ON THIS DAY

1498

Explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India, to complete his voyage around Africa.

1506

Explorer Christopher Columbus (pictured) dies, aged about 54.

1784

The Netherlands yields to Britain some of its holdings in India and Indonesia in a treaty signed as a late part of the Peace of Paris, a collection of treaties that concludes the American Revolution.

1873

Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis are granted a patent for using copper rivets to strengthen certain areas of trousers, notably pocket corners. The patent was credited with giving rise to blue jeans.

1882

Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy secretly form the Triple Alliance, a treaty that provides mutual protection against attacks by other European powers until Italy enters World War I.

1886

Eliza Donnithorne, thought to be the model for Miss Havisham in the

Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, dies in

Sydney.

1897

In the first Greco-Turkish war, the Greeks fighting for the annexation of Crete yield to pressures from European powers to withdraw their troops from Crete.

1908

Indonesian intellectuals found the Boedi Oetomo, or Budi Utomo, an educational group which grows into a nationalist movement against Dutch rule.

1989

Chinese prime minister Li Peng declares martial law in Beijing in an bid to stamp out protests by prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

1999

South Australian police find mutilated bodies of eight missing people in acid-filled plastic barrels in a disused bank vault at Snowtown. The toll will reach 12 before three men are jailed for life.

2002

East Timor officially becomes independent.