TODAY IN HISTORY

1521 Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, a rival in power to England’s King Henry VIII, is executed on Tower Hill, London, for treason.

1536 Diplomat George Boleyn is beheaded in London on flimsy evidence of incest with his sister Anne, wife of King Henry VIII. Four other courtiers are executed for unlikely acts of adultery with Anne.

1792 Meeting in a coffee house on what is now Wall Street in New York City, 24 businessmen take the initial steps to forming the New York Stock Exchange.

1804 In Sydney, assistant surgeon John Savage carries out Australia’s first successful inoculation against smallpox. The Coromandel had arrived at Port Jackson on May 7 with 200 convicts and smallpox vaccine.

1885 Germany annexes northern New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, alarming Australians.

1893 Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sydney for a private visit.

1917 The second Battle of Bullecourt ends with the Allies capturing the village, at a cost including 7482 casualties for the Australian Imperial Force.

1928 The Flying Doctor Service begins at Cloncurry when Dr St Vincent Welch and pilot Arthur Affleck, at the controls of Victory, answer the first call received by the Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service. 1954 Lawyer Thurgood Marshall scores a landmark victory as the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional.