ON THIS DAY

1865: John Wilkes Booth, assassin of US President Abraham Lincoln, is surrounded and killed by troops near Bowling Green, Virginia. 1890: Banjo Paterson’s poem The Man from Snowy River is published in Sydney, as a supplement to The Bulletin magazine.

1962: First international satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida: a US-British venture.

1986: The world’s worst nuclear accident occurs at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union when a reactor meltdown in a power plant exposes hundreds of thousands of civilians to dangerous radioactive material. Thirty-two people die immediately.

1989: US comedy actress Lucille Ball dies at 77.

Birthdays: Morris West, Australian novelist (1916-1999); Carol Burnett, US actor (1933-); Dick Johnson, Australian motor car driver (1945-); Joan Chen, Chinese actor-comedian (1961-).