ON THIS DAY

1508 Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I, Louis XII of France, and Ferdinand II of Aragon form the League of Cambrai.

1520 At Wittenberg, Germany, Martin Luther burns a Papal bull issued against him, earning excommunication from the Catholic Church. He later forms the Lutheran Church.

1792 Bennelong and his young Wangal kinsman Yemmerrawanne board the HMS Atlantic to sail from their Eora world to England.

1796 The “hell ship’’ Britannia sails from Cork with 144 male and 44 female prisoners. The master is Thomas Dennott, who ordered floggings of up to 800 lashes.

1817 Bushranger Michael Howe is captured in Tasmania, then escapes having stabbed and shot two captors.

1859 A separate colony from NSW, named Queensland, is proclaimed in Brisbane by its first governor, George Ferguson Bowen.

1869 Wyoming becomes the first state to adopt female suffrage.

1878 Euroa: Ned Kelly’s bushranger gang robs the National Bank of £2000. Hostages are unhurt. 1919 Ross and Keith Smith win the £10,000 prizemoney offered by the government for the first flight from Britain to Australia. They land their Vickers Vimy aircraft in Darwin after a 28-day flight from Hounslow in England.

1936 Britain’s King Edward VIII submits his abdication to parliament so he can marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson (pictured).

1945 Stockholm: Australian pathologist Professor Howard Florey is awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine with two colleagues after developing the antibiotic penicillin.

1975 Gough Whitlam and ALP federal secretary David Combe breakfast with two Iraqi officials at the flat of businessman Henry Fischer.