TODAY IN HISTORY

1087

William the Conqueror dies at Rouen, France, five weeks after a battle injury. In 1066, the ruler of Normandy had invaded England and taken the throne as William I.

1513

Scotland’s King James IV is killed in the Battle of Flodden with the English.

1797

Lieutenant John Shortland finds the Hunter River while searching for escaped convicts. He names it after the then governor of NSW, John Hunter.

1839

John Herschel takes the first glass-plate photograph, of a telescope in Slough, England.

1901

Death of Henri de ToulouseLautrec, the French painter and lithographer who recorded and drew with great insight characters from Parisian cabaret and night-life.

1917

An end is announced to the NSW general strike, which began 38 days earlier over a work monitoring system in tram workshops, but unions gained little.

1946

The federal government launches its own domestic airline, TAA (Trans-Australia Airlines), with a DC-3 service from Sydney and Melbourne.

1948

Communists led by Kim Il-Sung, with Soviet support, proclaim the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the country’s north.