Interesting Facts

21st August 1770 – James Cook formally claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales. 1831 – Nat Turner led black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. 1879 – The Virgin Mary, along with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, reportedly appeared to the people of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. Paving the way for lots of little plastic figurines. 1911 – The Mona Lisa was stolen by an employee at the Louvre in Paris. 1968 - Dozens of people were killed in a massive military clampdown in Czechoslovakia. 1983 - Benigno Aquino, the Philippines opposition leader, was murdered just minutes after returning home from exile. 1986 - 1,700 people died when a cloud of lethal gas escaped from a volcanic lake, Lake Nyos, in Cameroon.

British soldier, Private John Henry Parr (19 July 1897 – 21 August 1914), is believed to be the first soldier of the Commonwealth killed by enemy action in the First World War. (He is buried in the St Symphorien military cemetery, just southeast of Mons, in France, but his age on the gravestone is given as 20, because the army id not know his true age: 17.)