This image is of a reenactment of the First Fleet of British ships arriving in Sydney Harbour in 1788.
Taken on Australia Day (26th January), this was Australia’s bicentenary in 1988.
On the 21st of March, 1788, a fire broke out in a home in New Orleans, present-day Louisiana.
856 of the 1100 buildings in the town were destroyed.
Because the fire happened on Good Friday, priests wouldn’t allow church bells to be rung as a warning to residents.
Below is a map of the destroyed area, published in 1886. X
A 1938 image depicting the First Fleet arriving in Australia on the 26th of January, 1788. This was the beginning of European colonisation of the continent, and the 26th is now called Australia Day.
From the collection of the National Library of Australia in Canberra.
On the 29th of October, 1787, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni premiered at the Estates Theatre in Prague.
The theatre in 1797
The opera was commissioned after Mozart made a successful trip to Prague earlier the same year.
Originally intended for a October 14 debut, it was not ready in time, and so the schedule was reorganised.
The opera was an immediate success, as Mozart was highly popular in Prague.
(A side note: I have seen this opera performed at the original theatre. 🙂 )
New London Bridge sometime between 1870 and 1890
London Bridge has been rebuilt a number of times, and on the 1st of August, 1831, “New” London Bridge was opened, replacing the more than six-hundred year old structure that had stood before it.
The Demolition of Old London Bridge
King William IV and Queen Adelaide attended a banquet in a pavilion erected on the bridge to celebrate the opening.
Present day London Bridge and Tower Bridge
The present-day London Bridge is from the early 1970s, and is not to be mistaken (a common confusion with tourists) with the more attractive and photographed Tower Bridge, the next one east on the River Thames.
The First Fleet entering Port Jackson on the 26th of January, 1788. Drawn 1888.
On the 20th of January, 1788, the main body of the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay, modern-day Australia.
The First Fleet, consisting of eleven ships of convicts, marines and seamen, had left England in 1787.
Botany Bay was deemed unsuitable for a colony, with concerns about the lack of fresh water and the swampy land, and the fleet moved further north, to Port Jackson. The fleet’s arrival in the second port is marked by Australia Day on the 26th of January.
The Battle of Cape St Vincent was fought at night – unusual for the time – on the 16th of January, 1780. Part of the American War of Independence, the battle was fought off the coast of Portugal, between Britain and Spain.
Britain defeated Spain, as seen in this painting by Francis Holman, created the same year.
French troops storming Redoubt #9 during the Siege of Yorktown. 19th October, 1781.
In Times Gone By... 
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