ON THIS DAY

1837 Anti-slavery campaigner Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while trying to protect his printing shop in Alton, Illinois. 1861

The Melbourne Cup is run for the first time. Two horses die in a fall, but the contest goes on. Archer, from NSW, wins by 10 lengths. 1872 The brigantine Mary Celeste sails from New York for Genoa carrying alcohol. The captain, his family and seven crew are never seen again. The ship is later found adrift and deserted.

1917 Bolshevik revolutionaries occupy the Russian capital, St Petersburg (then Petrograd). They overturn a provisional government established after the forced abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March.

1940 British steamer Cambridge becomes the first ship to be sunk by German mines in Australian waters in World War II. All but one of the 56 crew are rescued off Wilsons Promontory, Victoria.

1963 Lee Gordon, 40, the entrepreneur who made Sydney a major world venue in show business, dies of a heart attack in London.

1965 An underground fire kills four miners at Bulli colliery in NSW.

1971 The Australian flag is lowered at the Nui Dat base as the Aussie Diggers’ combat role in the Vietnam War nears its end.

1980 Steve McQueen (above), star of The Great Escape, dies, aged 50.

1996 Martin Bryant, 29, admits in court to having murdered 35 people at Port Arthur in Tasmania.

2000 The US presidential election ends in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, only to be settled on December 12 by the US Supreme Court after a bitter legal dispute.

2010 Scientists at the world’s largest atom smasher in Geneva recreate conditions shortly after the Big Bang.