TODAY IN HISTORY

1543 Nicolaus Copernicus dies just after the printing of his book on the revolution of heavenly bodies.

1689 The Toleration Act is passed by the British Parliament, granting freedom of worship to Nonconformists and allowing them their own places of worship and their own teachers and preachers. Freedom is not given to Catholics nor Unitarians.

1805 Captain William Bligh is commissioned in London as governor of NSW.

1830 The first line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opens with the maiden voyage of Peter Cooper’s locomotive Tom Thumb.

1844 Samuel Morse transmits the message, “What hath God wrought!” from Washington DC to Baltimore as he formally opens America’s first telegraph line.

1856 Abolitionists led by John Brown launch a night raid on a pro-slavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas Territory during which five men are murdered.

1915 Gallipoli: A formal truce is declared during which the Turkish dead of the May 19 attacks are buried.

1917 Australian boxer and folk hero Les Darcy (pictured) dies at 21 of pneumonia, in exile in the US because he wanted to delay enlisting in the army.

1994 Four men convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City are each sentenced to 240 years in prison. The terrorist attack had killed 6 people and injured some 1000.