Today in History, 20/3
HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE
1602 - Dutch East India Company is established. During its 96-year history it becomes one of the world's most powerful companies.
1616 - Sir Walter Raleigh is released from the Tower of London to seek gold in Guiana.
1727 - Death of Sir Isaac Newton, British scientist and mathematician, noted for his discoveries including that of gravity.
1780 - The company of James Watt & Co is formed for the manufacture of the first duplicating machines.
1815 - Napoleon arrives back in Paris from Elba to reclaim power at the start of "The Hundred Days" before defeat at Waterloo.
1846 - The foundation stone of Melbourne's Princes Bridge is laid.
1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is published in book form.
1933 - First concentration camp is opened in Germany, at Dachau.
1934 - First practical tests of radar are carried out at Kiel Harbour, Germany, by Dr Rudolph Kuenhold.
1964 - Death of Irish writer Brendan Behan.
1969 - Beatle John Lennon weds Japanese artist Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
1974 - Unsuccessful attempt made to kidnap Princess Anne in The Mall, London.
1976 - US newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery for her part in a 1974 San Francisco bank hold-up.
1982 - Australian film The Man From Snowy River premieres in Mansfield, Victoria.
1990 - John Wayne Glover, dubbed the "Granny Killer", is arrested over the deaths of six elderly women in Sydney's northern suburbs.
1995 - A religious sect spreads nerve gas through Tokyo's crowded subway system, killing 12 and sickening more than 5500.
1996 - Britain's beef industry is thrown into a crisis when the government acknowledges that mad cow disease is the most likely source of a similar brain disease in humans.
2000 - Germany's scandal-scarred Christian Democrats nominate Angela Merkel as the country's first woman leader.
2003 - The US launches its war against Iraq with selective strikes on Baghdad.
2006 - Cyclone Larry lashes the Queensland town of Innisfail and surrounds.
2009 - Retired Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld is sentenced to at least two years' jail for perjury and making a false statement with intent to pervert the course of justice, to avoid a $75 speeding ticket in 2006.
2010 - Pope Benedict XVI sends an unprecedented letter to Ireland apologising for chronic child abuse within the Roman Catholic church.
2012 - Former Country Fire Authority volunteer Brendan James Sokaluk is convicted of starting the Black Saturday bushfire that killed 10 people.
2015 - Death aged 84 of Malcolm Fraser, Australia's 22nd prime minister.
2016 - Spanish driver Fernando Alonso walks away unhurt from a spectacular crash in the Australian Formula I Grand Prix, later won by Germany's Nico Rosberg for Mercedes.
2017 - Lawyers for Sara Connor say the Australian woman is "scared and traumatised" by the Indonesian justice system and has decided not to appeal her four-year sentence for her role in the death of a Bali police officer.
TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS
Ovid, Latin poet (43 BC-17 AD); Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist (1828-1906); David Malouf, Australian author (1934-); William Hurt, US actor (1950-); Jimmie Vaughan, US guitarist (1951-); Spike Lee, US filmmaker (1957-); Holly Hunter, US actor (1958-); Dean Geyer, South African-born Australian singer and actor (1986-); Ruby Rose Langenheim, Australian DJ and model (1986-); Catherine McNeil, Australian model (1989-).
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Spring has no language but a cry. - Thomas Wolfe, American author (1900-1938).