TODAY IN HISTORY

410 After spending three days sacking the city of Rome, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, takes his forces, the treasure of the city and the emperor’s sister as hostage, and heads south.

1660 The London hangman publicly burns books of republican poet John Milton because of his attacks on King Charles II.

1783 Physicist and inventor Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles launches the first hydrogen balloon to fly. The Robert brothers help. It rises more than 900m near Paris. After it lands, it is destroyed by a crowd of terrified peasants.

1841 Battle of Rufus River: 30 Aborigines are massacred in southwest NSW.

1856 Victoria pioneers the secret ballot. The practice will be adopted in NSW in 1858.

1902 Women get the vote in NSW elections as the Women’s Franchise Act gets assent.

1985 Australia’s first domestic communications satellite, Aussat I, is launched from the American space shuttle Discovery.

2000 The 540m tall Ostankino Tower in Moscow, the tallest freestanding structure in Europe, catches fire, killing three people.

2020 The Australian mass murderer, who shot dead 51 people at mosques in Christchurch in March 2019, is sentenced to life in prison without parole.