ON THIS day

1525

Last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtemoc, is tortured and hanged by conquistador Hernan Cortes. 1623

Dutch massacre English colonists at Amboyna, Indonesia.

1815

Napoleon Bonaparte

escapes from the isle of Elba for a second, but brief, reign as emperor of France.

1901

Two leaders of the Boxer Rebellion in China, the mandarins Chi-hsui and Hsu Cheng-yu, are beheaded in public in Beijing. 1935

Qantas Empire Airways plane leaves Darwin for Singapore, the first scheduled international flight. 1935

A “radio detection and ranging’’ system, later abbreviated as radar, is demonstrated by Scottish scientist Robert Watson Watt, in the English town of Daventry. 1945

American Liberator bomber Beautiful Betsy disappears on a flight from Darwin to Brisbane with eight on board. The wreck is found in near Gladstone in 1994. 1952

British prime minister Winston Churchill announces that Britain has produced its own atomic bomb and will test it in Australia. 1986

New Philippines president Cory Aquino swears in her cabinet. 1990

Underworld identity Arthur “Neddy’’ Smith is convicted of the drunken road-rage stabbing murder of a stranger, Ronnie Flavell, 34, at Coogee on October 30, 1987. 1993

Six people die as a van blows up in a parking area under New York’s World Trade Center. Five Islamic extremists will be jailed years later.

1995

England’s oldest bank, Barings, collapses. Its capital was wiped out in 1992 by derivatives dealer, Nick Leeson, then 26. 2018

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake strikes Papua New Guinea killing 100. 2022

Severe rainfalls trigger floods in Queensland and NSW, killing 24 people. Thirty locations record at least 1000mm of rain in the deluge.