National Days of India and Australia

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 J M 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.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The UN's weapons inspectors must be given "time to do their job" in Iraq but it should not take months to establish whether Saddam Hussein is complying with his disarmament obligations, Prime Minister Tony Blair said.