ON THIS DAY
1568 The deposed Mary Queen of Scots flees to England after her supporters are defeated in battle. She crosses the Solway Firth in a fishing boat. The move eventually leads to her execution.
1770 Marie Antoinette, aged 14, marries France’s King Louis XVI, aged 15, at Versailles.
1871 Adolphe Thiers’ French national troops storm into Paris through an undefended part of the city walls. This ends the Paris Commune rule, but resistance to the national government continues until May 28.
1929 The first Academy Awards, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, go to actors Janet Gaynor and Emil Jannings. Best film is Wings.
1940 Coal miners end a 10-week national strike. Their demand for a 40-hour week for themselves and mine tradesmen goes to arbitration.
1943 Nazi troops quell the month-long Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in which Polish Jews, led by Mordecai Anielewicz and the Jewish Fighting Organization, resisted deportation to the
Treblinka extermination camp.
1956 The first nuclear tests take place at Maralinga, South Australia, developed as a permanent test site in response to a request from the British government after the first tests at Montebello and Emu Field in 1953 and 1954. Tests continue until 1963.
1975 Tabei Junko of Japan, accompanied by Ang Tsering of Nepal, becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1990 Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr (pictured) dies from throat cancer at the age of 64.
2002 Australia’s last Gallipoli veteran, Alec Campbell, dies at the age of 103.