ON THIS DAY

537 The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I officially inaugurates the newly completed Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

1831 Charles Darwin embarks on his voyage aboard the Beagle, as the ship’s naturalist and a companion of Captain Robert FitzRoy. Darwin will gather evidence that later underpins his theories of natural selection and evolution.

1922 Japanese ship Hosho is commissioned. It is the world’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier, marking a new era in naval warfare.

1927 The musical Show Boat has its premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway. Written by Jerome Kern it is considered the first true American musical

1939 As many as 50,000 people die in a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Erzincan in Turkey. The damage is so extensive that the city is abandoned and a new city is later built to the north.

1941 Prime Minister John Curtin makes his famous statement “Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom” in an article in the Melbourne Herald.

1943 The Australian Army’s 7th Division recaptures “the Pimple” on Shaggy Ridge in New Guinea from the Japanese after a four month struggle.

1945 The International Monetary Fund formally comes into existence when 29 nations ratify its articles of agreement.

1949 Four years after nationalist revolutionary leader Sukarno had declared Indonesia’s independence, formal sovereignty over the country was transferred from the Dutch to the United States of Indonesia.

2007 Former prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto (pictured), is assassinated by a suicide bomber as she leaves an election rally in Rawalpindi.