ON THIS DAY
480BC
After three days’ resistance, King Leonidas of Sparta and 1000 Greeks are finally beaten by the Persians at the battle of Thermopylae. 48BC
Julius Caesar defeats Pompey the Great in the Battle of Pharsalus. 1173 Construction of the Tower of Pisa begins, taking 200 years to complete. 1932 Australian teen swimmer Clara (Clare) Dennis (later Golding) wins gold in the Olympic 200m breaststroke in a world record time of 3min 6.3sec in Los Angeles. 1936
Berlin: University student James Cleveland “Jesse’’ Owens, 22, (above) becomes the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad. The fourth is as part of the 400m US relay team he joined at short notice after winning the 100m, 200m and running broad jump (long jump). 1942 Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and 52 other leaders of the Quit India anti-British rule campaign are arrested in Mumbai (Bombay) and held for nearly two years, after calling for civil disobedience. 1942
The Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra is lost in action in the Solomon Islands in the Battle of Savo Island after being shelled at 1.45am. Nine officers and 64 men go to the bottom with the ship. 1979 Brighton becomes the first major resort in Britain to officially set aside part of its beachfront for nudists. 1999 Russian president Boris Yeltsin sacks his cabinet and names little-known former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, 47, as prime minister. 2006 Bruce Burrell, 53, is sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1997 murder of Sydney mother Kerry Whelan. He is later also convicted of killing Dorothy Davis.