TODAY IN HISTORY

1270

King Louis IX, St Louis, dies of dysentery in Tunis in North Africa while on a crusade

1768

Lieutenant James Cook sets sail from Plymouth in England to observe the transit of Venus across the sun from Tahiti and to search for a Great Southern continent

1942

The Battle of Milne Bay begins in New Guinea. It will result in the first defeat of the Japanese on land in World War II

1975

Australia’s Little River Band releases its first single (Curiosity Killed the Cat), on the way to international fame

1981

Nine people die in an early morning fire at the Rembrandt Apartments in Bayswater Rd, Kings Cross. Firemen say the building’s fire systems were inadequate, causing a general outcry against lax laws over fire safety

1995

Helen Darville (aka Demidenko, now Dale), author of The Hand That Signed The Paper, admits to having faked her name and ancestry

2004

South African police arrest Mark Thatcher, the son of Margaret Thatcher, on suspicion of involvement in a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. Thatcher later pleads guilty and avoids jail in a deal with prosecutors

2006

US politician Edward Moore Kennedy dies at 77 at his Massachusetts home