ON THIS day

556

England’s first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, is burnt at the stake after being convicted of heresy under laws passed by the Catholic Queen Mary.

1617

Pocahontas, Native American, daughter of Powhatan (b 1595) is buried after dying just as she reached England.

1821

Three ships leave Sydney with 41 soldiers and 60 convicts to establish a colony at Port Macquarie to mete extra punishment to the worst offenders. Captain Francis Allmann is in command. 1823

Convict Thomas Pamphlett and three others leave Port Jackson in an open boat and are driven north for several days by a gale. They are eventually wrecked at Moreton Bay.

1842

Serial killer John Lynch, alias Dunleavy, is convicted in Berrima Circuit Court of having murdered hotel worker Kearns Landregan and later sentenced to hang. 1898

A gas explosion at Dudley Colliery, near Newcastle, kills 15.

1931

The aeroplane Southern Cloud, carrying eight people, disappears in the Snowy Mountains on its way from Sydney to Melbourne. The wreckage is found in 1958. 1965

Martin Luther King Jr leads 3200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

1975

The 3000-year-old Ethiopian monarchy is abolished after the son of deposed Emporer Halle Selassie refuses to return from exile.

1998

The Australian cricket team suffers its worst Test defeat in 60 years, beaten by an innings and 219 runs by India in Calcutta.

2006

Twitter entrepreneur Jack Dorsey (above) sends out the first “Tweet”. 2009

Anna Bligh becomes the first woman in Australia to be elected premier when Labor wins the Queensland election.