TODAY IN HISTORY

1675

Construction of Greenwich Observatory begins in London on the imaginary line of 0 longitude. Charles II lays the foundation stone.

1815

The first Wesleyan minister in Australia, Reverend Samuel Leigh, arrives in Sydney on the ship Hebe from England to organise the Methodist Church in Australia.

1844

Explorer Charles Sturt leaves Adelaide in search of an inland sea.

1920

The Princes Highway is officially opened at the Gippsland town of Warragul.

1949

Immigration minister Arthur Calwell says people should call migrants New Australians instead of using names such as Balts.

1976

Former Test cricketer Bert Oldfield dies at 81 at his Killara home.

1977

Mass killer Son of Sam, aka David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old postal worker, is arrested in Yonkers, New York.

1984

The favourite in the women’s 3000m at the Los Angeles Olympics, American Mary Decker, falls after tripping over Zola Budd, a South African running for Britain.

2003

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko is the first person to marry in space when he weds Ekaterina Dmitrieva who is on Earth.

2018

A gunman kills four people, two of them police officers, during a shooting incident in Fredericton, New Brunswick in Canada.

2019

American financier and convicted sex offender

Jeffrey Epstein commits suicide. Rumours circulate he was murdered before he could reveal high-profile people involved in his paedophile ring.