ON THIS DAY
47BC
With the aid of her lover, Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar, Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator is returned to Egypt’s throne as co-ruler with her brother Ptolemy XIV, after a civil war with another brother, Ptolemy XIII.
1625
Charles I ascends the throne of Great Britain and Ireland.
1789
Six marines hang in Sydney for robbery. Another thief, Private Joseph Hunt, had turned informer. 1802 The Treaty of Amiens is signed, giving Europe 14 months of peace during the Napoleonic Wars.
1814
At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Tohopeka, Alabama, in the Creek War, Andrew Jackson’s 3000 troops defeat the Creek Indians, slaughtering more than 800 warriors and imprisoning 500 women and children.
1874
Radical exiles, led by writer Henri Rochefort, arrive in Newcastle, NSW, on board an Australian ship. France used New Caledonia as a penal colony from 1864 and many escaped convicts end up in NSW. Rochefort soon leaves for California.
1939
Australia’s first locally-built military aircraft, the Wirraway (built by Commonwealth Aircraft Corp), is test flown in Melbourne. 1945 Germany launches its last V2 rocket from The Hague; it crashes in Orpington, southeast of London. It is the last of more than 1100 to reach Britain, killing 2724.
1977
The world’s worst aircraft accident kills 582 as two Boeing 747s, owned by KLM and Pan-Am, collide on the runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands (above).
2004
Swimmer Ian Thorpe slips on his starting block at a Sydney trial and is disqualified from the 400m Olympic freestyle race. He later wins the event, after his friend Craig Stevens forfeits his place in the Australian team to Thorpe.
2008
Mitsubishi’s car plant closes in Tonsley Park, Adelaide, ending 28 years of production.