TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2018

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 1728 - John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was first performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, London.

1817 - NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie signs the charter to incorporate Australia’s first bank, the Bank of New South Wales.

1820 - Britain’s King George III died insane at Windsor Castle. 1845 - Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven was published for the first time in the New York Evening Mirror.

1848 - Greenwich Mean Time was adopted by Scotland. 1856 - Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross, was founded by Queen Victoria.

1886 - The first successful petrol-driven motorcar, built by Karl Benz, was patented. 1895 - It is agreed at a conference of Australian Premiers that forming a Federal Constitution is a priority.

1916 - In World War I, Paris was bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.

1957 - Danish architect Joern Utzon is named as the winner of the competition to find a designer for the new Sydney Opera House.

1963 - Britain was refused entry into the EEC.

1996 - French President Jacques Chirac announced the “definitive end” to nuclear testing.

1996 - La Fenice, the 204 year old opera house in Venice, was destroyed by fire. Arson was suspected.

1999 - Paris prosecutors announced the end of the investigation into the accident that killed Britain’s Princess Diana.

2001 - In Indonesia, thousands of student protesters stormed the parliament property and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid quit due to his alleged involvement in two corruption scandals. Wahid announced that he would not resign.

2014 - Archaeologists announced that they had uncovered what they believed to be the oldest temple in Roman antiquity. The temple was found at the Sant’Omobono site in central Rome.