ON THIS day

1206 King Edward I of England, seeking suzerainty over the Scots, invades Scotland and removes the coronation stone of Scone to Westminster Abbey in England.

1521 Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan is killed at Mactan in the Philippines during an aroundthe-world voyage for Spain.

1773 Britain’s House of Commons passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1904 Led Prime Minister Chris Watson, the ALP becomes the first Labor government in the world.

1908 A cyclone hits a pearling fleet at Eighty Mile Beach, Western Australia, killing 50 people.

1933 The body of Bert Hinkler is discovered in the Italian Alps near his wrecked plane after disappearing in January while attempting to fly from England to Australia.

1950 PM Robert Menzies introduces a Bill to outlaw the Communist Party. The High Court finds the law unconstitutional in 1951.

1960 South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee resigns after more than a week of deadly student protests against his regime.

1976 The first of a procession of boats carrying Vietnamese refugees reaches Darwin.

1978 President Daud Khan of Afghanistan is killed amid fierce fighting in a military coup which brings pro-Soviet rulers to power.

1981 Xerox PARC debuts the first personal computer mouse.

1997 The world’s longest road-rail suspension bridge opens in Hong Kong. The Tsing Ma bridge connects to the new offshore airport.

2008 Special Forces soldier Lance Corporal Jason Marks, 27, father of two, is killed in a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.

2014 Pope John Paul II is canonised by Pope Benedict XVI.