On 8 February, just hours after Aurora left Commonwealth Bay after waiting for three weeks, Mawson staggered alone into base, his colleagues Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis and Xavier Mertz dead.
Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, and India became a republic within the Commonwealth the following year.
The last time a nation left the Commonwealth was in 2003, when Zimbabwe withdrew.
To date, Locke has spent decades making a name for himself as that artist mildly obsessed with the Queen, heraldry, and the lasting stain left on Commonwealth Caribbean countries by British colonialism.
During the course of 1961, as South Africa left the Commonwealth, ANC leaders including Nelson Mandela began to discuss whether they should continue the non-violent struggle or opt for a more radical means of fighting apartheid.
Other countries left the Commonwealth, such as Burma in January 1948, Palestine (divided between Israel and the Arab states) in May 1948 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949.
If we decided to leave the Commonwealth, we would not be the first.
Leaving the commonwealth status as it is has been the way most Puerto Ricans want it, according to the results of recent referendums.
In an unexpected announcement broadcast by the west African nation on state television on Wednesday it was not immediately clear what prompted the decision to leave the Commonwealth, which is headed by the Queen.
The British Prime Minister's ultimatum came as he was leaving the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka's cultural capital Colombo, where he failed to persuade fellow leaders to criticise Sri Lanka's human rights record in a communiqué.
Can I please return to Colombo now?" asked a Twitter user on the morning after leaders of the Commonwealth left the Sri Lankan capital after their summit ended on November 17th.
