1788: The first of 11 ships under the command of Captain Arthur Phillips arrived in Botany Bay, Australia, to establish a penal settlement. The first convicts arrived soon after

1806: Following the fall of Cape Town to British forces on 10 January, the whole of the Dutch colony in the Cape of Good Hope surrendered.

1919: The Peace Conference at Versailles, to draw up the terms for the formal end of the First World War, began. The Treaty was ultimately signed between Germany and representatives of 27 victorious powers and it punished Germany territorially and financially for her role in starting the First World War. The treaty was supposed also to prevent Germany from having the means to make war in the future.

1942: A harrowing four-day ordeal began in Malaya for Australian troops of 2/19th Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Anderson. They succeeded in knocking out some ten Japanese tanks, but then found themselves cut off by the rapid enemy advance. Anderson led his men back for fifteen miles through the enemy-held jungle, under attack the whole time. His unit briefly broke through the Japanese lines, but was then once more encircled. Anderson was forced to order the destruction of equipment, and, refusing to leave any wounded behind, eventually extricated his men via a circuitous route of at least another eight miles. He received the Victoria Cross.

1944: In Burma, Lieutenant Horwood led a small mortar observation team forward to take up a very exposed position in the front line. Over the next two days he ignored intense enemy fire to send back good intelligence, call in accurate mortar fire, and went out alone on a personal close reconnaissance of the Japanese positions, deliberately exposing himself to enemy fire so that his observer team could plot. Finally, on 20 January, Lieutenant Horwood was killed, having volunteered to lead the infantry attack on the positions he had scouted. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1945: A platoon of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was ordered to clear German troops from a Dutch village. Their attack immediately stalled under heavy fire, and one of the casualties was nineteen-year old Fusilier Donnini, who fell, hit in the head. However, when he recovered consciousness, he resumed the attack, charging under continual fire. Upon reaching the village, he flushed the defenders from the nearest house using a grenade, then pursued them. He was again wounded, but continued to fire his Bren Gun until a third hit killed him, as other members of the platoon completed the task of capturing the village, which proved to have been occupied by a much larger German force. Donnini was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.