ON THIS DAY

1863: London’s Metropolitan, the world’s first underground passenger railway, opens.

1956: Elvis Presley records his first songs for RCA, including subsequent No 1 hit Heartbreak Hotel.

1968: John Gorton, government leader in the Senate, is sworn in as Australian prime minister, following disappearance of Harold Holt.

1989: Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester is fatally shot in the driveway of his Canberra home.

2010: The Centaur, an Australian WWII hospital ship that was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese in May 1943 off Queensland, is seen in underwater images for the first time.

2016: British singer David Bowie dies of cancer in New York, aged 69.

Birthdays: Frank Sinatra Jr, US singer (19442016); Rod Stewart, British pop singer (1945-); Jeremy Sims, Australian actor, director (1966-).