ON THIS DAY
1517 Martin Luther, according to tradition, nails his 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, denying the Pope the right to forgive sins.
1900 Bushranger Joe Governor, after a murderous rampage through rural NSW with his brother Jimmy, is shot dead by grazier John Wilkinson north of Singleton, four days after Jimmy is captured.
1917 The Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade’s charge at Beersheba lets the British and New Zealanders break the Ottoman line and take Gaza City in Palestine.
1922 Benito Mussolini becomes prime minister of Italy. He was the first of Europe’s fascist dictators in the 20th century.
1926 Harry Houdini, magician and escape artist, dies in Detroit of peritonitis stemming from a ruptured appendix.
1955 Britain’s Princess Margaret ends speculation by announcing she will not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend.
1956 Britain and France bomb Egyptian airfields in an attempt to regain control over the Suez Canal.
1961 The 64m radio telescope opens at Parkes (pictured). It was one of the two largest telescopes in the world for radio observations of the southern sky.
1968 US President Lyndon B. Johnson orders an end to American bombing in North Vietnam.
2003 Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, 77, notorious for his rhetoric against Jews, steps down after 22 years in power. 2008 Former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld, 69, pleads guilty to knowingly making a false statement on oath and to making a false statement with intent to pervert the course of justice. He will be sentenced to up to three years in jail.
2020 Scottish-born actor Sean Connery dies at age 90.