On this day - 21st May

1790  Paris was divided into 48 zones

1840  New Zealand was declared a British colony

1934  Oskaloosa, IA, became the first city in the U.S. to fingerprint all of its citizens

1982  The British landed in the Falkland Islands and fighting began

1991  In Madras, India, the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a bouquet of flowers that contained a bomb

1998  Microsoft and Sega announced that they are collaborating on a home video game system

The Long Trip to Botany Bay

Diabolical conditions abroad the hulks, the floating prisons which took up the slack when transportation to America ended, forced Britain to rethink its penal policy. The consensus was that Britain urgently needed another colony. First under consideration was the island of Lemane in the Gambia, West Africa. Its advantage was isolation. No guards would be needed to watch over the felons. But it would have amounted to signing the death warrant of the desperate souls abandoned there. Happily the scheme was dropped. Another African venue, this time Das Volatas Bay in the south-west, became favoured choice. But the survey commissioned in 1785 reported that it was a barren land. Without opportunity to hack a living out of the soil the convicts would surely die. The only route now open to the government was the one that led to Botany Bay, on the Tasman Sea south of Sydney, Australia. The doubters comforted themselves that the opportunities for convicts to return home from this colony would be scarce.

Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth taking leave of their lovers