TODAY IN HISTORY

1194 Richard I (the LionHeart) is crowned king of England for the second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI

1790 As famine threatens Sydney, HMS Supply is sent to Batavia, Java, for emergency food supplies

1816 At least 14 Dharawal are massacred at Appin by a detachment of the 46th regiment under James Wallis encounters their camp on the banks of the Cataract River

1961 Cuba is invaded at the Bay of Pigs by USarmed exiles in a badly planned and unsuccessful bid to overthrow Castro’s communist regime

1970 Astronauts of Apollo 13 splash down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft

1998 Linda McCartney, photographer and wife of former Beatle Paul, dies from cancer

2000 The dotcom crash of high-tech stocks wipes $36 billion off the value of Australian shares in one day

2002 Former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao is named winner by a landslide of East Timor’s first presidential election

2005 Bali police arrest nine Australians and seize heroin valued at $4 million. They become known as the Bali Nine

2020 It is announced President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen will be released from federal prison to serve the remainder of his sentence, for crimes including campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud, in home confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic. He is released on May 21