ON THIS DAY
1804
Napoleon Bonaparte, 35, crowns himself in Notre-Dame as Emperor of France.
1814
The Marquis de Sade, 74, dies in a Paris asylum. He was put there for sexual cruelty that gave rise to the word sadism.
1851
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, president of France, suspends the constitution in a coup. Street fighting breaks out in Paris.
1859
Militant US slavery abolitionist John Brown is hanged in what is now West Virginia for treason after leading an insurrection.
1911
Australian Antarctic expedition: Douglas Mawson leaves Hobart in the Aurora for Macquarie Island. The expedition spends three years exploring overland and mapping some 1500km of the coast of Antarctica.
1932
The “bodyline’’ series begins as the first Test with England opens at Sydney Cricket Ground. Australian batsmen suffer painful blows.
1938
Hubert Opperman breaks the Adelaide to Sydney cycling record, recording 66hr 16min for a 1000 mile route.
1971
The United Arab Emirates is formed by the union of six small emirates on the Arabian Peninsula. A seventh emirate joined in February 1972.
1972
Gough Whitlam leads the federal Labor Party to power at the polls after 23 years in opposition.
1977
Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket begins as Clive Lloyd’s West Indians outplay the Australians in Melbourne.
1988
Dean Waters wins his second Australian heavyweight title.
1993
Drug lord Pablo Escobar (above), one of the world’s most wanted men, is killed in a gunfight with security forces in Colombia, 16 months after he escaped jail.
2005
Australian citizen Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, is hanged in Singapore for smuggling heroin.