1502 1671 1901 1926 1927 1986 2006

Explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail with four ships from Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final voyage, on which he charts the Caribbean. Thomas Blood, Irish adventurer better known as Captain Blood, steals the crown jewels from the Tower of London.

Federal parliament opens for the first time, in its borrowed homes of Melbourne’s Exhibition Building and then the Victorian parliament.

US Navy Commander Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett become the first people to make a plane flight over the North Pole.

The Duke of York opens Parliament House in Canberra. The crowd outside the building supports an Aboriginal elder, King Billy, as police try to move him on because he is deemed inadequately dressed.

1936

Seven months after invading Ethiopia, Italy annexes the country as part of Italian East Africa. Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who in 1953 assisted Edmund Hillary on the first ascent of Mt Everest, dies at age 71. Gold miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb leave Tasmania’s Beaconsfield mine, as a two-week rescue ends their ordeal trapped 1km underground (pictured).