TODAY IN HISTORY

1209 Otto IV, king of the Romans, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. His coronation caused rioting in Rome and he is forced to abandon the city.

1520 Explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes and become the first Europeans to sail into the Pacific Ocean

1805 England’s Lord Nelson defeats FrancoSpanish fleet at Trafalgar but is shot and dies four hours later. His last words are “God and my country”.

1858 Jacques Offenbach’s operetta Orpheus in the Underworld premieres in Paris. Famous for the overture, which is associated with the cancan.

1872 Adelaide becomes the first major capital city in Australia to be connected to Europe by telegraph with the completion of the Overland Telegraph Line to Darwin.

1879 Thomas Alva Edison perfects a carbonised cotton filament light globe that becomes the first practical commercial, widely available light bulb.

1900 A NSW naval contingent arrives in Peking to take part in action to quell the secret societies behind the Boxer Rebellion.

1959 The Guggenheim Museum, housed in a building designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, opens on the corner of East 89th Street in the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York.

1964 The movie version of the musical My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison (above), has its world premiere in New York.

2008 The first commercial flight of a Qantas A380 Airbus touches down in Los Angeles.