ON THIS day

1642

Abel Tasman is the first European to sight New Zealand, viewing the northwest coast of the South Island.

840

Explorers Paul de Strzelecki and James Macarthur, with two Indigenous guides, reach one of the highest points of the Australian Alps and name the mountain of which it is part Mount Kosciuszko.

1849

The Sikh army surrenders to the British at Rawalpindi at the end of the Second Sikh War, conceding to annexation of the Punjab.

1894

Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time in a candy store in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1913

Lady (Gertrude) Denman, wife of governor-general Thomas Denman, names Australia’s capital Canberra’ as a foundation stone is laid and building starts on the city. Lord Denman, prime minister Andrew Fisher and home affairs minister King O’Malley lay three stones of the Commonwealth Column on the slopes of Kurrajong Hill, with a golden trowel.

1930

Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement, began the Salt March, a nonviolent protest against British rule that brought him international attention.

1938

Nazi German troops enter Vienna during Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Austria.

1969

Beatle Paul McCartney marries Linda Eastman in a London registry office.

1984

British coal miners begin a year-long strike in a futile effort to stop pits closing.

1999

Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

2011

A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melts and explodes to release radioactivity, a day after a Japanese earthquake.