trevithick displays first self-propelled locomotive
21|2|1842|John Greenough patents sewing machine
21|2|1858|First electric burglar alarm installed by Edwin Holmes, Boston
21|2|1885|Washington Monument dedicated
21|2|1922|British protectorate in Egypt ends
21|2|1951|Free medical care introduced for all pensioners
21|2|1965|Malcolm X shot to death in New York
22|2|1630|Indians introduce popcorn to English colonists
22|2|1791|First NSW land grant (James Ruse)
22|2|1928|First solo flight UK-AUS completed after 15 days (Bert Hinkler)
22|2|1941|Australian Newsprint Mills begin production at Boyer, TAS
22|2|1955|First power generated by Snowy Mountain scheme fed into NSW grid
22|2|1987|Andy Warhol, US artist, dies
23|2|1821|John Keats, English poet, dies in Rome, aged 25
23|2|1836|Siege of Alamo begins
23|2|1874|Major Walter Clopton patents lawn tennis
23|2|1931|Dame Nellie Melba, Australian opera singer, dies in Sydney
23|2|1942|Japanese submarine attacks oil refinery at Santa Barbara, California
24|2|1771|Encyclopaedia Britannica first published
24|2|1868|House of Representatives vote to impeach Andrew Johnson
24|2|1875|Steamer Gotenburg hits reef near Townsville, 102 dead
24|2|1981|Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer announce their engagement
24|2|1993|Bobby Moore, English soccer player, dies, aged 51
25|2|1836|Six-shooter patented (Samuel Colt)
25|2|1961|Hunter R. floods Maitland, 11 dead, 100 houses swept away
25|2|1961|Sydney's last tram journey left from La Perouse
25|2|1983|Tennessee Williams, US playwright, dies
26|2|1531|Earthquake flattens Lisbon, killing tens of thousands
26|2|1804|Settlers arrive at Sullivan's Cove, first settlement of Hobart
26|2|1815|Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba
26|2|1914|First long-distance phone conversation via underground cable
26|2|1936|First Volkswagen factory opens
27|2|1919|American Association for the Hard of Hearing formed
27|2|1968|Debbie Thomas, figure skater, first black to win a  gold medal at the Winter Olympics
27|2|1993|Lillian Gish, US actress, dies, aged 93
28|2|1692|Salem witch hunt begins
28|2|1973|Australia reduces federal voting age from 21 to 18
28|2|1983|CBS airs the last episode of M*A*S*H
28|2|1986|Swedish Prime Minster Olaf Palme assassinated
28|2|1993|US authorities raid HQ of Branch Davidian Cult at Waco, TX
29|2|1904|Australian women gain the right to vote
29|2|1968|Discovery of "pulsar" announced (Jocelyn Burnell)
LU|3|   |Daylight Savings Time ends in NSW/VIC/SA/ACT (3am -> 2am)
LU|3|   |Daylight Savings Time starts in the UK (2am -> 3am)
1|3|    |Beginning of Autumn (Australia)
1|3|1932|Charles Lindbergh's son kidnapped and killed
1|3|1949|Joe Louis, US World Heavyweight champion boxer, retires
1|3|1970|First journey of the Indian-Pacific - 3,961 km in 65 hours
2|3|1789|Law prohibiting theatrical performances repealed (PA)
2|3|1867|Townsville and Bowen destroyed by cyclone
2|3|1930|DH Lawrence, British author, dies
2|3|1959|Work begins on the Sydney Opera House
2|3|1969|Concorde makes its maiden flight
3|3|1869|William Lanney, last Tasmanian full-blood Aborigine, dies
3|3|1875|First organized hockey match (Montreal)
3|3|1923|US magazine Time first issued
3|3|1931|Star Spangled Banner becomes US national anthem
4|3|1774|First recorded observation of the Orion Nebula (William Herschel)
4|3|1804|300 Irish convicts riot at Castle Hill,march on Parramatta,15 dead
4|3|1994|John Candy, Canadian actor, dies, aged 43
5|3|1770|Boston Massacre (5 killed, 6 injured)
5|3|1803|First NSW newspaper published ("Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser")
5|3|1804|Martial law declared following the Castle Hill riots
5|3|1933|NSDAP becomes largest party in German parliament
5|3|1953|Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dies
5|3|1966|British airliner hits Mount Fuji, 124 dead
5|3|1983|ALP lead by R Hawke wins federal election over Libs' M Fraser
6|3|1831|Edgar Allan Poe expelled from West Point
6|3|1965|US announces first deployment of troops (3,500) to South Vietnam
6|3|1988|Bronco's first game in Brisbane - 44-10 v.Manly (defending premiers)
6|3|1992|The Michelangelo Computer Virus supposed to strike
6|3|1994|Melina Mercouri, Greek actress/politician, dies, aged 68
7|3|-322|Aristotle dies
8|3|    |International Working Women's Day
8|3|1894|First dog-licensing law enacted in US
8|3|1910|First pilot's license to a woman: Mme de Laroche
8|3|1917|Riots and strikes in St Petersburg mark start of Russian Revolution
8|3|1940|NT Gilroy becomes Catholic archbishop of Sydney
8|3|1965|First non-stop Qantas flight to US
8|3|1971|Muhammed Ali loses first professional fight vs Joe Frazier
8|3|1973|15 die in fire at Wiskey Au Go Go club in Brisbane
9|3|1822|First patent for false teeth (C Graham)
9|3|1846|Treaty of Lahore signed
9|3|1876|Alexander Bell patents telephone
9|3|1903|Cyclone Leonta hits Townsville, 10 dead
9|3|1951|High Court rules out dissolution of Australian Communist Party
9|3|1993|Prof. C Northcote Parkinson ("P's Law") dies, aged 83
10|3|1862|First US paper money issued
10|3|1876|First phone message: Bell to Watson:"Come here Watson, I want you."
10|3|1931|Australia's first Apex club formed (Geelong)
10|3|1946|DC3 crashes at Hobart, 25 dead
10|3|1949|Lockheed crashes at Coolangatta, 21 dead
10|3|1959|Australia's population hits 10 million
11|3|1702|First English newspaper published, The Daily Courant, by E Mallet
11|3|1818|"Frankenstein" first published
11|3|1843|Tin discovered near Beechworth, Victoria
11|3|1892|First publicly played basketball game
11|3|1938|German forces enter Austria (Anschluss)
11|3|2004|Explosions kill > 200 train commuters in Madrid
12|3|1789|US Post Office established
12|3|1877|First department store opened (Wanamaker's, Philadelphia)
12|3|1914|George Westinghouse, US engineer/inventor, dies
13|3|1552|Turks invade Hungary
13|3|1781|Planet Uranus detected by Sir William Herschel
13|3|1854|Telegraph line Sydney-Melbourne opened
13|3|1877|Earmuffs patented (Chester Greenwood)
13|3|1930|Planet Pluto detected by Clyde Tombaugh
13|3|1992|Earthquake in Turkey, 6.2 Richter scale, 570 dead
14|3|1794|Cotton gin (removes seeds) patented (Eli Whitney)
14|3|1883|Karl Marx dies in London, aged 65
14|3|1885|The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan) premieres at the Savoy, London
14|3|1932|George Eastman, US photographic pioneer, committed suicide
14|3|1936|London-Hong Kong air service inaugurated
14|3|1945|Bomb "Grand Slam" (9988 kg) dropped on Bielefeld railway viaduct
14|3|1951|US forces recapture Seoul, Korea
14|3|1964|Jack Ruby found guilty of murder of Lee Harvey Oswald
14|3|1991|The wrongly accused "Birmingham Six" are released from jail
15|3|    |Buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio
15|3|-44 |(Ides of March) Julius Caesar assassinated
15|3|1877|First AUS cricket test v England; AUS win by 45 runs
15|3|1892|First elevator patented (American Jesse Reno)
15|3|1933|First Australian sound film released - In The Wake of The Bounty
15|3|1964|Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton marry for the first time
15|3|2009|BaCon version 0.1 released
16|3|1521|Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines
16|3|1534|England severs all relations with Roman Catholic Papacy
16|3|1830|Slowest trading day on the NY Stock Exchange (31 shares)
16|3|1872|First English FA Cup Final played: Wanderers 1, Royal Engineers 0
17|3|1816|First steamboat to cross English Channel (Elise)
17|3|1845|Rubber band patented
17|3|1871|John Ross establishes site of Alice Springs
17|3|1891|Telephone system England-France opened
17|3|1910|First powered flight in Australia (F C Custance, SA)
17|3|1965|First space walk (10 minutes, Russian Aleksei Leonov, Voshkod II)
18|3|1909|First ham radio broadcast (Einar Dessau, Denmark)
19|3|1831|First recorded US bank robbery (City Bank, NYC - $245,000)
19|3|1861|Maori War in New Zealand ends
19|3|1932|Sydney Harbour Bridge opened
20|3|1727|Sir Isaac Newton, British scientist, dies, aged 84
20|3|1815|Napoleon enters Paris, "Hundred Days" begin
20|3|1849|Start of second Sikh War
20|3|1852|"Uncle Tom's Cabin" first published
20|3|1885|Grafton, NSW, proclaimed a city
20|3|1899|First woman executed by electrocution (M M Place, NY)
20|3|1969|John Lennon and Yoko Ono marry
21|3|1788|Fire in New Orleans (800 buildings destroyed)
21|3|1958|First planetarium in Britain (London) opens
22|3|1832|Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, dies, aged 82
22|3|1895|First showing of celluloid film (Georges and Louis Lumire, Paris)
23|3|1887|Bulli mine explosion, > 80 dead
23|3|1891|Goal net first used in soccer
23|3|1957|Last US Army homing pigeons sold off
24|3|1603|Elizabeth I dies, James VI of Scotland accedes to the throne
24|3|1882|Robert Koch, German bacteriologist, isolates tuberculosis germs
24|3|1883|Salvation Army paper "War Cry" first published in Sydney
24|3|1898|First US automobile sold
24|3|1905|Jule Verne, French author, dies in Amiens, aged 77
24|3|1927|AUS federal parliament sits in Melbourne for the last time
24|3|1956|Victorians reject extended hotel trading hours
24|3|1989|Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska
24|3|1991|Former AUS Governor-General Sir John Kerr dies, aged 76
25|3|1821|Greece gains independence from Turkey
25|3|1877|Caroline Chisholm, Australian humanist, dies in London
25|3|1954|RCA begins producing color TV sets
25|3|1975|King Faisal of Saudi Arabia assassinated
26|3|1827|Ludwig van Beethoven, German/Austrian composer, dies
26|3|1913|Floods in Ohio, Indiana and Texas: 1,400 dead
26|3|1923|BBC broadcasts first daily weather forecast
26|3|1973|Sir Noel Coward, English playwright, actor and composer, dies
26|3|1984|$100 note introduced in Australia
26|3|1997|Tactical Global Management Ltd founded
27|3|1923|Sir James Dewar, Scottish chemist and physicist, dies
27|3|1955|First coast to coast color TV broadcast (US)
27|3|1964|Earthquake of 8.4 hits Alaska, killing 66
27|3|1968|Major Yuri Gagarin (first man in space) dies in a plane crash
28|3|1797|Patent for the first washing machine awarded (Nathaniel Briggs)
28|3|1800|Act of Union with England passes Ireland's parliament
28|3|1910|First seaplane takes off near Marseille (designed by Henri Fabre)
28|3|1979|Radiation leak at Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania
29|3|1871|Queen Victoria opens Royal Albert Hall
29|3|1886|Coca-Cola introduced
29|3|1912|Captain Robert Scott dies in Antarctica
29|3|1940|Bank of England introduces metal strips in pound notes
29|3|1951|Musical "The King and I" opens with Yul Brynner on Broadway
29|3|1967|First French nuclear submarine launched
29|3|1981|London Marathon first run
29|3|1973|Last American and Australian troops leave South Vietnam
29|3|1990|Bob Hawke wins 4th term
30|3|1842|Ether first used as anaesthetic (Dr Crawford Long, US)
30|3|1858|Pencil with eraser patented
30|3|1942|Food rationing introduced in Australia for tea, sugar, butter
30|3|1981|Ronald Reagan and James Brady shot at outside Washington Hilton
30|3|1985|Sally Anne Atkinson becomes Lord Mayor of Brisbane, the first Liberal and first woman to do so
31|3|1840|10-hour workday established for federal public works employees
31|3|1889|Eiffel Tower opens in Paris
31|3|1921|Australian Air Force established by Richard Williams
31|3|1948|US Congress passes Marshall Aid Pact for European recovery
31|3|1983|Christina Stead, Australian novelist, dies in Sydney
31|3|1988|Sir William McMahon, former Australian PM, dies
31|3|1990|Poll Tax riots in London
1|4|1864|First accident insurance policy printed (Hartford)
1|4|1955|Hobart becomes first Australian city to introduce parking meters
1|4|1976|ISD introduced to Australia, dialling direct to 13 countries
2|4|1792|US Mint established
2|4|1952|Bernard Ferdinand Lyot, French astronomer (coronagraph), dies
2|4|1958|18 km south of Taree, NSW, sealing of Pacific Highway between Sydney and Brisbane completed
3|4|1860|First run of the Pony Express
3|4|1882|US outlaw Jesse James shot (Robert Ford)
3|4|1978|First BBC broadcast from House of Commons
4|4|1617|John Napier, Scottish mathematician, dies
4|4|1692|First post office established for American colonies
4|4|1919|Soviet republic established in Bavaria
4|4|1929|Carl Friedrich Benz, German mechanical engineer, dies
4|4|1933|Champion AUS/NZ racehorse Phar Lap dies in the US
4|4|1968|Rev Dr Martin Luther King shot by James Earl Ray
4|4|1977|Edwin Land presents Polarvision camera to the public
4|4|1980|Richard Brooke Roberts, US physicist and micro-biologist, dies
5|4|-2348|Noah's Ark grounded
5|4|1794|French revolutionaries GJ Danton and C Desmoulins executed
5|4|1955|Sir Winston Churchill resigns as British Prime Minister
5|4|1976|Howard Hughes, US multi-millionaire recluse, dies
6|4|1895|B Patterson's Waltzing Matilda first sung, Winton Hotel (Qld)
6|4|1909|US explorer Robert E Peary reaches North Pole
6|4|1917|United States declares war on Germany
6|4|1963|Otto Struve, Russian-born astronomer, dies at Berkeley
7|4|1652|Cape Town founded by Dutchman van Riebeeck
7|4|1851|First pay gold found (J Lister and W Tom, Oophir near Bathurst, NSW)
7|4|1924|First rotary clothes hoist unveiled in Melbourne by Gilbert Toyne
7|4|1927|First successful demonstration of TV (Washington DC to NY)
7|4|1943|Albert Hoffman synthesises LSD in a Swiss laboratory
7|4|1947|Henry Ford, US industrialist, dies
7|4|1953|Dag Hammarskjold elected UN Secretary General
8|4|1817|Australia's first bank, Bank of New South Wales (Westpac), opened
8|4|1933|Western Australia votes to secede and form a separate nation
8|4|1953|First major 3D movie released ("Man in the Dark")
9|4|1865|Gen Robert E. Lee capitulates to Gen Ulysses S. Grant to end US civil war
9|4|1940|Germany invades Norway and Denmark
10|4|1837|Governor Burke proclaims the site of Melbourne
10|4|1849|Safety pin patented (Walter Hunt)
10|4|1954|Auguste Lumiere, French chemist, dies
10|4|1962|Stuart Sutcliffe, bass player with The Beatles, dies in Hamburg
10|4|1963|US atomic submarine Thresher fails to surface, 129 dead
11|4|1899|Philippines are transferred from Spain to USA
11|4|1919|Referendum in NZ declares against prohibition
11|4|1954|Vladimir Petrov seeks political asylum in Australia
11|4|1984|Advance Australia Fair proclaimed as the national anthem
12|4|1204|Constantinople captured by crusaders
12|4|1654|Ireland and Scotland united with England
12|4|1861|US Civil War starts (South takes Ft Sumter, Charleston)
12|4|1878|William March "Boss" Tweed, NYC political boss, dies
12|4|1905|Bushranger Mary Ann Baker dies, aged 70
12|4|1914|Geore Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" opens in London
12|4|1954|Bill Haley and the Comets record "Rock Around the Clock"
12|4|1961|First manned orbital flight (Yuri A Gagarin )
12|4|1964|Rev Ted Noffs opens Wayside Chapel, Kings Cross, Sydney
12|4|1981|First flight of space shuttle, STS Columbia
13|4|1742|Handel's "Messiah" first performed (Dublin)
13|4|1829|Melbourne's first post office opened
13|4|1954|Political asylum granted to Vladimir Petrov
13|4|1969|Last tram service in Brisbane closed
13|4|1973|First professional runner to break the four minute mile (Jim Ryun)
13|4|1964|S Poitier becomes first black actor to win Academy Award
13|4|1969|Last tramway service in Brisbane closed
13|4|1970|Oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 bursts
14|4|1865|Abraham Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth
14|4|1894|Thomas Edison demonstrates his kinetoscope
14|4|1914|Nonskid tire pattern patented
14|4|1981|First space shuttle (STS Columbia) lands
15|4|1755|Dr Samuel Johnson publishes dictionary
15|4|1850|The city of San Francisco incorporated
15|4|1873|Peter Warburton begins first east-west crossing of Australia
15|4|1912|Liner Titanic sinks on maiden voyage, >1,500 drowned
15|4|1947|Jackie Robinson's first major league baseball game
15|4|1989|Soccer stadium disaster at Sheffield, UK - 94 dead
16|4|1681|Province of NJ for sale ($25,000)
16|4|1755|Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" published
16|4|1906|Pacific cable US-China completed
16|4|1912|Harriet Quimby (US) first woman to fly across English Channel
16|4|1917|Nikolai Lenin returns to Russia from exile
16|4|1947|Fires and explosions wreck Texas City, Texas; >500 dead
16|4|1953|Royal yacht Britannia launched
16|4|1980|Arthur Ashe, US tennis player, retires from competetive tennis
16|4|1993|Leslie Charteris, British author [Simon Templar], dies, aged 85
16|4|2007|Virgina Tech Massacre (33 dead, 29 injured)
17|4|1421|Dykes break at Dort, NL - >100,000 drowned
17|4|1492|C Columbus receives commission to seek ocean passage to India
17|4|1524|Giovanni da Verrazano discovers present-day New York Harbour
17|4|1790|Benjamin Franklin, US statesman, scientist, and author, dies
17|4|1956|Victoria's Health Commission declares asbestos dangerous
17|4|1961|Invasion at Cuba's Bay of Pigs
17|4|1970|The Beatles disband
17|4|1989|Polish union Solidarity is granted legal status
18|4|1775|Paul Revere's Midnight Ride
18|4|1831|Sydney Herald first published
18|4|1882|Charles Darwin dies
18|4|1906|San Fransisco earthquake (47s >500 killed, 250,000 homeless, 7.9 to 8.3 on Richter Scale)
18|4|1906|French chemist and physicist Pierre Curie dies
18|4|1945|British engineer Sir John Ambrose Fleming dies
18|4|1949|Proclamation of the Republic of Eire in Dublin
18|4|1955|Albert Einstein dies
18|4|1958|Lucas Heights reactor begins operation
18|4|1970|Melbourne's VFL Park opened
19|4|1783|US Congress announces end of War of American Independence
19|4|1897|First Boston Marathon
19|4|1956|Prince Rainier of Monaco weds Grace Kelly
19|4|1987|First episode of The Simpsons broadcast
20|4|1908|Train collision at Sunshine, Vic; 44 dead
20|4|1916|The Easter uprising begins in Ireland
20|4|1916|First game played at Wrigley Field (Chicago 7, Cincinati 6)
20|4|1968|Pierre Trudeau becomes Prime Minister of Canada
20|4|1985|QPAC, Brisbane, opens
21|4|-753|Romulus founded Rome
21|4|1500|Pedro Alvarez Cabral lands in Brazil and claims her for Portugal
21|4|1856|Australia first country to establish 8-hour working day
21|4|1857|Bustle patented (Alexander Douglas)
21|4|1861|Robert Burke, William Wills, John King miss base camp party at Cooper Creek by 7 hours
21|4|1918|Baron Manfred von Richthofen "The Red Baron" shot down
21|4|1966|First artificial heart implant (Houston, Texas)
22|4|1860|John Stuart reaches centre of Australia
22|4|1864|"In God We Trust" approved as US motto
22|4|1889|12 noon - Start of the Oklahoma land rush
22|4|1989|Charleville, Qld, evacuated because of floods
23|4|1616|William Shakespeare dies
23|4|1954|Hank Aaron hits first home run
23|4|1959|Reserve Bank of Australia formed
24|4|1704|First US newspaper published on a regular basis (Boston News Letter)
24|4|1974|Bud Abbott, US comdedy actor, dies
24|4|1983|Stern and The Sunday Times publish fake diaries of A.Hitler
24|4|1986|Premiere of "Crocodile Dundee"
25|4|    |ANZAC Day (Landing at Gallipoli, 1915)
25|4|1744|Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer, dies
25|4|1768|Canaletto, Italian architect, dies
25|4|1792|Guillotine first used (on Nicolas Jacques Pelletier)
25|4|1809|Australia's first Post Office opens (George St/Circular Quai)
25|4|1859|Work began on the Suez Canal
25|4|1896|Australian women vote for the first time (South Australia)
25|4|1942|Battle of Kokoda Track (PNG) begins
26|4|1890|"The Man From Snowy River" first appears in print
26|4|1912|First home run hit in Fenway Park (Bradley)
26|4|1937|Spanish town of Guernica attacked by German planes
26|4|1939|Robert Menzies becomes Prime Minister for the first time
26|4|1986|Accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station
26|4|1989|Lucille Ball, US comedy actress, dies
27|4|1521|Ferdinand Magellan killed by natives in the Philippines
27|4|1908|Cyclone hits pearling fleet at 80 Mile Beach, WA; >50 dead
27|4|1937|First social security payment made
27|4|1950|Communist Party outlawed in Australia
28|4|1770|James Cook reachs Botany Bay in HMS Endeavour
28|4|1789|Mutiny on the "Bounty"
28|4|1865|Samuel Cunard, Canadian shipowner, dies
28|4|1876|Queen Victoria declared Empress of India
28|4|1945|Partisans execute Italy's dictator Benito Mussolini
28|4|1969|Charles de Gaulle resigns as president of France
28|4|1976|First Vietnamese refugee boat people arrive in Darwin
28|4|1980|Alfred Hitchcock dies
28|4|1996|Massacre at Port Arthur, Tasmania (35 dead, 37 wounded)
29|4|1429|Jean d'Arc enters Orleans and defeats the English
29|4|1885|Women first admitted to examinations at Oxford University
29|4|1945|NAZI concentration camp Dachau liberated
29|4|1987|Australian Dick Smith first to fly by helicopter to North Pole
30|4|1789|George Washington inaugurated as first US president
30|4|1803|US purchases Louisiana and New Orleans from French
30|4|1804|Shrapnel first used in warfare (British against Dutch in Surinam)
30|4|1900|Hawaii becomes a US territory
30|4|1939|NBC begins regular broadcasting
30|4|1945|Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide
30|4|1955|Guthega power station (Snowy Mts) operational
30|4|1991|Cyclone hits Bangladesh, 125,000 dead
30|4|1993|Tennis player Monica Seles is stabbed courtside in Germany
1S|5|    |Kentucky Derby
2U|5|    |Mothers' Day
4U|5|    |QUIT Week
1|5|1707|Union of England and Scotland: Great Britain
1|5|1931|First Commonwealth of Australia banknote, 10 shillings, released
1|5|1933|Britain-India telephone service inaugurated
1|5|1955|Australia's first parking meters installed in Hobart
1|5|1967|Elvis Presley weds Priscilla Beaulieu
1|5|1971|US rail passenger service Amtrak goes into operation
1|5|1983|Opening of the Sydney Entertainment Centre
1|5|1994|Ayrton Senna da Silva, Brazilian F1 driver, dies in Imola, aged 34
2|5|1519|Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist/inventor, dies
2|5|1952|First turbo-jet airline service (Brit.DH Comet London-Johannesburg)
2|5|1969|Maiden voyage of Queen Elizabeth II
2|5|1983|Cliff Young, 61, wins 875 km Sydney-Melbourne footrace
3|5|1765|First medical school in America organised
3|5|1841|New Zealand iproclaimed a British colony
3|5|1903|First electric train (Liverpool-Birkenhead)
3|5|1927|Australian Council of Trade Unions formed
3|5|1979|Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first female prime minister
4|5|1814|Napoleon goes into exile on Elba
4|5|1877|Victorian Football Association founded
4|5|1959|First major Snowy Mts power station operational
4|5|1973|Sears Towers, Chicago, completed: 110 storeys, 443 m high
4|5|1989|Oliver North convicted in Iran-Contra affair
4|5|1989|10,000s of Chinese students demonstrate on Tienanmen Square
5|5|1821|Napoleon Bonaparte dies on St Helena
5|5|1835|Belgium's first national rail service (Brussels-Malines) started
5|5|1865|First recorded US train robbery (North Bend, OH)
5|5|1906|First electric tram in Melbourne (St Kilda-Brighton)
5|5|1930|Amy Johnson starts, in Croydon, England, a solo flight to Australia in a Gypsy Moth named Jason; she arrives on May 24
5|5|1947|Train derailment at Camp Mountain, Qld; 16 dead
5|5|1961|Alan B Shepard Jr becomes first American in space
6|5|1840|The first adhesive British stamps issued (Penny Black)
6|5|1865|Australian Bush Ranger Ben Hall shot dead at Billabong Ck
6|5|1851|Linus Yale patents lock that bears his name
6|5|1937|German dirigible Hindenburg explodes at Lakehurst, NJ; 36 dead
6|5|1941|Josef Stalin becomes Soviet premier, succeeding VM Molotov
6|5|1954|British runner Roger Bannister first to break 4 minutes/mile
6|5|1992|Marlene Dietrich dies in Paris, aged 90
7|5|1858|Almanac Trial (A Lincoln, defense attorney)
8|5|1794|Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist, dies (guillotine)
8|5|1876|Truganini, last full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigine, dies
8|5|1878|First major league triple play
8|5|1886|Dr John Pemberton, Atlanta pharmacist, first sells Coca-Cola
8|5|1912|First takeoff from a moving ship (Lt Samson, HMS Hibernia)
8|5|1914|First seaplane flown in Australia: Maurice Guillaux, Double Bay
8|5|1945|Victory in Europe - V-E Day
9|5|1850|French chemist and physicist Joseph Gay-Lussac dies
9|5|1914|First Mother's Day proclaimed
9|5|1931|Physicist Albert Michelson, first US Nobel prize winner, dies
9|5|1962|Beatles sign first record contract with EMI
9|5|1965|San Francisco Examiner coins the word "hippie"
10|5|1618|Cap HC van Hillegom of the Zeewolf sights Australian coast
10|5|1818|Paul Revere, US patriot, dies
10|5|1869|US transcontinental rail completed at Promontory Pt, Utah
10|5|1919|First British airline (2-seat single-engine Manchester-Blackpool)
10|5|1920|Wesley Hyatt, US inventor of celluloid, dies
11|5|1813|Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth start crossing the Blue Mountains
11|5|1947|Tubeless tires announced (Akron, OH)
11|5|1985|Fire destroys grandstand at Bradford soccer ground, 56 dead
12|5|    |Limerick Day
12|5|1870|Canada buys Manitoba from the Hudson's Bay Company
12|5|1949|Russian blockade of Berlin ends after 11 months
12|5|1969|Voting age in UK lowered from 21 to 18
12|5|1973|Last person executed by guillotine in France
12|5|1997|Susie Maroney swims from Cuba to Florida (190km, 24.5 h)
13|5|1787|First Fleet leaves Portsmouth for NSW
13|5|1781|Sir William Herschel discovers planet Uranus
13|5|1884|US inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick dies in Chicago
13|5|1932|NSW Premier Jack Lang dismissed by Gov Sir Philip Woolcott Game
14|5|1796|First smallpox vaccination (Edward Jenner on Jimmy Phipps, 8)
14|5|1855|Australia's first mint begins operations in Macquarie St, Sydney
14|5|1943|Hospital ship Centaur torpedoed off Cape Moreton, Qld, 268 dead
14|5|1969|Last Chevrolet Corvair produced
14|5|1973|Skylab 1 launched; it crashes after 34981 orbits on July 11, 1979, in WA
14|5|1984|Australian one dollar coin issued to replace one dollar note
14|5|1987|Armed troops storm Fiji parliament, kidnapping PM and cabinet
15|5|1718|First machine-gun mechanism patented (James Puckle)
15|5|1888|First woman nominated for president
15|5|1928|Australian Flying Doctor Service inaugurated in Cloncurry, QLD
15|5|1941|Britain's first jet-propelled aircraft flew at Cranwell
15|5|1978|Robert Menzies, Australia's longest-serving prime minister, dies
16|5|1818|First recorded rowing race in AUS (Bradleys Head-Sydney Cove)
16|5|1866|Root beer first made (CE Hires)
16|5|1908|Britain's first diesel submarine, "D1", launched at Barrow
16|5|1929|First Academy Awards presented
17|5|1630|Belts of planet Jupiter first seen
17|5|1792|NY Stock Exchange formed
17|5|1875|First running of the Kentucky Derby
17|5|1885|Germany annexes Northern New Guinea and Bismarck Archipelago
18|5|1804|Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor of France
18|5|1896|US Supreme Court upholds segregation ("separate but equal")
19|5|1536|Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded
19|5|1898|Postcard first authorized
19|5|1915|Sniper kills John Simpson Kirkpatrick, Gallipoli hero (& Duffy)
19|5|1919|Broken Hill Mines closed by strike which lasts until Nov-1920
20|5|1506|Christopher Columbus dies in Spain
20|5|1770|Captain James Cook finds and names Fraser Island, Qld
20|5|1830|Fountain pen patented (D Hyde)
20|5|1867|Copper discovered at Cloncurry, Qld, by Ernest Henry
20|5|1927|Charles Lindbergh begins solo flight across Atlantic Ocean
20|5|1929|Australia's first airmail stamp issued
20|5|1934|Australia's first comic-book published (Fatty Finn)
20|5|1943|Japanese aircraft attack Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia
21|5|1908|First horror film ("Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde") released (Chicago)
21|5|1945|Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall wed
21|5|1956|First hydrogen bomb exploded over Bikini Atoll
21|5|1982|British troops attack Argentine-held Falkland Islands
21|5|1991|Rajiv Gandhi assassinated
22|5|1840|Transportation of convicts from Britain to NSW abolished
22|5|1856|First NSW parliament formally opened
22|5|1860|First meeting of Queensland parliament
22|5|1868|The Reno gang steals $98,000 in the first "Great Train Robbery"
23|5|1455|Battle of St Albans (War of the Roses)
23|5|1701|Captain William Kidd hanged for piracy and murder
23|5|1788|South Carolina becomes the 8th state
23|5|1883|Adelaide Zoo established
23|5|1934|Bonnie and Clyde killed in police ambush
24|5|1543|Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer, dies
24|5|1844|S Morse telegraphs first public message: "What hath God wrought?"
24|5|1859|In Paris, Charles Gounod's "Ave Maria" first performed
24|5|1883|Brooklyn Bridge first opens to the public
24|5|1930|Amy Johnson completes solo flight UK-Australia in a Gypsy Moth
25|5|1837|Port Adelaide proclaimed a harbour and legal port
25|5|1870|Australian bushranger Captain Thunderbolt shot dead by Constable AB Walker
25|5|1901|First Indian motorcycle built
25|5|1911|First Indy 500 motor race
25|5|1914|House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule Bill
25|5|1935|Babe Ruth hits his last home run, number 714
25|5|1961|US president JF Kennedy announces plan to put a man on the moon
25|5|1979|American Airlines DC10 crash at Chicago, 272 dead
26|5|1521|Edict of Worms bans Martin Luther
26|5|1805|Napoleon Bonaparte crowned King of Italy
26|5|1853|Last convict ship to Van Diemens Land arrives in Hobart
26|5|1865|US Civil War ends as last Confederate army surrenders
26|5|1923|First Le Mans 24-hour race
26|5|1945|B-29s firebombed Tokyo
26|5|1947|UK-Australia "Assisted Passage" agreement
26|5|1966|Guyana becomes independent of Britain
26|5|1968|Student demonstrations in Paris
26|5|1991|Lauda Air Boeing crashes into Thai jungle, 223 dead
26|5|1996|Michael Jackson weds Lisa Marie Presley
27|5|1679|Habeas Corpus Act passed
27|5|1703|Tsar Peter the Great founds St Petersburg
27|5|1796|Piano patented (JS McLean, NJ)
27|5|1860|Garibaldi invades Sicily and captures Palermo
27|5|1931|Auguste Picard, Swiss physicist, rises > 15.5 km in a balloon
27|5|1936|Luxury liner Queen Mary weighs anchor for maiden voyage
27|5|1937|Golden Gate Bridge (1280m) opens in San Francisco, US
27|5|1941|Bismarck sunk off France, 2300 dead
27|5|1967|Constitutional discrimination of Aborigines scrapped by referendum
28|5|1929|Warner Brothers produces first colour movie ("On with the Show")
28|5|1942|Sugar rationing begins in US
28|5|1961|Last trip of the Orient Express (Paris-Bucharest)
29|5|1453|Constantinople captured by Turks
29|5|1807|John MacArthur ships first Merino wool to England
29|5|1848|Wisconsin becomes the 30th state
29|5|1913|Rite of Spring (Stravinsky) first performed
29|5|1919|Pop-up toaster patented (Charles Strite)
29|5|1953|Mount Everest conquered by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing
29|5|1982|Romy Schneider dies, aged 43
29|5|1985|Riots at a Brussels soccer stadium: 38 dead, 375 injured
30|5|1431|Joan of Arc burned at the stake at Rouen, France
30|5|1536|Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour
30|5|1783|First daily newspaper begins publication (PA Evening Post)
30|5|1848|The US acquires New Mexico, Texas, California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona from Mexico
30|5|1896|The first automobile accident on record occurs in New York City
30|5|1912|Wilbur Wright, US aeroplane pioneer, dies in Daytona, Ohio
31|5|    |World No Tobacco Day
31|5|1859|Big Ben (clock at British parliament) first operated
31|5|1884|Patent for "flaked cereal" applied for (Dr John Harvey Kellogg)
31|5|1910|Union of South Africa founded
31|5|1927|The last Model-T Ford comes off the assembly line in Detroit
31|5|1928|Sir C Kingsford-Smith leaves Oakland, USA, for Australia
31|5|1942|3 Japanese midget submarines enter Sydney Harbour
31|5|1961|South Africa becomes independent republic outside Commonwealth
31|5|1962|Adolf Eichmann, NAZI GeStaPo chief, executed
31|5|1976|Indonesia completes invasion of East Timor
2M|6|    |Queen's Birthday Holiday
1|6|     |Beginning of Winter (Australia)
1|6|1859|First convict ship arrives in Western Australia
1|6|1869|Voting machine patented (Thomas A Edison)
1|6|1880|First public phone box (New Haven, Connecticut)
1|6|1947|Australian Broadcasting Commission begins independent news service
1|6|1967|Release of the album "Sgt. Pepper" by The Beatles
2|6|1291|Swiss Federation founded
2|6|1835|PT Barnum's circus begins first US tour
2|6|1846|Melbourne newspaper Argus first issued
2|6|1896|Broadcasting patent granted to Guglielmo Marconi
2|6|1924|US congress confirms citizenship on all American Indians
2|6|1953|Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
3|6|1098|The Crusaders take Antioch
3|6|1539|Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain
3|6|1790|Lady Juliana, first ship of 2nd fleet, arrives in Port Jackson
3|6|1937|Duke of Windsor marries Mrs Wallis Warfield Simpson in France
3|6|1942|Japanese planes raid Dutch Harbor, Alaska
3|6|1959|Singapore becomes self-governing
3|6|1969|HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks US destroyer Frank E Evans
3|6|1989|Chinese troops storm Tiananmen Square
4|6|1629|Dutch vessel Batavia is wrecked off Western Australia
4|6|1784|French opera singer Mme Thible first woman to fly (hot-air balloon)
4|6|1924|Western Australia's first radio station, 6WF, starts broadcasting
4|6|1940|W Churchill's speech "We shall fight on the beaches"
4|6|1942|Battle of Midway begins
4|6|1989|Ayatollah Khomeini dies, aged 86
5|6|754|St Boniface, Apostle of Germany, martyred by pagan Frisians
5|6|1783|Bros Montgolfier first fly in a hot-air balloon
5|6|1915|Danish women win voting rights
5|6|1933|Gold standard abolished
5|6|1963|British War Minister John Profumo resigns (Christine Keeler affair)
5|6|1964|First British space flight, Blue Streak launched in Woomera, SA
5|6|1967|Start of Israeli-Arab "Six-Day War"
5|6|1968|US Senator Robert F Kennedy (42) assassinated in Los Angeles
5|6|1988|Australian Kay Cottee becomes first woman to sail single-handed non-stop around the world
6|6|1844|YMCA is founded in London by George Williams
6|6|1859|British act authorises separation of Queensland from NSW
6|6|1871|Germany annexes Alsace
6|6|1933|First drive-in movie theatre opens (Camden, NJ)
6|6|1944|D-Day landings in Normandy (Operation Overlord)
6|6|1949|George Orwell's "1984" published
6|6|1954|First Eurovision TV link-up
6|6|1956|Elvis Presley first appears on the Ed Sullivan Show
6|6|1962|The Beatles make their first recording in the Abbey Road studio
6|6|1964|Malawi gains independence from Britain with Kamuzu Banda as PM
6|6|1967|Egyptians close Suez Canal during Arab-Israeli war
7|6|1825|Van Diemens Land becomes a separate colony of Australia
7|6|1921|First parliament of Northern Ireland opens
7|6|1924|Batman's parents killed
7|6|1942|Japanese submarines shell Sydney and Newcastle but cause little damage
7|6|1942|End of the Battle of Midway
8|6| 632|The prophet Muhammed dies
8|6|1786|Commercially made ice cream first advertised (Mr Hall, NYC)
8|6|1950|Butter rationing ends in Australia
8|6|1951|School of the Air begins broadcasting
8|6|1983|World's first test-tupe triplets born in Adelaide
8|6|1990|First free elections in Czechoslovakia - V Havel elected president
9|6|  68|Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide
9|6|1803|Matthew Flinders returns to Sydney after sailing around Australia
9|6|1870|Charles Dickens, English novelist, dies
9|6|1898|Britain leases Hong Kong from China for 99 years
9|6|1928|Charles Kingford-Smith and Captain Ulm land at Brisbane to become the first to fly across the Pacific Ocean
9|6|1934|Donald Duck makes his first screen appearance ("The Wise Little Hen")
9|6|1958|Gatwick airport opens
9|6|1959|First US Polaris submarine launched
9|6|1979|Seven people die in fire on ghost-train at Luna Park, Sydney
10|6|1190|Frederick Barbarossa drowns in Turkey during 3rd Crusade
10|6|1610|First Dutch settlers land on Manhattan Island
10|6|1652|First mint in America (Boston)
10|6|1835|Formation of Australia's first political party, the Australian Patriotic Party
10|6|1836|Andr Ampre, French physicist, dies
10|6|1865|Tristan and Isolde first performed (Munich)
10|6|1933|Australian Women's Weekly first published
10|6|1935|Alcoholics Anonymous founded
10|6|1942|GESTAPO commit the Lidice massacre
10|6|1943|Ball-point pen, invented by Laszlo Biro, patented in US
10|6|1960|29 people die in a Fokker Friendship crash at Mackay
11|6|1770|Capt Cook's Endeavour runs aground near today's Cook Town
11|6|1816|The Gas Light Co. of Baltimore founded
11|6|1947|End of sugar rationing in US
11|6|1955|Three cars crash into Le Mans grandstand: 80 dead, > 100 injured
11|6|1963|Buddhist monk burns himself in protest in Saigon
11|6|1964|The Beatles arrive in Darwin to start Australian tour
11|6|1969|Soviet and Chinese troops clash on Xinjian border
11|6|1979|John Wayne, US actor, dies
12|6|1789|Captain Arthur Phillip names the Hawkesbury River in NSW
12|6|1872|Royal Mint opens in Melbourne
13|6|1900|Boxer Uprising in China begins
13|6|1923|Vegemite first produced in Australia
13|6|1944|First German V-I bomb hits London
13|6|1951|Ben Chifley, Australian Prime Minister, dies
13|6|1956|Last English troops leave Suez Canal
13|6|1969|US troops begin to withdraw from South Vietnam
14|6|1645|Oliver Cromwell defeats Royalists at Naseby
14|6|1834|Sandpaper patented (Isaac Fischer Jr)
14|6|1883|First train service between Melbourne and Sydney
14|6|1940|German forces occupy Paris
14|6|1940|Nazis open concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland
14|6|1946|Scottish television pioneer John Logie Baird dies
14|6|1951|First commercial computer, Univac 1, starts service
14|6|1982|Battle for Port Stanley ends Falklands War
15|6|1215|King John signs Magna Charta
15|6|1520|Pope Leo excommunicates Martin Luther by the Bull "Exsurge"
15|6|1752|Benjamin Franklin flies a kite
15|6|1844|Patent for rubber vulcanization awarded to Charles Goodyear
15|6|1862|Bushranger Frank Gardiner's gold robbery at Eugowra (Forbes, NSW)
15|6|1869|Celluloid patented by John Wesley Hyatt
15|6|1878|Photographs by Edward Muggeridge prove to Leland Stanford that all the hooves of a horse are off the ground during the gallop
15|6|1919|First non-stop transatlantic flight: J Alcock and A Whitten Brown
16|6|    |Bloomsday (The day in the life of Leopold Bloom in 1904 related in James Joyce's novel "Ulysses")
16|6|1903|Ford Motor Co incorporated
16|6|1961|Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev defects from USSR while touring France
16|6|1963|Valentina Tereshkova becomes first woman in space (Vostok 6)
16|6|1977|Werner von Braun, German-born rocket pioneer, dies
16|6|1991|Mt Pinotabo, Philipines, erupts
17|6|1579|Sir Francis Drake claims sovereignty over New Albion (California)
17|6|1843|Maoris revolt against British
17|6|1885|Statue of Liberty arrives in New York aboard the "Isre"
17|6|1939|Last public execution by guillotine in France (Eugen Weidmann)
17|6|1950|First kidney transplant (Dr Richard Lawler, L Co of Mary, Chicago)
17|6|1953|Most runs scored in 1 inning (17 by Red Sox)
17|6|1953|Soviet tanks crush people's uprising in East Germany
17|6|1967|China announces its first hydrogen bomb explosion
17|6|1969|Musical "Oh! Calcutta!" opens in New York City
17|6|1972|5 men arrested breaking into Dem. Party's HQ at Watergate Hotel
18|6|1429|Joan d'Arc defeats the English at Patay
18|6|1583|First life insurance taken in London
18|6|1812|United States declares war against Britain
18|6|1812|British under Duke of Wellington and Prussians under von Blcher defeat Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo
18|6|1817|Waterloo Bridge (Thames, London) opened
18|6|1898|First amusement pier opened in Atlantic City, NJ
18|6|1948|Columbia Records unveils 33 1/3 rpm LP
18|6|1953|Egypt becomes a republic, Gen. Muhammad Naguib President
18|6|1983|Dr Sally Ride became first US woman in space (Challenger)
19|6|1536|Anne Boleyn is beheaded
19|6|1829|Sir Robert Peel establishes the London Metropolitan police
19|6|1846|First baseball games with set rules Elysian fields, Hoboken NJ
19|6|1862|US congress prohibits slavery in US territories
19|6|1867|Emperor Maximillian of Mexico captured and shot
19|6|1885|Statue of Liberty arrives in New York from France
19|6|1893|Lizzie Bordon acquitted of hacking her parents to pieces
19|6|1961|Kuwait becomes independent of Britain
19|6|1969|Australian Arbitration Commision rules equal pay for women
19|6|1984|Michael Jordan signed to the Chicago Bulls
20|6|1819|First steamship crossing the Atlantic (Savannah) arrives in England
20|6|1837|Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne
20|6|1949|AUS Communist Party chairman L Sharkey convicted for sedition
20|6|1973|Juan Peron returns to Argentina after > 10 years in exile
20|6|1991|German parliament votes (narrowly) for Berlin as capital
20|6|1994|OJ Simpson pleads "Not Guilty"
21|6|1675|Foundation Stone for St Paul's Cathedral laid
21|6|1948|33 1/3 RPM LP record introduced (Columbia Records)
21|6|1913|First woman parachutes from an aircraft (Georgina Broadwick, LA)
21|6|1966|Peter Kocan shoots and wounds Arthur Calwell
21|6|1990|Earthquake in Iran (7.3-7.7), 100,000 dead
22|6|1815|Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates for the second time
22|6|1832|Pin manufacturing machine patented (JI Howe)
22|6|1863|First gaslights in Adelaide
22|6|1941|Germany invades Soviet Union
22|6|1970|US voting age lowered to 18
22|6|1980|Australia's first test-tube baby born in Melbourne
22|6|1960|Track athlete Wilma Rudolph wins 3 gold medals in the Olympics
23|6|1848|Belgian Adolphe Sax patents saxophone
23|6|1956|Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser elected president of Egypt
23|6|1980|First solar-powered coast-to-coast two-way radio conversation
23|6|1985|Air India Boeing 747 Toronto-Bombay crash: 329 dead
23|6|1991|Manning Clark, Australian history professor, dies
23|6|1993|Lorena Bobbitt cuts off her husband John's penis
24|6|1314|Robert the Bruce crushes the English: Battle of Bannockburn
24|6|1509|Henry VIII is crowned King of England
24|6|1812|Napoleon enters Russian territory
24|6|1852|Floods wash away Gundagai, 77 dead
24|6|1901|Pablo Picasso's first exhibition (Paris)
24|6|1916|First Battle of the Somme begins
24|6|1948|Soviet Union begins blockade of Berlin
24|6|1978|Sydney's Mardi Gras held for the first time
24|6|1992|Nick Greiner resigns as Premier of NSW
25|6|1115|Abbey of Clairvaux is founded with St Bernard as its first abbot
25|6|1867|Barbed Wired patented by Lucien Smith, Kent, Ohio
25|6|1876|Little Big Horn (Custer's Last Stand) - 264 killed
25|6|1903|Marie Curie announces the discovery of radium
25|6|1942|British Air Force stages 1000 bomber raid on Bremen
25|6|1950|Korean war begins
25|6|1951|First commercial colour broadcast (CBS, New York)
25|6|1963|John F Kennedy makes his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech
26|6|1284|Pied Piper lures 130 children of Hameln away
26|6|1498|Toothbrush invented
26|6|1843|Hong Kong proclaimed a British Crown Colony
26|6|1906|First Grand Prix motor race (Le Mans)
26|6|1917|First US troops arrive in France
26|6|1948|First supply flights into blockaded Berlin
26|6|1950|ANAS DC4 crashes in Western Australia: 29 dead
26|6|1960|British Somaliland becomes independent
27|6|1829|James Smithson, English scientist, dies in Genoa
27|6|1890|Kelly gang occupies Glenrowan Hotel
27|6|1900|London "electric tube" railway opens (Bank-Shepherd's Bush)
27|6|1929|Colour TV first demonstrated in New York
27|6|1949|Start of Australian national coal strike
27|6|1950|United States enters the Korean War
27|6|1954|First atomic power station at Obninsk, near Moscow, began production
27|6|1980|First female state police graduates (NJ)
28|6|1762|First reported counterfeiting attempt (Boston)
28|6|1838|Coronation of Queen Victoria
28|6|1914|Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering WW I
28|6|1918|Treaty of Versailles signed, ending World War I
28|6|1976|The Seychelles become independent
29|6|1613|The Globe Theatre in London burns to the ground
29|6|1880|Ned Kelly wounded and captured at Glenrowan, Victoria
29|6|1978|Bob Crane, actor ("Hogan's Heroes"), murdered
30|6|1520|Spanish kill Montezuma II, last Aztec emperor
30|6|1845|First legal hotel in AUS: Hero of Waterloo, Sydney
30|6|1859|Acrobat Emile Blondin first to cross the Niagara Falls by tightrope
30|6|1894|London's Tower Bridge opens
30|6|1908|Meteorite hits eastern Siberia
30|6|1930|Purge within the NAZI party: "Night of the long knives"
30|6|1936|Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" published
30|6|1938|Superman comic first published
30|6|1960|Congolese Republic gains independence, Patrice Lumumba premier
30|6|1971|Soviet space craft Soyuz II crashes, killing its crew of three
1|7|1543|England and Scotland sign Peace of Greenwich
1|7|1847|First US adhesive stamps go on sale
1|7|1860|Charles Goodyear, US inventor, dies as a pauper
1|7|1863|The Battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) begins
1|7|1867|Foundation of the Dominion of Canada
1|7|1907|World's first airforce established (Aeronautical Div. US Army)
1|7|1910|Union of South Africa becomes a Dominion of the British Empire
1|7|1921|Communist Party of China established in Shanghai
1|7|1932|Australian Broadcasting Commission comes into existence
1|7|1941|First TV commercial in US (Bulova clocks)
1|7|1946|US explode a 20 kton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll, Pacific
1|7|1967|BBC2 begins colour transmissions
1|7|1974|Isabel Peron becomes president of Argentina
2|7|1800|Union Jack adopted as flag of Australia
2|7|1819|Britain passes Factory Act: Children to work only 12hrs/day
2|7|1860|Vladivostok founded
2|7|1881|US President James A Garfield is shot in Washington, DC
2|7|1865|Salvation Army founded in London by William Booth
2|7|1900|Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin flies his first airship
2|7|1900|The Wallaroo leaves Sydney with troops against Boxer Rebellion
2|7|1937|Amelia Earhart and Frederick Noonan reported lost
2|7|1950|Australian 77th Fighter Squadron begins operation in Korea
2|7|1956|Elvis Presley records Hound Dog and Don't Be Cruel
2|7|1956|Buddy Holly releases first record: Love Me
2|7|1976|North and South Vietnam reunited
2|7|1961|Ernest Hemingway commits suicide in Ketchum, Idaho
2|7|1996|Margot Hemingway found dead
3|7|1608|Samuel de Champlain, French explorer, founds Quebec
3|7|1863|Battle at Gettysburg ends with victory for the North
3|7|1928|First colour TV transmission by John Logie Baird in London
3|7|1928|World record for steam locomotives set (210 km/h, London NE Railway)
3|7|1950|Tea rationing ends in Australia
3|7|1962|Algeria becomes independent after 132 years of French rule
3|7|1976|Israeli commando unit storms Entebbe airport (Uganda)
3|7|1988|US warship destroys Iran Air Flight 655, 290 passengers dead
4|7|1528|First serious outbreak of the plague in England
4|7|1776|American Declaration of Independence passed by Congress
4|7|1827|Slavery abolished in New York; > 10,000 slaves freed
4|7|1895|"America the Beautiful" first printed
4|7|1904|Beginning of the Panama Canal
4|7|1914|AJ Roberts flies first Australian airship over Sydney
4|7|1946|Republic of the Philippines founded
4|7|1976|Israeli commandos rescue 103 hostages at Entebbe, Uganda
4|7|1991|Heart surgeon Dr Victor Chang murdered in Sydney
5|7|1811|Venezuela becomes independent of Spain
5|7|1854|Republican Party established in US
5|7|1865|First speed limit introduced in Britain
5|7|1946|First bikini modelled
5|7|1959|First QANTAS jet lands in Sydney: 80,000 spectators
5|7|1975|Cape Verde Islands become independent from Portugal
5|7|1987|Pat Cash wins men's singles at Wimbledon
5|7|1991|Nelson Mandela becomes president of the ANC
6|7|1415|John Hus, religious reformer, is burned at the stake in Bohemia
6|7|1535|Sir Thomas More executed for treason
6|7|1699|Cpt William Kidd, NY businessman turned pirate, seized in Boston
6|7|1813|John Macarthur ships 36 bales of wool to England
6|7|1885|Louis Pasteur's first successful anti-rabies inoculation
6|7|1971|Louis Armstrong dies in New York City, aged 71
7|7|1607|"God Save the King" first sung
7|7|1791|Mary Anne, first ship of the 3rd fleet, arrives in Sydney
7|7|1846|California, formerly a Spanish territory, becomes part of US
7|7|1854|Georg Ohm, German physicist, dies in Munich
7|7|1886|Cocos Islands given "in perpetuity" to George Clunies Ross
7|7|1898|US annexes Hawaii
7|7|1928|St George beat Balmain 21-12 ("Earl Park Riot")
7|7|1978|Solomon Islands gain independence from Britain
7|7|1981|S Ptaceck crosses the English Channel in first solar-powered plane
7|7|2005|Terrorists explode 4 bombs in London: 56 dead, >700 injured.
8|7|1497|Vasco da Gama leaves Lisbon to find a sea route to India
8|7|1835|The Liberty Bell cracks
8|7|1889|The Wall Street Journal first published
8|7|1909|Sydney's first taxi cabs commence operations
9|7|1540|Marriage of Henry VIII to Anne of Cleves annulled
9|7|1877|First Wimbledon tennis championships
9|7|1878|Corncob pipe patented (Henry Tibbe)
9|7|1900|Commonwealth of Australia constituted
9|7|1932|King Camp Gillette, inventor of the safety razor, dies
10|7|1040|Lady Godiva rides through Coventry
10|7|1559|Mary Queen of Scots becomes Queen of England
10|7|1858|Four die at Lidcombe, NSW, Australia's first fatal railway accident
10|7|1900|The Mtro (Paris underground) opens
10|7|1911|Royal Australian Navy established
10|7|1938|Howard Hughes (& a crew of 4) fly around the world (91 h)
10|7|1962|First telecommunications satellite, Telstar 1, launched
10|7|1985|Rainbow Warrior sinks in Auckland Harbour, 1 dead
11|7|1533|Pope Clement VII excommunicates Henry VIII
11|7|1974|John Kerr appointed as Governor General of Australia
11|7|1978|Gas truck crashes into Spanish caravan park, > 180 dead
11|7|1979|Skylab 1 crashes in WA after 34,981 orbits
11|7|1985|Nolan Ryan, first pitcher to strike out 4,000 (Danny Heep)
12|7|1690|Battle of the Boyne (William III def. James II) - Orange Day
12|7|1878|First public performance of Advance Australia Fair
12|7|1902|Australian women receive right to vote
12|7|1910|Charles Stuart Rolls, English aviator and co-founder of Rolls-Royce, dies in a crash in Dorset, England
13|7|1793|Jean Marat murdered by Charlotte Corday
13|7|1863|First US military draft, rioting in New York, 1,000 dead
13|7|1913|First Commonwealth of Australia banknotes circulated
13|7|1985|The Live Aid pop concert
14|7|1789|Citiziens of Paris storm and capture Bastille Prison
14|7|1867|Alfred Nobel first demonstrates dynamite in a quarry in Surrey
14|7|1867|Alfred Krupp, German iron and steel magnate, dies
14|7|1881|Billy the Kid shot and killed by Pat Garrett
14|7|1906|Angry mob at Flemington lynches bookmaker Donald McLeod
14|7|1992|Helicopters and volunteers rescue 44 beached whales in Sydney
15|7|1099|40,000 Christian Crusaders storm and capture Jerusalem
15|7|1916|William Boeing founds Pacific Aero Products
15|7|1920|Dame Nellie Melba features in Australia's first radio broadcast
15|7|1964|The Australian newspaper begins publication in Canberra
15|7|1977|Donald McKay vanishes from Griffith, NSW
16|7|1910|First flight of an AUS-built aircraft at Mia Mia, Vic, by JR Duigan
16|7|1935|First parking meters, invented by Carlton Magee, installed (Oklahoma City)
16|7|1945|First atomic bomb tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, supervised by Dr Robert Oppenheimer
16|7|1951|JD Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" is published
16|7|1969|Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins take off for first lunar landing
16|7|1979|Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq
17|7|1918|Russian Imperial Family, the Romanovs, slain
17|7|1936|Spanish Civil War begins
17|7|1964|Donald Campbell sets land speed record (655 km/h) at Lake Eyre
17|7|1989|Stealth bomber test flown
17|7|1990|Twins turned 2 triple plays at Red Sox (first time in major league history)
18|7| -64|Rome burns, allegedly lit by Emperor Nero
18|7|1536|The Pope's authority is declared void in England
18|7|1946|Tamworth, NSW, is proclaimed a city
18|7|1969|Mary Jo Kopechne drowns on Chappaquiddick Island, MA
19|7|1932|Grafton Bridge over the Clarence River opens
19|7|1958|Perth trams cease running
19|7|1969|John Fairfax finishes rowing across the Atlantic ocean
20|7|1810|Colombia declares independence from Spain
20|7|1842|Sydney proclaimed a City
20|7|1881|Chief Sitting Bull surrenders
20|7|1937|Guglielmo Marconi, radio pioneer, dies in Rome
20|7|1944|Assassination attempt on A Hitler by German officers fails
20|7|1973|Bruce Lee, US martial arts film star, dies, aged 32
21|7|1969|Neil Armstrong first steps on to the moon
21|7|1984|First reported killing of a human by a robot (Jackson, MI)
22|7|1376|Pied Piper removes all rats, then children, of Hamelin
22|7|1925|Regular airmail service Melbourne-Sydney begins
22|7|1934|John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1, killed in Chicago by FBI
22|7|1962|Algeria declares independence from France
22|7|1982|Rev Sun Myung Moon marries 2,200 couples in NY
23|7|1886|First person to leap from the Brooklyn Bridge (Steve Brodie)
23|7|1879|Alexander Forrest discovers and names Ord River, WA
23|7|1904|Charles E Menches invents the ice cream cone in St Louis
23|7|1929|Australia's first national radio program from 3LO Melbourne
23|7|1986|Prince Andrew weds Sarah Ferguson in London
24|7|1534|Jacques Cartiers lands in Canada and claims it for France
24|7|1704|British capture Gibraltar
24|7|1872|AG Scott (Cap Starlight) sentenced in Ballarat to 11 years jail
24|7|1946|First underwater test of atomic bomb at the Bikini atoll
24|7|1950|First rocket launched from Cape Canaveral (German V2)
24|7|1969|Apollo 11 lands back on earth (well, in the Pacific Ocean)
24|7|1983|AUS golfer Jack Newton loses arm and eye, struck by a propeller
25|7|1814|George Stephenson tests his first steam locomotive
25|7|1843|Charles Macintosh, who patented waterproof fabric in 1823, dies
25|7|1871|William Schneider of Davenport, Iowa, invents the merry-go-round
25|7|1909|First crossing of English Channel by air (Louis Bleriot)
25|7|1943|Benito Mussolini resigns
25|7|1956|Italian liner Andrea Doria and Swedish ship Stockholm collide
25|7|1957|Hovercraft first crosses the English Channel
25|7|1984|Russian cosmonaut becames the first woman to walk in space
26|7|1775|US Post Office established
26|7|1882|Daily News becomes Perth's first daily newspaper
26|7|1891|France annexes Tahiti
26|7|1950|Australian ground troops committed to Korea
27|7|1540|Thomas Cromwell is executed
27|7|1836|Adelaide founded by Colonel William Light
27|7|1839|Opium War between Britain and China begins
27|7|1866|First trans-Atlantic telegraph cable is successfully completed
27|7|1921|Insulin first isolated by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, Toronto
27|7|1940|Bugs Bunny debut ('A Wild Hare')
27|7|1949|British De Havilland Comet (first jet airliner) maiden flight
27|7|1953|Official end of Korean War
27|7|1988|Boston's worst traffic jam in 30 years
27|7|1992|Max Dupain, Australian photographer, dies in Sydney, aged 81
28|7|1586|First potatoes arrive in England from Colombia
28|7|1750|Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer, dies
28|7|1794|French revolutionaries M Robespierre and A Saint Just executed
28|7|1821|Peru's independence from Spain formally declared
28|7|1868|Third Maori War breaks out
28|7|1933|First singing telegram delivered (to Rudy Vallee)
28|7|1937|Japanese seize Peking
28|7|1945|US B-25 bomber crashes into Empire State Building, 13 dead
28|7|1968|Otto Hahn, German discoverer of nuclear fission, dies
28|7|1976|A 7.9 earthquake destroys Tangshan, China: 242,000 dead
29|7|1588|Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat Spanish Armada
29|7|1841|Maoris sell Waitemata (Auckland) to NZ government
29|7|1848|Irish insurrection at Tipperary fails
29|7|1899|First motorcycle race (Manhattan Beach, NY)
29|7|1914|New York-San Francisco telephone service begins
29|7|1968|Pope Paul VI issues encyclical "Humanae Vitae"
29|7|1981|Charles Windsor weds Diana Spencer
30|7|1792|La Marseillaise first sung
30|7|1842|The State of NSW is granted a representative government
30|7|1898|Otto von Bismarck dies
30|7|1898|Kellogg invents corn flakes
30|7|1928|First colour motion pictures shown by George Eastman
30|7|1945|Japanese submarine sinks US cruiser Indianapolis: > 800 dead
30|7|1997|Landslide in Thredbo buries 19 people, 18 dead
31|7|1556|Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, dies
31|7|1774|Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen
31|7|1956|Poker machines legalised in NSW clubs
31|7|1956|English bowler Jim Laker takes 10-53 against AUS in 2nd innings at Old Trafford after 9-37 in the first innings.
31|7|1981|MTV begins broadcasting
1|8|1498|Columbus lands on mainland America (Isla Santa)
1|8|1778|World's first savings bank opens in Hamburg, Germany
1|8|1793|France becomes first country to use metric weights and measures
1|8|1798|Battle of the Nile: Nelson destroys French fleet off Aboukir
1|8|1834|Slavery abolished in the British Empire
1|8|1876|Colorado becomes the 38th US state
1|8|1902|New Idea magazine first published in Australia
1|8|1921|Snugglepot And Cuddlepie by May Gibbs published
1|8|1939|Glenn Miller records "In The Mood"
1|8|1981|MTV debut
2|8|    |Jeans for Genes Day
3W|8|   |Brisbane Show (EKKA) Day
2|8|1861|A national income tax bill passed to aid the Union war effort
2|8|1893|The Sydney Golf Club founded
2|8|1921|Enrico Caruso dies
2|8|1922|Alexander Graham Bell dies, aged 75
2|8|1929|Alice Springs and Oodnadatta linked by the "Ghan"
3|8|-216|Hannibal defeats Romans at Cannae
3|8|1492|Christopher Columbus sets sails to find a western route to India
3|8|1846|Australia's oldest boys' school, Hutchins School, opens in Hobart
3|8|1852|First steamship ("SS Chusan") arrives in Sydney
3|8|1958|Atomic-powered US sub Nautilus first undersea crossing of North Pole
3|8|1954|Colette, French author, dies
3|8|1966|Lenny Bruce, US comedian, dies
3|8|1975|Superdome (New Orleans) opens
3|8|2000|EU opens anti-trust case against Microsoft
3|8|2004|Statue of Liberty, NY, reopens after 9/11
4|8|1914|Britain declares war on Germany, beginning the first World War
4|8|1962|Marilyn Monroe dies
4|8|1968|Nelson Mandela arrested in South Africa
5|8|1845|407 die when the Cataraqui is wrecked off King Island
5|8|1850|Representative governments granted to South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria
5|8|1858|First transatlantic cable between Newfoundland and Ireland completed
5|8|1879|First Night Football played at MCG (under gas lights)
5|8|1884|Cornerstone to Statue of Liberty laid
5|8|1940|USSR annexes Latvia
5|8|1944|The (unsuccessful) Cowra Breakout: 234 killed, 108 wounded
5|8|1960|Upper Volta gains independence from France
5|8|1965|Cook Islands gain self-government from New Zealand
5|8|1992|Sir Robert Muldoon, former New Zealand Prime Minister, dies
6|8|1825|Bolivia proclaims independent
6|8|1890|First execution by electric chair (W Kemmler, Auburn NY)
6|8|1926|First woman swims English Channel (Gertrude Ederle, US)
6|8|1945|First atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, > 70,000 dead
7|8|1858|First game of Australian Rules Football played
7|8|1888|Revolving door patented (Theophilus van Kannel, Philadelphia)
7|8|1945|Soviet Union declares war on Japan
7|8|1959|First photograph of Earth taken from space (Explorer 6)
7|8|1960|Ivory Coast becomes independent of France
7|8|1964|People's Republic of the Congo is proclaimed
8|8|1876|Mimeograph patented (Edison - Menlo Park, NJ)
8|8|1909|RS Falkiner demonstrates first electric sheep shears
8|8|1974|Richard Nixon announces resignation under threat of impeachment
8|8|1975|Premiere of Australian film "Picnic At Hanging Rock"
9|8|1859|Escalator patented
9|8|1870|Melbourne Town Hall opened
9|8|1944|Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French author, is reported missing
9|8|1945|Second atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, > 75,000 dead or wounded
9|8|1974|Richard Nixon resigns from the US presidency
10|8|1675|Charles II lays foundation stone to Greenwich Observatory
10|8|1821|Missouri becomes 24th US state
10|8|1833|Chicago incorporated (pop. 200)
10|8|1885|Broken Hill Pty Ltd is registered as a business
10|8|1846|Smithsonian Institute established in Washington
10|8|1945|Japans offers to surrender
10|8|1948|TV show "Candid Camera" airs for the first time
10|8|1984|Mary Decker and Zola Budd collide in LA Olympics 3000m Final
11|8|1824|New South Wales constituted as a Crown Colony
11|8|1909|SOS distress signal first used by an American ship (Arapahoe)
11|8|1965|Race riots in Watts, Los Angeles
12|8|1658|First police in America (New Amsterdam)
12|8|1851|Isaac Singer gains patent on his sewing machine
12|8|1877|Sir Henry Morton reaches the mouth of the Congo River
12|8|1887|Thomas Edison makes first sound recording: Mary Had A Little Lamb
12|8|1898|Hawaiian Islands annexed by US
12|8|1953|First Soviet hydrogen bomb exploded
12|8|1960|First communications satellite, Echo I, launched
13|8|1521|Hernando Cortez captures Mexico City fro Aztec Indians
13|8|1844|Ludwig Leichhardt begins to explore beyond the Darling Downs
13|8|1910|Florence Nightingale, British nurse in the Crimean War, dies
13|8|1919|First public radio broadcast in Australia
13|8|1920|Opening of the Princes Highway at Waragul
13|8|1961|Berlin Wall built
14|8|1040|Macbeth murders King Duncan of Scotland
14|8|1784|First Russion colony in Alaska founded on Kodiak Island
14|8|1863|First Kanakas arrive in Brisbane to work on cotton fields
14|8|1880|First soccer match in AUS: Wanderes v Kings School, Parramatta
14|8|1893|France first country to introduce motor vehicle registration plates
14|8|1900|Boxer Rebellion is crushed
14|8|1924|Cobb and Co's last stagecoach run (Surat to Yeulba, Qld)
14|8|1925|Mount Rushmore figures proposed
14|8|1945|Japan surrenders in World War II
15|8|1057|MacBeth, King of Scotland, killed by Malcolm, son of Duncan
15|8|1534|St Ignatius of Loyola founds Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
15|8|1843|Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen opened
15|8|1846|CA's first newspaper began publication
15|8|1947|India's independence proclaimed
15|8|1969|Woodstock Music and Art Fair opens (until August 17)
16|8|1896|George Washington Carmack discovers gold in the Klondike
16|8|1898|Roller coaster patented
16|8|1899|Robert Bunsen, German physicist, dies, aged 88
16|8|1960|Cyprus gains independence from Britain, Makarios president
16|8|1971|Maiden flight of first QANTAS jumbo, City of Canberra
16|8|1977|Elvis Presley dies
17|8|1786|Frederick the Great, King of Prussia since 1740, dies
17|8|1879|F de Lesseps forms French Panama Canal Company
17|8|1945|Sukarno claims independence for Indonesia from the Netherlands
17|8|1960|Gabon achieves independence from France
17|8|1962|East German border guards shoot 18yr-old Peter Fechter
17|8|1980|Azaria Chamberlain disappears from campsite near Ayers Rock
17|8|1987|Former Nazi deputy Fuehrer Rudolf Hess dies, aged 93
17|8|1991|The Strathfield massacre (8 dead)
18|8|1227|Genghis Khan dies
18|8|1870|Western Australia is granted representative government
18|8|1872|First mail-order house catalogue issued (AM Ward)
18|8|1914|Woodrow Wilson proclaims US neutral in WW I
18|8|1920|Ratification of the 19th Amendment (voting rights to women)
18|8|1958|Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" first published
18|8|1960|First oral contraceptive, Enovid, launched
19|8|1662|Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and theologian, dies
19|8|1951|Browns uses a midget as leadoff batter (vs Detroit)
20|8|1000|St Stephen, first King of Hungary, crowned
20|8|1619|First slaves brought to US (Jamestown, VA) by Dutch traders
20|8|1791|Alaska discovered by the Dane Vitus Jonas Bering
20|8|1857|The Dunbar, out of Plymouth, sinks in Sydney Harbour, 121 dead
20|8|1955|First airline to fly faster than 800 mph (HA Hanes)
20|8|1959|Hawaii becomes the 50th US state
20|8|1968|More than 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia
20|8|1977|Voyager I, first man-mad object to leave the solar system, launched
21|8|1940|Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico City
21|8|1959|Hawaii becomes 50th state of the US
21|8|1961|Debut of ABC program Four Corners
21|8|1983|Benigno Aquino assassinated on his return to Manila
22|8|1485|Richard III killed at Bosworth, ending War of the Roses
22|8|1831|Nat Turner leads an uprising of blacks
23|8|1833|British Parliament abolishes slavery in all parts of the Empire
23|8|1957|Digital Equipment Corporation founded
23|8|1962|Satellite Telstar relays first live program between US and Europe
24|8|  79|Mt Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum
24|8|1456|Gutenberg completes first printed bible
24|8|1572|St Bartholomew's Day Massacre: 70,000 protestants killed
24|8|1814|British invade Washington and set fire to Capitol and White House
24|8|1875|Cap Matthew Webb first to swim English Channel (21hr, 45min)
24|8|1891|Thomas Edison files patent for motion picture camera
24|8|1932|First woman to fly non-stop across US (Amelia Earhart)
24|8|1939|Last man hanged in NSW: axe murderer John Trevor Kelly
24|8|1954|Dwight Eisenhower signs Communist Control Act
24|8|1968|First French H-Bomb exploded (Fugataufa Atoll)
24|8|1991|Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of Communist Party
25|8|1718|City of New Orleans founded
25|8|1793|First church built in Sydney
25|8|1822|Sir William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus, dies
25|8|1828|Uruguay declares independence from Spain
25|8|1867|Michael Faraday, discoverer of electro-magnetism, dies
25|8|1883|The volcano of Krakatoa in Indonesia begins to erupt
26|8|1346|A cannon first used in battle (Edward III def Philip VI)
26|8|1883|Cricket trophy "The Ashes" created
26|8|1884|Linotype patent granted to Ottmar Mergenthaler
26|8|1914|Battle of Tannenberg: Hindenburg and Ludendorff defeat Russia
26|8|1915|German army captures Brest-Litovsk
26|8|1920|19th amendment gives US women right to vote
26|8|1957|The Soviet Union announces it has successfully tested an ICBM
26|8|1974|Charles Lindbergh, American aviator, dies
26|8|1978|Pope John Paul I elected; dies 33 days later
26|8|1992|Cyclone Andrew hits Florida, 180,000 homeless, 1,500,000 without power, $30 billion damage
27|8| -55|7th and 10th Roman legions land in Deal, England
27|8|1789|Rights of Man adopted in the French National Assembly
27|8|1902|NSW grants women the vote
27|8|1912|"Tarzan of the Apes" published
27|8|1939|First jet-propelled plane flight, Heinkel He178
27|8|1979|IRA bomb kills Lord Mountbatten aboard yacht
27|8|1986|Riots in Soweto, 12 blacks shot dead by police
27|8|1939|World's first jet flight, Heinkel 178, in Germany at 580 km/h
28|8|1896|Chop Suey first concocted (NYC)
28|8|1963|Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech
28|8|1985|Launch of AUSSAT I
29|8|1533|Atahualpa murderd on orders of Pizarro
29|8|1825|Melbourne, Australia, founded
29|8|1831|Michael Faraday discovers electro-magnetic induction - the birth of industrial electricity
29|8|1874|French performer Blondin walks tightrope across Sydney Harbour
29|8|1893|"Clasp-locker" patented (developed into the zipper) by Whitcomb L Judson
30|8|1780|Benedict Arnold betrayed his country
30|8|1940|Sir JJ Thomson, English discoverer of the electron, dies
30|8|2005|Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans and surroundings, > 1,000 dead
31|8|1888|Jack the Ripper killed first victim (Mary Ann Nichols)
31|8|1962|Trindad and Tobago gain independence
31|8|1968|(Sir) Garfield Sobers scores six sixes in one over in England
31|8|1969|Rocky Marciano dies in plane crash
31|8|1992|Sydney Harbour Tunnel opens to traffic
1U|9|   |Fathers' Day
1|9|    |Beginning of Spring (Australia)
1|9|    |Beginning of Autumn (ex-Soviet Union)
1|9|1873|South Australian government introduces eight hour working day
1|9|1939|Germany invades Poland, the start of World War II
1|9|1945|Japan surrenders aboard USS Missouri
1|9|1951|ANZUS treaty signed
1|9|1983|Russian MiGs shoot down Korean B747, killing 269 aboard
2|9|-490|Phidippides runs from Marathon to Athens
2|9|1666|The Great Fire of London starts, 13,000 houses destroyed
2|9|1752|Gregorian Calendar adopted in England (Sep 3 became Sep 14)
2|9|1864|General Sherman occupies Atlanta, Georgia
2|9|1865|End of the Maori War in New Zealand
2|9|1922|Henry Lawson, Australian poet, dies
2|9|1945|Ho Chi Minh declares independent Republic of Vietnam
3|9|1189|Richard I (Lionheart) is crowned
3|9|1895|First professional football game
3|9|1939|At 11:15am, PM Neville Chamberlain declares war on Germany
3|9|1976|Viking 2 lands on Mars
4|9|1781|Los Angeles founded as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Seora la Reina de Los ngeles del Ro Porcincula"
4|9|1915|NSW surrendered Jervis Bay to the Commonwealth
4|9|1962|Beatles record first single: Love Me Do + PS I Love You
4|9|1965|Albert Schweitzer, Nobel prize winning doctor, dies
4|9|2006|Steve Irwin, Australian wildlife expert, dies from a stingray attack
5|9|1880|First official Salvation Army meeting held in AUS (Adelaide)
5|9|1905|Dorothea McKellar's poem "My Country" first published
5|9|1977|Voyager 2 launched
6|9|1776|First submarine attack
6|9|1859|Brisbane incorporated as capital of Queensland
6|9|1901|William McKinley (25th US Pres) is shot by Leon Czolgosz
6|9|1966|S African PM Hendrik F Verwoerd is stabbed to death in parliament
6|9|1975|M Navratilova seeks political asylum in the US
6|9|1991|Leningrad renamed to the original St Petersburg
7|9|1822|Brazil establishes independence from Portugal
7|9|1892|First boxing match under Queensberry Rules: J Corbetts df JL Sullivan
7|9|1936|Last Tasmanian Tiger dies in Hobart Zoo
7|9|1999|Earthquake outside Athens kills 101 people
8|9|1893|Proclamation of Grafton Gaol
8|9|1921|First Miss America crowned (Margaret Gorman)
8|9|1947|Australian Arbitration Court establishes 40-hour week
8|9|1966|The first of 79 "Star Trek" episodes is broadcast on NBC
8|9|1969|Rod Laver beats Tony Roche in US Open, completing Grand Slam
9|9|1850|California becomes the 31st state
9|9|1926|NBC created (by RCA)
9|9|1946|First flight of (Trans-)Australian Airlines
9|9|1976|Mao Tse-Tung dies, aged 83
10|9|1846|Sewing machine patent granted (Elias Howe)
10|9|1907|British colony of New Zealand becomes a dominion
10|9|1945|Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death in Norway for collaborating with Nazi Germany in World War II
10|9|1955|James Dean dies in a car crash, aged 24
11|9|1949|NY Yankees drew 11 walks (3rd inning)
11|9|1962|The Beatles record their first hit song, "Love, Love Me Do"
11|9|2001|Hijacked planes destroy the New York World Trade Center and damage the Pentagon in Washington: ~3,000 dead
12|9|1803|John Bowen establishes colony Tasmania with 2 convict ships
12|9|1816|Convicts seize ship "Trial" and escape
12|9|1913|First US policewoman (A S  Wells, LAPD)
12|9|1953|J F Kennedy weds Jacqueline Bouvier
12|9|1992|Anthony Perkins, US actor, dies, aged 60
12|9|1993|Raymond Burr, US actor, dies, aged 76
13|9|1789|US receives its first loan
13|9|1900|Australia's first full-length film, Soldiers of the Cross, goes into production
13|9|1902|First conviction in Britain on fingerprint evidence
13|9|1955|Little Richard records "Tutti Frutti"
13|9|1957|"The Mousetrap" becomes Britain's longest-running play
14|9|1613|The Turks invade Hungary
14|9|1752|Britain adopts Gregorian calendar
14|9|1812|Napoleon enters Moscow, set alight by fleeing Russians
14|9|1927|Isadora Duncan killed in freak accident
14|9|1938|Maiden flight of the largest rigid airship ever built: Graf Zeppelin II (379m); she was dismantled in April 1940
14|9|1957|Little Rock, AR, school crisis
14|9|1975|Elizabeth Ann Seton canonized, first US Roman Catholic saint
15|9|1789|Congress declares Great Seal of the US the official seal of US
15|9|1940|Battle of Britain Day
15|9|1971|Greenpeace Organization founded in Vancouver BC, Canada
15|9|1979|Chris Hamey and Scott Abbott invent Trivial Pursuit, launched 1981
16|9|1620|The Mayflower leaves Plymouth with 102 passengers
16|9|1736|Gabriel Fahrenheit, German physicist, dies
16|9|1853|First US-made Steinweg (now Steinway) sold
16|9|1908|General Motors is founded by Billy Durant in Flint, Michigan
16|9|1956|First TV broadcast in Australia
16|9|1966|Britain's first Polaris submarine, HMS Resolution, launched
17|9|1179|St Hildegard of Bingen, German abbess, writer, composer, dies
17|9|1665|Outbreak of the Great Bubonic Plague in London
17|9|1787|US Constitution signed
17|9|1900|Declaration that 6 colonies form Federal Commonwealth of Australia signed by Queen Victoria
17|9|1908|First airplane fatality (Lt Thomas E Selfridge, Ft Myer, VA)
17|9|1978|Camp David meeting ends (Anwar El Sadat/Menachim Begin)
18|9|1759|French surrender Quebec to British
18|9|1793|Cornerstone of US Capitol laid by George Washington
18|9|1851|First issue of The New York Times published
18|9|1961|UN Secretary-General Dag Hammerskjold, 56, dies in air crash
18|9|1967|Sir John Cockroft, English nuclear physicist, dies
18|9|1970|Jimi Hendrix, US guitarist, dies
19|9|1859|"Dixie" first sung (NYC)
19|9|1893|New Zealand becomes first country to give women the right to vote
19|9|1955|Argentina's president Juan Peron ousted
19|9|1958|NASA founded
19|9|1985|Mexico City devastated by two earthquakes, 8.1 and 7.5
19|9|1985|David Letterman premiers his Top Ten List
20|9|1873|NY Stock Exchange closed for 10 days
20|9|1967|QE II, world's largest passenger liner, is launched
21|9|1964|Malta becomes independent
21|9|1947|An American Skymaster flies without crew under automatic control from Wilmington, Ohio to Brize Norton, England, guided by radio
21|9|1969|Last episode of "The Prisoner" aired
22|9|1792|French Republic declared
22|9|1862|Abraham Lincoln declares all slaves free as of 1-Jan-1863
22|9|1902|First British airship flight from Crystal Palace
22|9|1903|A patent is filed for the first ice cream cone
22|9|1949|First Soviet atomic bomb exploded
22|9|1955|Launch of commercial TV in Britain
23|9|1846|Planet Neptune discovered by German astronomer Johann Galle
23|9|1952|VP candidate Richard Nixon delivers "Checkers" speech
23|9|1965|Roma Mitchell appointed to SA Supreme Court (first woman judge)
23|9|1973|Former Argentine dictator Juan Peron re-elected president
24|9|1852|First airship flight - steam-powered - by Henri Giffard
24|9|1853|France annexes New Caledonia
24|9|1929|First "blind" takeoff and landing demonstrated (James Doolittle)
24|9|1934|Babe Ruth plays his last game for the New York Yankees
24|9|1951|Referendum to ban Australian Communist Party beaten
24|9|1960|First nuclear powered aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, launched
24|9|1973|Opening of Sydney Opera House
25|9|1890|Yosemite National Park created
25|9|1956|Trans-atlantic telephone service begins
25|9|1959|S Bandaranaike, Premier of Ceylon, assassinated
26|9|1789|First Postmaster General appointed (Samual Osgood)
26|9|1887|Gramophone by Emile Berliner patented
26|9|1969|The Beatles' last album "Abbey Road" released in the UK
26|9|1983|Australia II wins America's Cup, first non-US boat in 132 years
26|9|1986|Film "Crocodile Dundee" opens in US
27|9|1540|The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) founded
27|9|1825|First public train, from Shildon to Stockton
27|9|1892|Book matches patented
27|9|1956|Britain explodes A-bomb at Maralinga
27|9|1960|"The Tonight Show" debuts on NBC
28|9|1542|Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo discovers California
28|9|1850|Flogging in US Navy and on merchant vessels abolished
28|9|1895|Louis Pasteur, French chemist, dies in Paris
28|9|1924|First world aircraft circumnavigation completed (Smith/Nelson)
28|9|1986|Sir Robert Helpmann, Australian ballet master, dies
28|9|1989|Former Philippines president F Marcos dies in Hawaii
28|9|1991|US jazz musician Miles Davis dies, aged 65
29|9|1066|William the Conqueror invades England
29|9|1936|Radio used for the first time for a presidential campaign
30|9|1846|First use of ether extracting a tooth (Dr W Morton)
30|9|1913|Rudolf Diesel, German engineer, dies in the English Channel
30|9|1949|End of the Berlin Airlift
30|9|1952|Cinerama process debut in New York
30|9|1955|James Dean, US actor, dies in plane crash
30|9|1967|BBC's Radio 1 first time on the air
30|9|1985|Charles Richter, American seismologist, dies
30|9|1990|Patrick White, Australian Nobel-Prize winning author, dies
1M|10|   |Labour Day (NSW)
3S|10|   |Caulfield Cup
LU|10|   |Daylight Saving Time starts in NSW/VIC/SA/ACT (2am -> 3am)
LU|10|   |Daylight Saving Time ends in the UK (3am -> 2am)
1|10|1850|Sydney University, Australia's first, founded
1|10|1935|John Curtin becomes opposition leader
1|10|1949|People's Republic of China proclaimed
1|10|1958|Australia takes over control of Christmas Is
2|10|1608|First telescope demonstrated by Dutchman Hans Lippershey
2|10|1839|New Zealand comes under jurisdiction of Governor of NSW
2|10|1870|Rome becomes capital of Italy
2|10|1934|Royal Indian Navy is formed
2|10|1945|Fluorescent lights first installed (Piccadilly Circus)
2|10|1989|Rock Hudson dies
2|10|1990|Australian opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland retires
3|10|1899|Motor-driven vacuum cleaner patented
3|10|1906|SOS int'l distress signal at Berlin Radio Conference (was CQD)
3|10|1952|First Britsh atomic bomb exploded in Monte Bello Is, NW Australia
3|10|1990|Re-unification of Germany after 45 years of separation
4|10|1890|Mormons renounced polygamy
4|10|1957|Sputnik I, the first space satellite, launched
4|10|1970|Janis Joplin dies
4|10|1983|World land speed record: 1019 km/h (633.5 mph) by Richard Noble
5|10|1836|Victorian police force established
5|10|1969|"Monty Python's Flying Circus" debuts on British TV
5|10|1979|Charlie Smith, oldest American (137 yrs), dies
6|10|1683|First German settlers in America arrive in Philadelphia
6|10|1866|First US train robbery ($13,000 - Reno Bros.)
6|10|1918|First Australian electric train: Flemington-Newmarket (Melbourne)
6|10|1927|Premier in New York of the first talking movie, The Jazz Singer
6|10|1978|Johnny O'Keefe, Australian rock singer, dies
6|10|1981|Egypt's president Anwar El-Sadat assassinated
6|10|1992|"Tiger" Bill O'Reilly, Australian spin bowler, dies, aged 86
7|10|1769|James Cook lands at Poverty Bay, New Zealand
7|10|1806|Carbon Paper patented (Ralph Wedgwood, London)
7|10|1849|Edgar Allen Poe, US author, dies
7|10|1919|Oldest existing airline (KLM) established
7|10|1949|German Democratic Republic proclaimed
7|10|1956|Clarence Birdseye, US industrialist, dies
7|10|1959|Mario Lanza, opera singer, dies
7|10|1959|First photos from the far side of the moon transmitted
7|10|1985|Cruiser Achille Lauro hijacked by Palestinians
8|10|1871|Great Chicago Fire breaks out (300 killed, 90,000 homeless) when a cow kicks a lantern in Mrs O'Leary's barn
8|10|1967|Che Guevara killed in a Bolivian Jungle
8|10|1970|Alexander Solzhenitsyn receives Nobel Prize for literature
9|10|1701|Yale University is founded
9|10|1788|Australia's first bridge opens over Tank Stream, Sydney
9|10|1804|Hobart, Tasmania, founded
9|10|1855|Calliope patented (J Stoddard)
9|10|1888|Washington Monument opens
9|10|1967|British police begin using first portable breathalyser
9|10|1973|$50 bill introduced in Australia
9|10|1974|Bankcard introduced in Australia
9|10|1983|Treasurer Paul Keating floats the Australian Dollar
9|10|1992|Willy Brandt, former German chancellor, dies, aged 78
10|10|1774|James Cook lands on and names Norfolk Island, the uninhabited
10|10|1886|Tuxedo introduced (Griswold Lorillard)
10|10|1913|Atlantic and Pacific connected through Panama Canal
10|10|1973|Spiro Agnew resigns as US Vice President
11|10|1852|University of Sydney opened
11|10|1889|James Prescott Joule, physicist, dies
11|10|1922|First woman FBI "special investigator" appointed (Alaska Davidson)
11|10|1975|Saturday Night Live first aired on US TV
12|10|1492|Piero della Francesca, Italian painter and mathematician, dies
12|10|1492|Christopher Columbus discovers America
12|10|1609|"Three Blind Mice" first published
12|10|1822|Brazil becomes independent of Portugal
12|10|1960|Nikita Krushchev pounds desk with his shoe during speech to UN
12|10|1991|Fire at Chernobyl nuclear power plant
12|10|2002|Suicide bomber attacks Sari Club in Bali: ~200 dead, 88 Australians
13|10|1792|Cornerstone laid for "President's Palace" (now known as "The White House")
13|10|1880|Transvaal declares independence from Britain
13|10|1884|Greenwich adopted as universal time meridian
13|10|1933|Australia's first traffic lights installed in Sydney
13|10|1943|Italy declares war on Germany, until then its ally
13|10|1962|"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" opens on Broadway
13|10|1977|Baader-Meinhof terrorists hijack Lufthansa plane from Majorca
14|10|1066|Battle of Hastings: William of Normandy defeats Harold of England
14|10|1332|Robert the Bruce defeats Edward II at Byland
14|10|1806|Napoleon defeats Prussia at Jena and Saxony at Auerstadt
14|10|1824|AUS's first private paper, The Weekly Australian, published
14|10|1912|Theodore Roosevelt shot in the chest
14|10|1913|Explosion at Universal Colliery in Glamorgan, Wales; 439 dead
14|10|1947|First supersonic flight (Chuck Yeager, Edwards Air Force Base, CA)
14|10|1964|Dr Martin Luther King Jr is awarded Nobel Peace Prize
15|10|1582|First day of the Gregorian Calendar
15|10|1783|Montgolfier brothers make the first manned balloon ascent
15|10|1851|Gold discovered in Melbourne
15|10|1917|Mata Hari executed in Paris
15|10|1951|The first "I Love Lucy" show airs, starring Lucille Ball
15|10|1970|Westgate Bridge in Melbourne collapses, 35 dead
15|10|1970|Anwar Sadat is elected president of Egypt
15|10|1987|Fiji becomes republic, after GG Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau resigns
15|10|1990|Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev awarded Nobel Peace Prize
16|10|1793|Marie Antoinette of France is beheaded
16|10|1834|Britain's Parliament is almost completely destroyed by fire
16|10|1846|First major surgery using anaesthesia (Dr Warren, Mass. General)
16|10|1867|James Nash discovers gold at Gympie, Qeensland
16|10|1908|First aeroplane flight in England (American Samuel Franklin Cody)
16|10|1916|First birth control clinic opens (Brooklyn, NY by Margaret Sanger)
16|10|1978|Cardinal Karol Wojtyla elected Pope John Paul II
16|10|1987|World stockmarkets crash
17|10|1854|Miners burn down Eureka Hotel, Ballarat
17|10|1854|The Age, Melbourne, published for the first time
17|10|1855|Englishman Henry Bessemer patents process for making steel
17|10|1918|Last ship sunk by a U-boat in WWI (SS Lucia)
17|10|1931|Al Capone jailed for 11 years for income tax evasion
17|10|1945|Juan Peron becomes dictator of Argentina
17|10|1977|West German troops free 86 from hijacked airliner at Mogadishu
18|10|1867|Alaska transferred from Russia to the US
18|10|1869|Lithgow Zig Zag railway across Blue Mountains completed
18|10|1931|Thomas Edison, US inventor, dies, aged 84
19|10|1864|Northernmost engagement of Civil War (St Albans, VT)
19|10|1872|Bernard Holtermann discovers 287 kg nugget at Hill End, Vic
19|10|1875|Sir Charles Wheatstone, pioneer of telegraphy, dies in Paris
19|10|1937|Lord Rutherford, founder of atomic theory, dies in Cambridge
19|10|1956|Eildon Dam, Victoria, opens
19|10|1987|Black Monday at the New York Stock Exchange, DJ drops 508 point
20|10|1818|49th parallel established as border between US and Canada
20|10|1963|First hang glider flight in AUS, on Clarence River at Grafton
20|10|1968|Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis
20|10|1973|Opening of Sydney Opera House
20|10|1989|Bus/semi-trailer crash at Cowper/Grafton: 20 dead, 25 injured
21|10|1805|Lord Nelson's victory at Trafalgar
21|10|1879|Thomas A Edison invents electric lamp
21|10|1908|Dorothea KcKellar's poem "My Country" first published
21|10|1944|HMAS Australia attacked by Japanese aircraft: 20 dead
21|10|1945|Women vote for first time in France
21|10|1959|Guggenheim Museum opened
21|10|1960|Britain's first nuclear submarine, Dreadnought, launched
21|10|1969|Willy Brandt first Social Dem. chancellor in West Germany's history
22|10|-2137|First recorded solar eclipse (China)
22|10|1797|First parachute jump, Andr-Jacques Garnerin, in Paris
22|10|1962|JF Kennedy quarantines Cuba (Cuba Missile Crisis)
23|10|-4004|Creation of the world according to J Usher/J Lightfoot
23|10|1456|Giovanni da Capistrano dies. Swallows depart from Capistrano.
23|10|1853|Freeman Cobb arrives in Australia to set up stagecoach company
23|10|1921|John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish vet and inventor, dies
23|10|1942|Battle of El Alamein begins
23|10|1968|Australia's first heart transplant at St Vincent's, Sydney
23|10|1970|World record for rocket-engine cars 1050 km/h by Gary Gabelich
24|10|1260|Chartres Cathedral is consecrated
24|10|1834|"Battle of Pinjarra" (WA), 14 aboriginals dead
24|10|1836|Match patented (A Phillips)
24|10|1861|Completion of first US transcontinental telegraph line
24|10|1939|Nylon stockings first sold (Wilmington, Delaware)
24|10|1948|United Nations Day proclaimed
24|10|1950|Australian Fedederal Police raid Communist Party Headquarters
24|10|1957|Christian Dior, French fashion designer, dies
24|10|1980|SBS first to air in Melbourne and Sydney
25|10|1586|Death sentence on Mary Queen of Scots pronounced
25|10|1647|Evangelista Torricelli, Italian inventor of barometer, dies
25|10|1825|Erie Canal, linking Niagara and Hudson rivers, opens
25|10|1854|Charge of the British Light Brigade (Sebastopol, Crimean War)
25|10|1962|One-millionth Holden produced in Australia
25|10|1993|Vincent Price, UK/US actor, dies, aged 82
26|10|1878|Bushranger Ned Kelly kills 3 police at Stringybark Creek, Vic
26|10|1881|Shootout at the OK Corral (Wyatt Earp)
26|10|1970|Garry Trudeau's cartoon "Doonesbury" debuts
26|10|1972|Igor Sikorsky, helicopter constructor, dies in Connecticut
27|10|1806|Napoleon occupies Berlin
27|10|1927|Melbourne criminals Squizzy Taylor and Snowy Cutmore die in gun duel
27|10|1938|DuPont announces invention of nylon
27|10|1986|Big Bang Day at London Stock Exchange (all computers fail)
28|10|1492|Christopher Columbus discovers Cuba
28|10|1636|Harvard College (now Harvard University) founded
28|10|1776|Jonathan Swift's "Gullivers Travels" first published
28|10|1886|Statue of Liberty dedicated in New York City harbour
28|10|1916|Referendum for conscription in Australia defeated
28|10|1952|Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes dies
29|10|1618|Sir Walter Raleigh executed for treason against James I
29|10|1814|First steam-driven warship launched (USS Demologos)
29|10|1863|Red Cross founded by Swiss Henri Dunant
29|10|1872|All-metal windmill patented (JS Risdon, Genoa, IL)
29|10|1929|Crash at NY Stock Exchange, begin of the Great Depression
29|10|1984|Opening of Melbourne Arts Centre
30|10|1823|Edmund Cartwright, English inventor, dies in Hastings, aged 80
30|10|1888|Ball point pen patented (John J Loud)
30|10|1920|Communist Party of Australia founded
30|10|1922|Benito Mussolini becomes PM of Italy
30|10|1938|Orson Welles' broadcast of HG Wells' "War of the Worlds"
30|10|1946|40-hour week introduced in Australia
31|10|1517|M Luther nails 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church
31|10|1926|Harry Houdini (Ehrich Weisz), magician and escape artist, dies
31|10|1941|Mt Rushmore completed (G Washington, T Jefferson, A Lincoln, T Roosevelt)
31|10|1952|US detonates first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok, Marshall Islands
31|10|1984|India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assassinated
31|10|1990|Workers connect in the tunnel between England and France
31|10|1993|Federico Fellini, Italian film director, dies, aged 73
1T|11|   |Melbourne Cup
4R|11|   |Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday)
1|11|1791|Convicts escape from Parramatta and attempt to walk to China
1|11|1792|First foreign trading vessel, Philadelphia, in Sydney
1|11|1895|First auto magazine ("The Horseless Age") published
2|11|1785|Insubmersible lifeboat patented by Lionel Lukin, London
2|11|1788|Settlement of Parramatta established
2|11|1936|BBC begins twice-daily TV broadcast, Alexandra Palace studios
2|11|1947|Spruce Goose makes its only flight
2|11|1950|George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, dies
2|11|1986|Britain's first heart transplant, Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire
3|11|1534|Henry VIII assumes all powers previously held by the Pope
3|11|1902|Pacific submarine cable opened (Southport, QLD - Vancouver, Can)
3|11|1903|Electro-cardiograph invented by Dutchman Willem Einthoven
3|11|1926|Annie Oakley, US theatrical sharpshooter, dies
3|11|1927|Sydney ferry Greycliffe and liner Tahiti collide - 40 dead
3|11|1952|Frozen bread first marketed
3|11|1957|Sputnik II, carrying the dog Laika, launched
4|11|1879|First cash register patented by James Ritty of Dayton, Ohio
4|11|1862|Richard Gatling patents the machine gun
4|11|1890|First electrified underground opens in London
4|11|1939|First air-conditioned automobile exhibited (Chicago)
4|11|1946|UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) founded
5|11|1605|Guy Fawkes' plan to blow up British Parliament uncovered
5|11|1803|First birth in Victoria officially recorded
5|11|1927|First automatic traffic lights in Britain (Wolverhampton)
5|11|1991|British publisher Robert Maxwell found dead off Canary Islands
5|11|1995|Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin assassinated
6|11|1796|Catherine the Great dies
6|11|1893|Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky dies
7|11|1861|Archer wins first Melbourne Cup
7|11|1874|Elephant first used as the Republican symbol (Harper's Weekly)
7|11|1935|Australian aviator Sir C Kingsford Smith last seen (over Calcutta)
7|11|1965|Jean Shrimpton wears mini-skirt at Melbourne Cup
7|11|1992|Alexander Dubcek, leader of the 1968 Prague Spring, dies, aged 70
8|11|1519|Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez reaches Mexico City
8|11|1793|Louvre Museum opens to public
8|11|1895|Wilhelm Rntgen discovers X-rays
8|11|1926|First ferry built exclusively for cars put in service
9|11|1888|Tamworth first town in southern hemisphere lit by electricity
9|11|1927|Giant panda discovered, China
9|11|1938|Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany
10|11|1845|Australia's first Lawn Bowls club established
10|11|1871|Henry Stanley locates David Livingstone in Central Africa "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"
10|11|1919|Britain's first regular civil airmail service began (Hounslow-Paris)
10|11|1969|Sesame Street first aired
11|11|1640|Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, executed (Charles I)
11|11|1830|First mail via rail (Liverpool-Manchester)
11|11|1880|Bushranger Ned Kelly hanged at Melbourne jail
11|11|1918|Armistice between Allies and Germany signed - Remembrance Day
11|11|1953|British TV program Panorama first aired
11|11|1975|Australian GG Kerr dismisses PM Gough Whitlam
12|11|1859|First flying trapeze act performs in a circus
12|11|1916|Percival Lowell, US astrologer (predicted Pluto), dies
12|11|1919|First flight to Australia (Ross and Keith Smith, Hounslow-Darwin)
12|11|1991|Military kills more than 100 demonstrators in Dili, East Timor
13|11|1818|Australia's first lighthouse in operation at South Head, Sydney
13|11|1851|First telegraph service between London and Paris opens
13|11|1914|Bra patented in US by Mary Phelps Jacob
13|11|1923|First radio station on air in Australia: 2SB
13|11|1940|Willys Motor Co tested the first Jeep
13|11|1942|British forces retake Tobruk in World War II
13|11|1954|Australia's first automatic telephone time service (Gordon Gow)
14|11|1851|"Moby Dick" published
14|11|1905|Robert Whitehead, UK inventor of naval torpedo (1866), dies
14|11|1910|First take-off by plane from a ship (US cruiser Birmingham)
14|11|1922|BBC transmitd first regular radio program
15|11|1806|Pike's Peak sighted (Zebulon Pike)
15|11|1952|The Argus (MEL) first paper worldwide with full colour pictures
15|11|1978|Melbourne's Westgate Bridge opened
16|11|1824|Hamilton Hume discovers Australia's longest river, the Murray
16|11|1840|Paul de Strzelecki climbs and names Mount Kosciusko
16|11|1841|Cork life preserver patented (NE Guerin)
16|11|1864|Ben Hall involved in shooting of Constable Nelson at Collector
16|11|1869|Suez Canal opens
16|11|1920|Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness register QANTAS Ltd in Brisbane
16|11|1960|Clark Gable, US movie star, dies
17|11|1558|Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England on death of Mary I
17|11|1604|Sir Walter Raleigh is tried for treason and imprisoned
17|11|1824|Hume and Hovel reach the site that becomes Albury
17|11|1913|First vessels pass through Panama Canal
17|11|1928|Boston Garden officially opens
17|11|1972|Juan Peron returns to Argentina after 17 years of exile
18|11|1307|William Tell shoots apple off his son's head
18|11|1840|The last load of convicts arrive in NSW
18|11|1952|Gough Whitlam enters federal parliament
19|11|1863|Abraham Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address
20|11|1497|Vasco da Gama first to sail around the Cape of Good Hope
20|11|1873|Cities of Buda and Pest are united to form Budapest
20|11|1877|First recorded human speech ("Mary Had a Little Lamb," Edison)
20|11|1947|Princess Elizabeth and Lt Philip Mountbatten are married
20|11|1992|Fire ravages Windsor Castle
21|11|1936|Hume Reservoir on Murray River opened
21|11|1963|Robert Stroud (aka Bird Man of Alcatraz) dies
21|11|1991|Gerard D'Aboville rows Japan-USA (134 days)
22|11|1904|Electric motor patented (M Pfatischer)
22|11|1956|Olympic Games at Melbourne open
22|11|1963|John Fitzgerald Kennedy, US President, assassinated in Dallas
22|11|1978|Bank robbery at Murwillumbah, NSW: $1.7 million
22|11|1990|M Thatcher resigns after 11 years as PM
23|11|1889|World's first jukebox installed in San Francisco hotel
23|11|1936|Life magazine hits the newsstands
23|11|1980|Earthquake hits Naples, Italy: 3,000 dead
23|11|1989|Bus crash in Zimbabwe: 71 dead
24|11|1642|Abel Tasman sights and names Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)
24|11|1859|Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species"
24|11|1867|Barbed wired patented by American Joseph Glidden
24|11|1871|National Rifle Association incorporated
24|11|1963|Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated by Jack Ruby in Dallas
25|11|1783|British evacuate New York
25|11|1867|Alfred Nobel invents dynamite
25|11|1884|John Mayenberg (St Louis, MO) patents evaporated milk
25|11|1910|Royal Australian Navy formed in Melbourne
25|11|1952|Agatha Christie's play "The Mousetrap" opens in London
25|11|1963|JF Kennedy buried at Arlington
25|11|1974|U Thant, former UN Secretary General, dies
25|11|1993|Anthony Burgess, UK author, dies, aged 76
26|11|1855|Van Diemen's Land renamed Tasmania
26|11|1857|First Australian parliament opens in Melbourne
26|11|1865|"Alice in Wonderland" published
26|11|1942|Premiere of "Casablanca"
26|11|1984|Australia's first TV election debate (B Hawke/A Peacock)
27|11|1582|William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway
27|11|1703|Coastal storm in England takes 8,000 lives
27|11|1912|Parcel post postage-due one-cent stamp issued
27|11|1990|John Major elected PM of Britain
28|11|1875|First Australian made champagne exhibited in Sydney
28|11|1895|First US auto race (Chicago to Evanston and back) (winner avg 7 mph)
28|11|1919|Lady Astor is elected first women member of Britain's parliamant
28|11|1932|Dog on tucker box near Gundagai unveiled by PM Joe Lyons
28|11|1948|Australia's first Holden car on sale: 760
28|11|1968|Enid Blyton, English author, dies
28|11|1992|Sir Sidney Nolan, Australian artist, dies in London
29|11|1865|First gas lighting in Brisbane
29|11|1922|Archaeologists announce find of Tut-Enkh-Amon
29|11|1929|First airplane flight over South Pole (Lt Richard E Byrd)
29|11|1932|Electric bridge table patented (L Hammond)
30|11|1900|Oscar Wilde, Irish author, dies in Paris, aged 46
30|11|1901|Edward John Eyre, Australian explorer, dies
30|11|1913|Charlie Chaplin's film debut: Making a Living
30|11|1990|Larry Bird, US basketball player, scores his 20,000th point
1|12|    |Beginning of Summer (Australia)
1|12|    |World AIDS Day
1|12|1838|Van Diemens Land gets first library
1|12|1864|Fire in Brisbane destroys city area
1|12|1878|First phone in White House
1|12|1913|First drive-in service station opened (Pittsburgh)
1|12|1929|Britain's first 22 public phone boxes go into service
1|12|1988|Benazir Bhutto becomes Prime Minister of Pakistan
1|12|1990|Compass Airlines' first flight in Australia
2|12|1804|Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of France
2|12|1823|Gold discovered in Fish River near Ballarat, Victoria
2|12|1927|First Model A Ford sold ($395)
2|12|1932|First test in "Bodyline" series
2|12|1942|First nuclear chain reaction (E Fermi and A Compton, Uni Chicago)
2|12|1963|Cable opens linking Australia, N.Zealand, Fiji, Hawai and Canada
2|12|1972|Gough Whitlam elected PM, first ALP victory in 23 years
2|12|1989|Wayne Goss elected QLD Premier, ending 32 years of ALP opposition
3|12|1854|Eureka stockade at Ballarat, Vic: 30 miners and 6 soldiers dead
3|12|1910|First display of the neon lamp (George Claude, Paris)
3|12|1931|Statute of Westminster passed
3|12|1967|First heart transplant (Dr C Barnard, Groote Schuur, Capetown)
3|12|1984|Union Carbide factory leaks cyanide in India: 100s dead
4|12|1791|The Observer first published
4|12|1798|Luigi Galvani, Italian scientist, dies
4|12|1850|William Sturgeon, English physicist (first electromagnet), dies
4|12|1871|Rich tin deposit found at Mt Mischoff, Tas, by James Smith
4|12|1991|Terry Anderson freed after nearly 7 years in captivity
4|12|1930|Vatican approves the rhythm method
4|12|1993|Frank Zappa, US musician, dies, aged 52 in Los Angeles
5|12|1791|WA Mozart dies, aged 35 (*27-Jan-1756)
5|12|1854|Folding theatre chair patented
5|12|1933|Prohibition ends in US
5|12|1958|Britain's first STD service opens in Bristol
5|12|1988|Roy Orbison, US singer, dies
6|12|1955|Honus Wagner (born John Peter Wagner), baseball great, dies
7|12|1732|The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden
7|12|1841|Edward John Ayre arrives in Albany after first x'ing the Nullarbour
7|12|1902|Telegraph cable opened Southport, QLD - Vancouver, CAN
7|12|1909|Bakelite patented (Leo Baekeland)
7|12|1941|Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor
7|12|1988|Earthquake in Soviet Armenia takes 25,000 lives
8|12|1877|Perth-Adelaide telegraph line opened
8|12|1888|First parachute jump in Australia (JT Williams)
8|12|1965|First PhD by Computer Science Dept (Univ. of Pennsylvania)
8|12|1980|John Lennon assassinated in New York
9|12|1792|First formal cremation of human remains in US (Henry Laurens)
9|12|1950|WA referendum rejects alcohol prohibition
9|12|1983|Australian dollar is floated
9|12|1990|Lech Walesa elected president of Poland
10|12|1845|Pneumatic tyres patented (Scottish engineer Robert Thomson)
10|12|1859|Northern NSW becomes separate colony: Queensland
10|12|1869|Wyoming becomes the first state to grant women the right to vote
10|12|1896|Alfred Nobel dies in San Remo
10|12|1919|First flight England-Australia by Australians arrives in Darwin
10|12|1936|King Edward VIII abdicates
10|12|1949|Surf Life Saving Association of Australia founded
11|12|1844|Anaesthesia first used in dentistry
11|12|1936|George VI becomes King of England
11|12|1941|US declares war against Germany and Italy
11|12|1943|13 cubs die in a boating accident on the Clarence R. at Grafton
11|12|1961|First US military support arrives in South Vietnam
12|12|1642|Dutch navigator Abel Tasman discovers New Zealand
12|12|1792|Beethoven paid Haydn $.19 for first music lesson
12|12|1901|First transatlantic wireless signal (Cornwall-Newfoundland)
12|12|1915|First all-metal plane (Junkers J1) flown at Dessau, Germany
12|12|1955|Hovercraft patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell
12|12|1962|Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research established
13|12|1759|First music store in America opens
13|12|1919|First flight to Australia reaches Darwin (Ross and Keith Smith)
13|12|1962|Last morse-code telegram in NSW transmitted (Bombala-Sydney)
14|12|1542|Accession of Mary Queen of Scots
14|12|1799|George Washington, first US president, dies
14|12|1911|Norwegian explorer Roal Amundsen first to reach South Pole
14|12|1918|Women over 30 gain voting rights in British general elections
14|12|1946|NYC voted to be the UN headquarters
14|12|1979|Hotels in NSW allowed to trade on Sundays
14|12|1989|Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov dies
15|12|1854|First street cleaning machine used
15|12|1890|Sioux chief Sitting Bull killed by police while resisting arrest
15|12|1910|First invalid pensions paid in Australia
15|12|1916|French defeat Germans in Battle of Verdun after 700,000 dead
15|12|1961|Former Nazi Adolf Eichmann sentenced to death in Jerusalem
15|12|1962|Charles Laughton, British actor, dies
15|12|1966|Walt Disney dies
15|12|1973|J Paul Getty III released by his kidnappers ($2.8m ransom)
15|12|1980|First inquest into Azaria Chamberlain's death in Alice Springs
16|12|1653|Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector
16|12|1773|Boston Tea Party (30-60 patriots and 342 chests of tea)
16|12|1916|Gregory Rasputin, Russian monk, murdered
16|12|1965|W Somerset Maugham, English author, dies
16|12|1990|Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes Haiti's first democratically elected PM
17|12|1538|Pope Paul II excommunicates England's King Henry VIII
17|12|1790|Aztec calendar discovered
17|12|1903|Orville and Wilbur Wright's first airplane flight, near Kitty Hawk
17|12|1967|Australian PM harold Holt disappears off Portsea, VIC
17|12|1982|Random Breath Testing introduced in New South Wales
18|12|1796|First Sunday newspaper ("Monitor," Baltimore)
18|12|1865|Slavery abolished in US
18|12|1894|Women gain the right to vote in South Australia
19|12|1865|Bushranger Sam Poo is hanged in NSW
19|12|1931|Joseph Lyons elected PM of Australia
19|12|1991|Paul Keating succeeds Bob Hawke as Australian PM
20|12|1582|Gregorian calendar is adopted in France
20|12|1820|MO imposes a $1/yr bachelor's tax on men from 21 to 50
20|12|1922|14 republics of Russia form Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
20|12|1988|Community Health building opens at Grafton Base Hospital
21|12|1620|Mayflower pilgrims arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts
21|12|1898|Pierre and Marie Curie discover Radium
21|12|1958|Charles de Gaulle elected president of France
21|12|1967|Louis Washansky, first heart transplant recipient (18 days), dies
22|12|1894|Alfred Dreyfuss convicted of treason by French court martial
22|12|1941|First US servicemen arrive in Australia (Brisbane)
22|12|1943|Floating bridge across Derwent opened in Hobart
22|12|1943|Beatrix Potter, English author, dies
22|12|1956|First gorilla born in captivity
22|12|1989|2 coaches crash at Kempsey, 35 dead, 39 injured
22|12|1990|Lech Walesa sworn in as Poland's first elected president
23|12|1617|First penal colony in US established (VA)
23|12|1885|Australia's BHP floated as public company
23|12|1906|First lifesaving reel demonstrated at Bondi Beach, Sydney
23|12|1972|Earthquake strikes Managua, Nicaragua; 10,000 dead
23|12|1981|Sir Reginald Ansett, Australian aviation pioneer, dies, aged 72
23|12|1986|First non-stop flight around the world without refuelling completed (Dick Rutan and Jeana Yager, US aircraft Voyager)
24|12|1524|Vasco da Gama, Portuguese navigator, dies
24|12|1864|Australia's first art gallery opens in Melbourne
24|12|1953|6 train cars plunge into river at Tangiwai, NZ; 151 dead
24|12|1956|Woman's Day first published
24|12|1971|Cyclone Althea devastates Townsville, Qld
25|12|1651|MA General Court ordered a fine (5 shillings) for "observing any such day as Christmas."
26|12|1865|Coffee percolator patented (James H Nason, Franklin, MA)
26|12|1992|John Kemeny, co-creator of BASIC, dies in New Hampshire, aged 66
26|12|2003|Earthquake in Bam, Iran, kills >20,000
26|12|2004|Tsunamis from quake (9.0) in Indian Ocean kill > 150,000
27|12|1831|Charles Darwin sails from England on Beagle for 5-yr voyage
27|12|1845|Ether first used as anesthetic in childbirth
27|12|1948|Cardinal Mindszenty is arrested in Hungary
27|12|1949|Dutch Queen Juliana grants Indonesia sovereignty
28|12|1869|Chewing gum patented (William F Semple, Mt Vernon, OH)
28|12|1836|Settlers arrive at Holdfast Bay (Adelaide, SA)
28|12|1926|Victorian cricketers score record 1107 runs v NSW
28|12|1934|First women's cricket Test, Australia v England
28|12|1942|Japanese planes bomb Calcutta
28|12|1989|Newcastle Earthquake of 5.5 kills 13
29|12|1170|Archbishop Thomas Becket slain in Cathedral of Canterbury
29|12|1680|England's Lord Stafford executed for treason
29|12|1890|Battle of Wounded Knee (200 Indians killed)
29|12|1927|First "talkie" film, "The Jazz Singer", premiered in Australia
29|12|1989|Playwright Vaclav Havel elected Czechoslovakian president
30|12|1857|Sydney Stock Exchange opened
30|12|1903|More than 500 die in Iriquois Theatre fire in Chicago
30|12|1916|Russian mystic Rasputin murdered
30|12|1940|First Los Angeles freeway dedicated (Arroyo Seco Parkway)
31|12|1836|Col. William Light selects the site of Adelaide
31|12|1879|Thomas A Edison first demonstrates electric incandescent light
31|12|1923|Big Ben first chimes
31|12|1935|Monopoly patented
31|12|1967|Australia's first quintuplets born (at Tenterfield, NSW)
31|12|1968|Viscount aircraft crashes at Pt Headland, WA; 26 dead
31|12|1968|Russia's TU144 becomes world's first supersonic airliner
31|12|1991|Soviet Union formally ceases to exist at midnight
31|12|1993|Thomas Watson Jr, CEO of IBM 1956-71, dies, aged 79
