ON THIS DAY

1305:

Scottish rebel leader William Wallace is hung, drawn and quartered for treason in London.

Hong Kong is taken by the British in war with China.

Axe murderer John Trevor Kelly becomes the last man hanged in NSW.

A footbridge collapses over a river gorge in Venezuela, and 29 people fall to their deaths.

A nationwide hunt gets underway for armed thieves who barged into a lightly guarded Oslo museum and ripped the Edvard Munch masterpiece The Scream from the wall.

Brisbane-based freelance photographer Nigel Brennan, 35, is abducted in Somalia, along with Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout.

Gene Kelly, US actor-dancer (191296); Peter Thomson, Australian golf champion (1929-); River Phoenix, American actor (1970-93).

1839: 1939: 1964: 2004: 2008: Birthdays: