TODAY IN HISTORY

1601

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, is beheaded for high treason after his revolt against the ministers of England’s Queen Elizabeth I, who had a love-hate relationship with him.

1825

Musquito, an Aborigine known as the Black Outlaw, is hanged in Hobart for murdering a stockman, William Hollyoak.

1841

Explorer Edward Eyre sets off from Fowlers Bay in South Australia with overseer John Baxter and three Aborigines on the first recorded overland expedition to reach Western Australia

1854

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort begins building a dry dock at Balmain, Sydney. Mort’s Dock is completed in 1855 and helps make Sydney a major steamship port

1948

Communists seize control of the government of Czechoslovakia, sending troops to take over offices of the rival Social Democratic Party

1970

Latvian-born American abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko is found dead in his studio in Manhattan. He committed suicide, leaving a will but no note, sparking a long legal dispute between his family and a gallery claiming ownership of his works.

1981

Professor Graeme Clark announces the development of the first commercially available cochlear implant to restore hearing.

2017

American actor Bill Paxton dies of a stroke after an operation to repair a damaged heart valve. He was in films such as Apollo 13 and Titanic.

2020

Dmitry Yazov, the last person appointed Marshal of the Soviet Union, dies aged 95