1788: The first consignment of convicts from England arrived in Australia, at Sydney Cove.

1828: The Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister.

1841: Hong Kong was proclaimed British sovereign territory.

1871: The Rugby Football Union was founded.

1885: General Gordon, British commander and Governor of the Sudan, was killed by a spear while besieged at Khartoum.

1905: The world's largest diamond was found at the Premier Mines in Pretoria, South Africa. The Cullinan Diamond weighed more than one and a quarter pounds.

1907: "Foul language" caused a riot in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the first night of JM Synge's Playboy Of The Western World.

1947: Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden was killed in an air crash near Copenhagen.

1965: Hindi was made the official language of India.

1972: First London performance of the musical Godspell.

1993: Vaclav Havel became the first president of the new Czech Republic.

LAST YEAR: Thailand battled to contain its bird flu outbreak as a six-year-old boy became the first confirmed fatality.