ON THIS DAY
1492 The New World is ‘discovered’ when land (probably San Salvador) is sighted in the Caribbean from the Pinta, one of the three ships in Christopher Columbus’s first voyage.
1702 In the War of the Spanish Succession, Admiral George Rooke, with 30 British ships, begins the battle of Vigo Bay. He will defeat the Spanish and seize 11 ships.
1786 Britain’s home secretary, Viscount Sydney, commissions the naval captain Arthur Phillip to take charge of a future convict colony, NSW
1810 The first Oktoberfest is celebrated in Munich as a horse race in honour of the marriage of the crown prince of Bavaria.
1854 Publican James Bentley and three others charged with the murder of gold miner James Scobie are acquitted, angering miners who later burn down the Eureka Hotel, Ballarat.
1912 Forty-two trapped miners suffocate at Mount Lyell tin mine, Tasmania, after a fire breaks out in the wood-lined underground pumping house.
1915 A German firing squad executes English nurse Edith Cavell in Brussels for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium to The Netherlands.
1917 British and Australian troops launch a dawn attack on the French village of Passchendaele, starting a threeday battle which costs about 13,000 Allied casualties.
1923 Vegemite is launched under its decided name (pictured).
1997 John Denver, 53, known for his song Rocky Mountain High, dies as the handmade plane he is flying crashes in California.
2000 Two al-Qaeda suicide bombers on a small boat kill 17 sailors in a raid on the US destroyer Cole off Yemen.
2002 Bali bombings in the Kuta tourist district kill 202, including 88 Australians.