ON THIS DAY
105BC
The Roman army is defeated by Germanic tribes in the Battle of Arausio. 1014
Bulgarian Tsar
Samuel dies in shock after 15,000 defeated Bulgarian soldiers are blinded on orders from Byzantine Emperor Basil II.
1536
Protestant English translator of the New Testament, William Tyndale, is strangled and burned at the stake by Catholic authorities for heresy, at Vilvorde, Flanders.
1868
Two bushrangers hold up the pub at Enngonia in western NSW, and find patrons including two troopers sent to catch them. Constable John McCabe is fatally wounded. The outlaws, Frank Pearson, aka Captain Starlight, and Charles Rutherford escape.
1892
Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson dies at his home in Surrey.
1903
High Court of Australia sits for the first time, in the Melbourne Supreme Court building.
1927
The Jazz Singer film starring Al Jolson (pictured) opens in New York, the first full- length feature film to include spoken dialogue.
1949 “Tokyo Rose’’ (Mrs Iva Toguri D’Aquino) who had broadcast Japanese propaganda to US forces in the Pacific in World War II, is sentenced in San Francisco to 10 years’ jail and fined $US10,000 for treason.
1972
Six schoolchildren and teacher Mary Gibbs are kidnapped from Faraday state school in Victoria, but escape the next day.
1976
China’s Gang of Four are arrested in Beijing. Banishment of the ultraradicals allows China to recover from Cultural Revolution mayhem.
1981
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is assassinated by members of the radical fringe of the Muslim opposition.
2004
More than 2000 Tasmanian timber workers cheer as prime minister John Howard assures his forest policy will not cost one job.