ON THIS day
1741
German-born composer George Frideric Handel finishes his Messiah oratorio, after working on it non-stop for 24 days in London.
1801
NSW Corps officer and pioneer farmer John Macarthur is arrested straight after a duel with his superior, Captain Robert Paterson, and will be sent to England for a court-martial that never happens.
1812
Napoleon Bonaparte enters Moscow and Russians set fires throughout the city.
1828
Bank of Australia in Sydney is robbed of a large sum by a gang who break into the strongroom by a tunnel from a water drain. The bank will never recover from the loss. 1847
US forces capture Mexico City in a conflict over Texas.
1912
Transcontinental railway work begins as the governor-general, Lord Denman, turns the first sod at Port Augusta on the line to Kalgoorlie.
1930
Germany’s Nazi Party wins 18 per cent of the vote, making it the second largest party and putting Adolf Hitler on the road to power. 1978
Beginning of five-day IRA bombing campaign across towns in Northern Ireland, which sees 50 bombs exploded and 37 injured. 2001
Administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers grounds all Ansett flights, leaving tens of thousands stranded. 15,000 staff are affected by the collapse.
2006
Channel 7’s Naomi Robson and her TV crew are deported from the Indonesian province of Papua after a failed mission to rescue a six-year-old boy supposedly about to be eaten by his cannibal tribe.
Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the UN. Another leadership spill results in a change of Australian Prime Ministers with the Liberal Party’s Malcolm Turnbull ousting Tony Abbott for the job.