Gday...

01  -         Today is the Winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere.

The Winter solstice (southern hemisphere) or Summer solstice (northern hemisphere) occurs on June 21st of each year. The winter solstice occurs when the earth is at a point in its orbit where one hemisphere is most inclined away from the Sun. The day of the winter solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

'Solstice' is a Latin derivation meaning "sun stand still", referring to the appearance that the Sun's noontime elevation change stops its progress, either northerly or southerly. As well as the solstices, there are also the Spring and Autumn equinoxes which occur on September 21 and March 21. The equinoxes are the days on which the day and the night are both 12 hours long. In some parts of the world, March 21, June 21, September 21 and December 21 mark the beginning of the seasons. In Australia, the solstices and equinoxes do not signify the first day of each season: the seasons begin on the first day of March, June, September and December. 

1869  -     The first telegram is sent in Western Australia.

Australia's first telegraph line, which ran from Melbourne to Williamstown, opened in 1854. Each of the other states followed suit within seven years, but Western Australia's relative isolation delayed the development of the technology.

Edmund Stirling was the proprietor of the Perth newspaper, and the one who stirred the colonial authorities into action. He offered to build a telegraph line extending from Perth to Fremantle if the government was prepared to supply and erect the poles. Stirling joined with ex-convict James Fleming who had been transported for swindling in 1864, and who was subsequently appointed Superintendent of Telegraphs on a conditional release.

The first telegraph pole was installed near the Perth jetty by Colonial Secretary, the Honorable Fred Barlee, in 1869, and a 12-mile wire extended to Fremantle. The first telegram was sent on 21 June 1869. The text of the first telegram read:

"To the chairman of the Fremantle Town Trust. His Excellency Colonel Bruce heartily congratulates the inhabitants of fremantle on the annihilation of distance between the Port and the Capital and he requests that this the first message may be publicly known. Government House 21st June 1869." 

1982  -     Prince William of Wales is born

Prince William of Wales was born William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor at 9:03pm on 21 June 1982 in St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London. On 4 August 1982, the 82nd birthday of his great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, he was christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace. As the elder son of the Prince of Wales and his first wife, the late Diana Spencer, William is second in line to the British throne after his father, the Prince of Wales. As a grandchild of the British monarch and son of the Prince of Wales, he is styled His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales.

William attended Wetherby and Ludgrove schools, followed by Eton College and then St Andrew's University in Scotland. He graduated from St Andrews with an upper-second class honours degree on 22 June 2005. He undertook his first royal duties in July 2005, representing Queen Elizabeth at World War II commemorations in New Zealand. Prince William has chosen to serve in the Armed Forces, commencing his course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to train as an Officer Cadet in January 2006. Following his education at Sandhurst, he has expressed a desire to be a 'proper officer', and go wherever his men go. Given his position, and the reluctance of previous British governments to allow the Heir to the Throne into dangerous situations, it remains to be seen if this wish will be fully realised.

1982  -     John Hinckley is found not guilty "by reason of insanity" for the attempted assassination of President Reagan. 

Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States. He served from 1981 to 1989 after being elected to the Presidency in 1980 in an electoral college landslide, beating incumbent President Jimmy Carter and giving the Republican Party a majority in the US Senate for the first time in 26 years.

On 30 March 1981, as he was leaving the Hilton Hotel after addressing a union convention in Washington, DC, Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and MPDC officer Thomas Delehanty were shot during an assassination attempt. Five or six shots were fired; a bullet missed Reagan's heart by less than one inch. Brady was seriously wounded, and a Secret Service agent and a Washington policeman also were injured. The would-be assassin was John Hinckley Jr, the 25-year-old son of an affluent oil industry executive. Hinckley was motivated by an obsession with actress Jodie Foster and a desire to impress her.

On 21 June 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a jury trial. He was placed in St. Elizabeth's psychiatric hospital in Washington DC, where he currently remains. Reagan fully recovered from the attack, as did the Secret Service agent and policeman, but Brady was left paralysed and confined to a wheelchair.

Cheers - John