ON THIS day

537

The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (today Istanbul) is inaugurated by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. 1803 Convict William Buckley escapes from a penal settlement at Port Phillip Bay. He will spend 32 years living with Aborigines before rejoining colonists and receiving a pardon. Two others who escape with him are never heard from again.

1831

Charles Darwin sets sail from England aboard HMS Beagle on the voyage that will inspire the formulation of his theory of evolution. 1915

Australian Les Darcy knocks out American Eddie McGoorty in the Sydney Stadium to become world middleweight boxing champion.

1927

The musical Showboat, with music composed by Jerome Kern and book by Oscar Hammerstein II, opens on Broadway. It is considered by many to be the first truly modern American musical. 1932

Radio City Musical Hall opens in New York. The entertainment venue is later dubbed the “Showplace of the Nation”.

1949

Four years after nationalist revolutionary leader Sukarno had declared Indonesia’s independence, formal sovereignty over the country is transferred from the Dutch to the United States of Indonesia. 1964

Australia’s first offshore oil well Barracouta-1 is spudded (the first hole is drilled) in the Gippsland Basin of the Bass Strait by the rig Glomar III. 1985

World famous tennis player and coach, Sydney-born Harry Hopman dies at the age of 79 in Seminole, Florida.

1987

Sydney drug dealer and gang leader Barry McCann, 44, dies in a Marrickville park. He is shot in the face and head 20 times. 2007

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto (above) is assassinated as she leaves an election rally.