TODAY IN HISTORY

1260 Qutuz, Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, is assassinated by Baibars, another Mameluke leader. Baibars takes power.

1786 David Collins, a marines officer with little legal training, is appointed deputy judge advocate of NSW, becoming the colony-to-be’s first judicial officer.

1860 China signs the Treaty of Beijing with France and Britain, ending the Second Opium War by legalising the drug and ceding many rights and a large indemnity. It also makes Kowloon part of Hong Kong colony.

1889 NSW premier Henry Parkes appeals in a speech at Tenterfield for “one great national government for all Australia’’.

1929 A record 12.9 million shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Dubbed Black Thursday, it is the start of the Wall Street crash and a dark sign of the onset of the Great Depression.

1980 In Melbourne and Sydney the transmission of Australia’s first multicultural television, Network 0/28 (now SBS), begins on United Nations Day.

1989 US television evangelist Jim Bakker is fined $500,000 and sentenced to 45 years’ jail for swindling his followers. He will be released in 1994 owing $6 million dollars to the US Internal Revenue Service.

1995Anna Wood, 15, dies while in a coma caused by taking ecstasy at a Sydney dance club. Her parents start a drug awareness campaign.

2005 Hurricane Wilma hits in Florida in the US. It leave more than 60 people dead and damage valued at billions of dollars.

2018 An anonymous punter wins a $1.5 billion dollar jackpot in the US in the Mega Millions lottery