ON THIS day

2011

1194

Richard I (the Lionheart) is crowned king of England for the second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to Henry VI. 1421

More than 100,000 drown when the sea breaks through dykes and floods Dort in the Netherlands. 1492

Italian-born navigator Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spain, giving him a commission to seek a westward passage to Asia and keep a tenth of all the earnings from his discoveries. 1521

Martin Luther appears before the Diet of Worms to defend his ideas on church reform.

179

0As famine threatens Sydney, HMS Supply is sent to Batavia, Java, for emergency food supplies. 1895

China and Japan sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ending a war Japan is winning. The treaty recognises independence of Korea; China cedes Liaodong Peninsula, Port Arthur and Formosa to Japan.

1935

Qantas carries its first paying international passenger, Major Philips, from Archerfield, Brisbane, to Singapore. Captain H.B. Hussey is in command.

1961

Cuba is invaded at the Bay of Pigs by USarmed exiles in an unsuccessful bid to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist regime (above). 1975

Cambodia’s ruling Lon Nol government collapses, and the communist forces of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, enter Phnom Penh and forcibly disperse its citizenry into rural areas. 2002

Former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao is named winner by a landslide of East Timor’s first presidential election. 2003

Anneli Jäätteenmäki is sworn in as prime minister of Finland, which thereby becomes the second country (after New Zealand) to install a woman as head of both state and government. 2011

TV series Game of Thrones, which was based on George R.R. Martin’s fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire, debuts on HBO.