Today in History - May 26 | Mystery caller threatens to blow Qantas jet out the sky
On May 26, 1971, the captain of a Qantas Boeing 707 passenger jet flying from Sydney to Hong Kong received an urgent message saying a bomb was aboard the plane.
Earlier a mystery caller phoned federal government aviation officials, telling them the explosive device would detonate if the Qantas jet flew below 6000 feet.
To support his threat, police were told a similar bomb had been left in a locker at Sydney Airport. The bomb squad found the device was real.
With the Qantas plane running low on fuel, the man behind the bomb threat - known as 'Mr Brown' - demanded Qantas pay him $500,000, equivalent to about $15 million in today's money.
In return, he would provide instructions about how to disarm the explosives.
Qantas agreed to pay up, and 'Mr Brown' was handed a bag full of the cash in central Sydney.
A few minutes later he phoned authorities to tell them there was no bomb aboard, and they'd been duped. The Boeing 707 landed safely in Sydney.
In August 1971, English migrant Peter Macari was arrested over the bomb hoax.
He was later convicted to 15 years jail.
During the early 1980s, he was deported to Britain - on a Qantas plane.
A fleet of small civilian boats and ships was mobilised to help bring home the trapped army.
Over the following weeks 350,000 soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk, ensuring Britain still had an army to continue fighting.
It prompted a famous speech by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill who told Parliament the country would "never surrender" to Germany.
Macho actor John Wayne - a popular film star depicting cowboys and soldiers during Hollywood's golden age - was born on May 26, 1907, in the US state of Iowa.
Born Marion Robert Morrison, he adopted his stage name at the request of producers in one of his early western films.
John Wayne won an Academy Award for Best Actor on April 7, 1970.
The first National Sorry Day in Australia, which acknowledges the historical mistreatment of Aboriginal people including members of the stolen generation, was held on May 26, 1998.
It was staged one year after the release of the Bringing Them Home report, which revealed the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families over a century.
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