Rocky, my late father in law was in Darwin towards the end of the bombings - to entitle him to a TPI pension, we had to prove the times he was there - hard to find I tell you - but I did!
rockylizard said
07:52 AM Mar 4, 2016
Gday...
1804 - The Australian Battle of Vinegar Hill, also known as the Battle of Castle Hill, begins.
Castle Hill is a suburb in Sydney, Australia, about 30 kilometres northwest of the central business district. The area was established as a government farm by Governor King in July 1801. Most of the convicts who worked the farm were Irish, many of them having been transported for agitation against British rule.
On 4 March 1804 the convicts, led by Phillip Cunningham and William Johnston, rebelled in the Castle Hill Rebellion, which also became known as the 'Battle of Vinegar Hill'. It was named the Battle of Vinegar Hill after an uprising of Irish rebels against British authority in 1798 - an uprising which saw many of the rebels transported to New South Wales as political prisoners. One convict set fire to his hut in Castle Hill at 9:00 pm, the signal for the rebellion to begin. Cunningham led as 200 rebels broke into the Government Farm's buildings, taking firearms, ammunition and other weapons. The rebels then began marching towards Constitution Hill at Parramatta, gathering more firearms and supplies as they went.
New South Wales Corps soldiers caught up to the rebels the following day. The rebels were outgunned and outnumbered by British troops, who massacred about twenty of them. Cunningham was hanged on March 6 without a trial: several more of the rebels were hanged following swift trials over the following days.
1831 - Lieutenant-Governor James Stirling is commissioned first governor of the Swan River colony.
Australia's western coastline was first sighted by Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer in 1611 when he experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. As the route became more popular, the western half of the continent became known as "New Holland", and more Dutch explorers ventured to explore the coastline. However, the Dutch saw no benefits in colonising the western coast, as the land seemed dry and barren.
In 1826 Edmund Lockyer was sent to claim the western half of the Australian continent for Britain. He arrived at King George Sound on Christmas Day in 1826, and established a military base which he named Frederick's Town (now Albany). Just over two years later, Captain Charles Fremantle was sent to take formal possession of the remainder of New Holland which had not already been claimed for Britain under the territory of New South Wales. On 2 May 1829, Captain Fremantle raised the Union Jack on the south head of the Swan River, thus claiming the territory for Britain.
In late 1828, Captain Sir James Stirling RN was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Swan River colony, although there was no formal legislative basis for his appointment. The first steps were taken under the 1829 Act to provide for the government of the Colony in November 1830, and Stirling was then commissioned as Governor and Commander-in-Chief on 4 March 1831.
1899 - Cyclone Mahina hits north Queensland, killing over 400.
Cyclone Mahina, which hit north Queensland on 4 March 1899, was a category 5 cyclone, and resulted in the greatest death toll of any natural disaster in Australia. It hit a pearling fleet of around 100 vessels which lay at anchor at Bathurst Bay, driving the boats onto the shore or onto the Great Barrier Reef. 307 people were killed in this one act alone, and only 4 sailors survived. Just before the eye of the cyclone passed overland to the north a tidal wave 13 - 15 metres high, caused by the storm surge, swept inland for about 5 kilometres, destroying anything that was left of the Bathurst Bay pearling fleet, along with the settlement. The death toll of between 400 and 410 included at least 100 indigenous Australians, some of whom died when they were caught by the back surge and swept into the sea while trying to help shipwrecked men. A memorial stone to 'The Pearlers' who were lost to the hurricane was erected on Cape Melville. The disaster is also commemorated in the Anglican church on Thursday Island.
1933 - Amidst the Great Depression, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is inaugurated.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, was born on 30 January 1882 at Hyde Park in upstate New York. After initially studying law, he sought public office and was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910. After a bout with poliomyelitis, a viral infection of the nerve fibres of the spinal cord which left his lower body partially paralysed for the remainder of his life, Roosevelt returned to politics, and became governor of New York. In this position, he worked tirelessly for tax relief for farmers, as well as implementing practical action such as the development of hydroelectricity on the St Lawrence River. He was re-elected governor just after the October 1929 stock market crash was developing into a major depression.
In his second term as governor, Roosevelt mobilised the state government to provide relief and spur economic recovery. His aggressive approach to the economic crisis resulted in his gaining the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. By the time he took office on 4 March 1933, most banks were closed, farms were suffering, 13 million workers were unemployed, and industrial production stood at just over half its 1929 level. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt uttered his famous words, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." In the subsequent years, many of Roosevelt's reforms (under his "New Deal" policy) helped aid the American economy into recovery. Such reforms included the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, and creation of the Public Works Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority. As WWII approached, Roosevelt was also aware of the growing threat from the Germans and Japanese, and provided strong leadership through the crises that followed, including the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war.
Roosevelt was re-elected for a third term in 1940, and again for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. However, a few months after his inauguration, he died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage, on 12 April 1945. He had been President for more than 12 years, longer than any other person, and had led the country through some of its greatest crises to the brink of its greatest triumph, the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, and to within sight of the defeat of Japan as well.
Cheers - John
jules47 said
09:23 PM Mar 4, 2016
I love reading these John - like a mini history lesson! Better than any teacher I had though!
rockylizard said
11:30 PM Mar 5, 2016
Gday...
1770 - The Boston Massacre occurs, as British troops fire on American demonstrators.
The Boston Massacre of 1770 was a catalyst to the American Revolution several years later. The incident grew out of the resentment felt by the Americans against the British troops sent to maintain law and order in the colony. There was a tendency for groups of young men to taunt the troops until finally, on 5 March 1770, the troops fired into a rioting crowd. Three Americans were killed immediately, and two more died later from their wounds. British captain Thomas Preston and his men were tried for murder: Preston and six of his men were acquitted, whilst two others were found guilty of manslaughter, punished, and released.
The pressure that resulted from the "massacre" caused Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson to withdraw the troops to an island in the harbour. Whilst this temporarily eased the tensions, it also highlighted the fact that the British were unwelcome, and unable to maintain the law and order they were supposedly there to protect. The incident laid the foundation for Americans to fight for their independence against British rule.
1803 - Australia's first newspaper is printed.
Australia was built on the skills of the convicts. This was important for the construction of the first buildings, roads and bridges. Convicts were also significant to the colony's early literary and intellectual development.
In November 1800, convict transport ship "The Royal Admiral" brought George Howe to Australia's shores. Howe was born in the West Indies but was well-educated in classical European literature, and he had extensive printing experience. His original death sentence for shoplifting in England was commuted to transportation to New South Wales. His skills in printing were immediately put to use for the publication of government documents. In 1802 he issued the first book printed in Australia, "New South Wales General Standing Orders", which listed Government and General Orders issued between 1791 and 1802.
Howe was also permitted to commence Australia's first newspaper, which he printed from a shed at the back of Government House. On 5 March 1803, publication commenced of "The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser". Initially it was printed weekly, and held four portfolio pages of official material, with a small number of private notices. Early editions comprised shipping news, auction results, crime reports and agricultural notices, poems, literature and religious advice. Due to the lengthy shipping journeys, overseas news tended to be out of date by 10-14 weeks, but it was still eagerly received by the public.
Howe's newspaper remained the only one in Sydney until the appearance of explorer William Wentworth's "The Australian" in 1824.
1839 - George Grey discovers the Gascoyne River, longest river in Western Australia.
Sir George Edward Grey, born 14 April 1812, was Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Governor of Cape Colony (South Africa), Premier of New Zealand and a writer. Prior to his political career, however, he was an explorer to one of Australia's remotest regions - the northwest.
His first expedition to the area was in late 1837, but was beset with numerous problems including Aboriginal attack and intense heat and humidity (in some areas, over 50 degrees C) compounded by lack of water. Grey himself was speared in the hip and spent two weeks recovering. His first sight of luxuriant country beyond the Macdonald Range convinced him to continue, and after several more days, he discovered the Glenelg River, named after Lord Glenelg, the Colonial Secretary of State. He returned to Hanover Bay in April 1838, but was determined to make another attempt to penetrate inland, hoping to find an overland route to Perth.
Grey departed on his next expedition to the northwest in February 1839. Insufficient water impeded the party's progress until, after pushing on through thick mangrove swamps, the men arrived at what is now called the Gascoyne River. Arriving there on 5 March 1839, Grey described it as "a stream of magnitude"; indeed, the river is the longest in Western Australia, extending 800km from the Carnarvon Range to the ocean. However, the teeming multitudes of immigrants that Grey envisaged as settling the area never eventuated.
1937 - The USA formally apologises to Nazi Germany for the New York mayor's reference to Hitler as a "brown-shirted fanatic".
Fiorello La Guardia was born to poor Italian immigrants in 1882. After earning his law degree through night school, he was appointed as the Deputy Attorney General of New York in 1914. He served in the armed forces during World War I, then returned to New York to run for the House of Representatives in 1922. Winning the election, he served as congressman until early 1933. He then became Mayor of New York City for three terms from 1934 to 1945, during which time he revitalised New York city, instigating reforms that served the people well.
La Guardia was wary of Hitler's influence and strongly critical of his policies and the methods of the Nazi regime as Hitler began to gain power during the 1930s. He warned of Hitler's agenda to eradicate the Jewish race as early as 1934. In 1937, he called for the creation of a special pavilion at the upcoming 1939 New York World's Fair: "a chamber of horrors" for "that brown-shirted fanatic."
La Guardia's inflammatory delivery was quickly denounced, and on 5 March 1937, the United States officially apologised for the statement. However, this action did not stop La Guardia from continuing to be an outspoken activist up until his death in 1947.
1946 - Winston Churchill first popularises the phrase 'Iron Curtain' in his famous oration prior to the Cold War.
The "Iron Curtain" refers to the boundary which symbolically, politically and physically divided Europe into two separate zones from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, approximately 1945 to 1990. While the Iron Curtain was in place, some Eastern and Central European countries, apart from West Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria, were under the political influence of the Soviet Union. To the west of the Iron Curtain the remainder of Europe operated market economies and was, for the most part, ruled by democratic governments.
The term "Iron Curtain" was used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and later Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the closing days of the war. Its use, however, was popularised by the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who used it in his "Sinews of Peace" address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946:
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow."
Churchill's use of the term "Iron Curtain" came to symbolise the beginning of the Cold War. This was the period marked by political tension and military rivalry, stopping just short of escalating into full-scale war, between the West as represented by the USA, and the East headed by the Soviet Union.
2002 - The last commercial Ansett Airlines flight completes its run from Perth to Sydney.
Australia's national airline is Qantas. However, for nearly seven decades, the domestic airline scene had another significant player in Ansett Airlines.
Ansett Airways Pty Ltd was founded by Sir Reginald Myles "Reg" Ansett in 1935. The very first flight, a single engine Fokker Universal, departed Hamilton, Victoria bound for Melbourne, on 17 February 1936. In 1957, Ansett Airways became Ansett-ANA after taking over the private airline Australian National Airways (ANA), which had gone bankrupt. Further acquisitions of domestic airlines occurred in ensuing decades, and Ansett continued to operate very profitably, well into the latter years of the twentieth century.
In 1987, Ansett made its first international flights, expanding into New Zealand through its subsidiary Ansett New Zealand. Although Air New Zealand had previously become a 50% shareholder, it acquired full ownership of Ansett in February 2000. Unfortunately, a series of poor financial decisions meant that Ansett became more of a liability than an asset to Air New Zealand, and in September 2001, Air New Zealand placed the Ansett group of companies into voluntary administration. Despite an attempt by the federal government to prop up Ansett via government guarantee, the last commercial flight, AN152 from Perth to Sydney, touched down just after 6am on 5 March 2002.
2004 - Officers of the Mexican airforce film a group of UFOs visible in infrared footage but invisible to the naked eye.
Unidentified Flying Objects have long attracted man's fascination, and the sightings have continued well into modern times. Mexico is a virtual hotspot of UFO activity, with some reports appearing legitimate and others unsubstantiated.
On 5 March 2004, Mexican air force pilots captured infrared footage of a group of 11 UFOs flying in apparent formation over southern Campeche. The UFOs flew at an altitude of about 3,500 metres, and changed speed and direction regularly, even appearing at one stage to be encircling the aircraft that was on a routine anti-drug trafficking reconnaissance mission.
What was particularly unusual about this group of UFOs was the fact that they could not be seen with the naked eye. Three of the objects appeared on radar, and eleven showed up on infrared film footage. They were reported to have mass and energy, and to be capable of moving freely.
Cheers - John
rockylizard said
09:28 AM Mar 6, 2016
Gday...
1475 - Michelangelo, Renaissance sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, is born.
Michelangelo was born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni on 6 March 1475 near Tuscany, Italy. Young Michelangelo was raised in Florence and later lived with a sculptor and his wife in the town of Settignano where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. Initially studying in linguistics, Michelangelo went against his father's wishes and took up an apprenticeship in painting with Domenico Ghirlandaio and in sculpture with Bertoldo di Giovanni.
Ghirlandaio was so impressed with his young protege that he recommended him to Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts. After demonstrating his mastery of sculpture in such works as the Pietý (1498) and David (1504), he was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the chief consecrated space in the Vatican. Michelangelo spent four years painting the epic ceiling frescoes, depicting detailed Biblical scenes. There are nine panels devoted to biblical world history, the most famous of which is The Creation of Adam, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are stretching toward each other. Michelangelo's frescoes on the vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome were first shown to the public on 1 November 1512. Other famous frescoes of Michelangelo include The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo was also a skilled architect, designing the Dome of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, the Laurentian Library in Florence at the church of San Lorenzo, transforming the Campidoglio and completing the Palazzo Farnese, considered the most beautiful palace of Rome, after the death of its previous designer, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
Michelangelo died on 18 February 1564, aged 88.
1788 - Lieutenant Philip Gidley King establishes the first settlement on Norfolk Island.
Norfolk Island lies approximately 1,500 km northeast of Sydney, and along with two neighbouring islands forms one of Australia's external territories. The first European to discover Norfolk was Captain Cook, on 10 October 1774. Cook's reports of tall, straight trees (Norfolk pines) and flax-like plants piqued the interest of Britain, whose Royal Navy was dependent on flax for sails and hemp for ropes from Baltic sea ports. Norfolk Island promised a ready supply of these items, and its tall pines could be utilised as ships' masts. Thus, Governor Arthur Phillip, Captain of the First Fleet to New South Wales, was ordered to also colonise Norfolk Island, before the French could take it.
When the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson in January 1788, Phillip ordered Lieutenant Philip Gidley King to lead a party of fifteen convicts and seven free men to take control of the island and prepare for its commercial development. They arrived on 6 March 1788. Neither the flax nor the timber industry proved to be viable, and the island developed as a farm, supplying Sydney with grain and vegetables during the early years of the colony's near-starvation. More convicts were sent, and many chose to remain after they had served their sentences. By 1792, four years after its initial settlement, the population was over 1000.
1937 - The first woman in space, Russian Valentina Tereshkova, is born.
Valentina Tereshkova was born in a small village in the Yaroslavl Oblast in western Russia on 6 March 1937. She was interested in parachuting and flight from a young age, and made her first jump when she was 22, on 21 May 1959. Although a humble textile-factory assembly worker by trade, it was her expertise in parachute jumping that resulted in her selection as a cosmonaut.
Tereshkova became the first woman in space, and the only woman to ever fly solo in space. She was the fifth Russian cosmonaut to go into the Earth's orbit when her spaceship Vostok VI was launched on 16 June 1963. She completed 49 orbits of the Earth in two days, 22 hours and fifty minutes. Even though there were plans for further female flights, it was 19 years before the second woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, flew into space.
1987 - 193 are killed as a car ferry, the 'Herald of Free Enterprise', capsizes just outside Zeebrugge, Belgium, enroute to England.
M/S Herald of Free Enterprise was a car and passenger ferry which worked the English Channel ferry routes between Dover and Calais, and Dover and Zeebrugge. In the early evening of 6 March 1987, as the ferry departed the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on its way to Dover, England, it capsized in calm conditions and shallow water. The ferry had a crew of 80 and carried 459 passengers, 81 cars, 3 buses, and 47 trucks. It capsized in about 90 seconds after leaving the harbour, causing many people to be trapped inside. 193 died, many succumbing to hypothermia in the freezing waters of the channel.
Investigations later revealed that the ferry left port with her bow doors open and the extra ballast still in her tanks. Due to the crew's failure to close the bow door, water began flowing onto the car deck and the vessel quickly became unstable. The captain turned rapidly to starboard, causing the ferry to capsize onto a sand-bar rather than in deeper waters. As a result of this tragedy and a second ferry disaster when the Estonia sank in 1994 with the loss of 850 lives, new safety measures were implemented in 1999, such as the installation of cameras so the crew can see from the bridge whether or not the doors have been closed before sailing.
1994 - The second Biosphere 2 mission begins.
Biosphere 2 is an artificial, sealed ecological system in the desert outside Oracle, Arizona. It was built in the late 1980s, to test whether people could live and study in a closed, isolated environment, whilst carrying out scientific experiments. Biosphere 2 was designed as an airtight replica of Earth's environment, and included a 3,406,000 litre ocean, rainforest, a desert, agricultural areas and a human habitat. It was called Biosphere 2, because Earth itself is considered the first biosphere. The experiment was intended to explore the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonisation.
The first mission involved four men and four women living in the Biosphere for two years from 26 September 1991 until 26 September 1993. The experiment lost some credibility when oxygen and other necessities were required to be provided.
The second Biosphere 2 mission began on 6 March 1994. Seven people from five countries were selected for this experiment, remaining in the Biosphere for six months. The experiment was fraught with problems and the project met with considerable disdain among the scientific community. Biosphere 2 is now open as a hands-on, interactive science centre.
Cheers - John
jules47 said
11:16 AM Mar 6, 2016
That biosphere idea could be a good one, I suppose it was meant to see how humans could live on another planet in a controlled atmosphere, unfortunately, without oxygen how could they survive - ok we get oxygen from trees, and they had a rainforest, but did they have rain, natural sunlight etc., which trees and plants, and humans, need to flourish.
rockylizard said
08:08 AM Mar 7, 2016
Gday...
203 - Perpetua, a young Christian, and her slave Felicitas are martyred in the arena at Carthage.
The Roman persecution of Christians began during the reign of Nero, around 64 AD, and continued until Christianity was embraced by the Emperor Constantine 249 years later. Vibia Perpetua was a twenty-two year old woman of noble birth, married though recently widowed, with a young son. She and her slave Felicitas, who herself had just given birth to a baby daughter, were among five Christians condemned, under the emperor Septimius Severus, to die in the arena. On 7 March 203, the five condemned Christians were led to the arena where the men were attacked by boar, a bear and a leopard, whilst the women were attacked by a bull. After being tossed, gored and wounded, both women were then stabbed to death by gladiators.
Their bodied were interred at Carthage. Centuries later, a majestic basilica was erected over their tomb, the Basilica Majorum, where an ancient inscription bearing the names of the martyrs has been found.
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 3 March 1847. It was whilst living in Canada, from 1870, that Bell pursued his interest in telephony and communications, improving on the technology that had enabled the development of the telegraph. He moved to the US shortly afterwards to continue developing his inventions.
On 7 March 1876, Bell was granted US Patent Number 174,465 for "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound", i.e. the telephone. Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877. Also in 1877, Bell published the details of his telephone in the Scientific American. Following this publication, enthusiasts from around the world began to develop their own telephones.
Bell also collaborated with other inventors to produce such items as the phonograph, photophone (a device enabling the transmission of sound over a beam of light), metal detector and hydrofoil.
1954 - The "Sydney Morning Herald" reports a new craze of flattening pennies under the Royal Train of Queen Elizabeth II.
Princess Elizabeth, who became Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, was born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on 21 April 1926. She was proclaimed queen on 6 February 1952, following the death of her father, George VI. She ascended the throne the following year, on 2 June 1953.
The year following her coronation, Queen Elizabeth II undertook a tour of Australia. Still fiercely patriotic towards the British Monarchy, Australia received the new Queen with enthusiasm. On 7 March 1954, Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, reported a new craze which had developed amongst Australians. Many of them had taken to placing pennies on the tracks ahead of the train on which Queen Elizabeth and her entourage were travelling. The sole purpose of this activity was to have the Queen's royal carriage flatten the coins, creating a unique souvenir of her visit.
1965 - State troopers attack a group of African-American demonstrators in Alabama.
Civil rights for African-Americans, who had been denied basic equal rights in every aspect of society, began gaining prominence in the 1950s. Martin Luther King fought for civil rights, organising and leading marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, not all state governors upheld the rights.
The southern US state of Alabama had seen a number of demonstrations in January and February of 1965, as African-Americans tried to draw attention to violations of existing voting rights laws. The Governor, George Wallace, had insisted on breaking up each protest forcefully, resulting in the death of activist Jimmy Lee Jackson. On 7 March 1965, State troopers and volunteer officers in Alabama broke up a demonstration by about 500 protestors using tear gas, whips and sticks after Wallace ordered the planned march from Selma to the state capital Montgomery to be halted on the grounds of public safety. Seventeen people were injured in the violence that resulted, and March 7 came to be known as "Bloody Sunday".
Martin Luther King organised another march in the town, filing a federal lawsuit for the right to march on Montgomery. As they proceeded on March 21, they were protected by federal troops. The march lasted a week and culminated in a rally attended by thousands.
1996 - The first photographs of Pluto's surface are released.
For many years, Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet in the solar system, named after the Roman god of the underworld, Pluto. Recently, its status has been downgraded to that of a minor planet. Its largest moon is Charon, discovered in 1978, and two smaller moons, Nix and Hydra, were discovered in 2005. It remains the only planet that has not been visited by human spacecraft, and knowledge of Pluto is limited due to the fact that it is too far away for in-depth investigations with telescopes from earth.
Pluto remained undiscovered until the twentieth century due to its small size, being smaller than the Earth's moon, and its unusual orbit. It was determined to be a planet on 18 February 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. However, Pluto has since been reclassified as a "planetoid" and is now considered the largest member of the Kuiper belt. Like other members of the belt, it is composed primarily of rock and ice and is relatively small: approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth's moon and a third its volume.
On 7 March 1996, the first photographs of Pluto's surface were released. Astronomers had actually constructed a global map of Pluto in 1994 by taking 12 images at 4 different longitudes in visible light and 8 images in ultraviolet light. The photographs showed clear topographic features such as craters, a northern polar cap bisected by a dark strip, one bright spot and a cluster of dark spots.
Cheers - John
Dougwe said
11:15 AM Mar 7, 2016
203..........I'm shocked to think there was anything actually left let alone alove for the Gladiators to finish off, Rocky.
Could be a fitting punishment....nah! say no more.
rockylizard said
08:45 AM Mar 8, 2016
Gday...
1702 - William III of England, also known as William of Orange, dies after being thrown from his horse.
William III of England was born on 14 November 1650, in The Hague, Netherlands. He became the Sovereign Prince of Orange at his birth because his father died of smallpox eight days before he was born. Known by many titles including William III of England, William II of Scotland and William of Orange, he was King of England and Ireland from 13 February 1689, and King of Scotland from 11 April 1689. As a Protestant, William participated in many wars against the powerful Roman Catholic King of France, Louis XIV.
After James II of England ascended the throne in 1685, the English feared that the kings policies were directed too much towards restoring the power of the Roman Catholic church. In June 1688, a group of political figures known as the "Immortal Seven" secretly invited William to bring an army of liberation to England. William and a force of about 15,000 men landed at southwest England on 5 November 1688. James, his support base dissolved, was allowed to escape to France, and William had no wish to make him a martyr for Roman Catholicism. Whilst the Scottish parliament accepted the new rulers, Ireland, being mostly Catholic, remained loyal to the deposed king and had to be taken by force. In 1690 William led the army that defeated James and his Irish partisans at the Battle of the Boyne, and members of Parliament accepted him in order to restore their own power.
King William died on 8 March 1702, five days after a riding accident. Whilst riding in the Park at Hampton Court, his horse stumbled on a molehill and the King was thrown. As he left no heirs, the crown passed to Anne, second daughter of King James II of England.
1782 - The Gnadenhutten Massacre of Christian Indians occurs in Pittsburgh, USA.
During the American War of Independence, the Delaware, or Lenape, Indians who lived in the Ohio Country were divided into three main groups. Some decided to fight against the Americans, while others were sympathetic to the United States, signing a treaty with the Americans in 1778 through which they hoped to establish the Ohio Country as an American Indian state within the new United States. The third group had converted to Christianity, and lived in several nearby villages run by Moravian missionaries.
American Indians tended to be viewed with suspicion, as there were some violent tribes that had engaged in the killing of settlers. In September 1781, British allied Indians, mainly Wyandots and Delawares, forcibly removed the Christian Indians and the white missionaries from the Moravian villages, relocating them to a new village known as Captive Town on the Sandusky River. Two missionaries were suspected of providing military intelligence to the American army at Fort Pitt and tried for treason, but ultimately acquitted. The Christian Indians were left to starve at Captive Town, and in February 1782, over 100 of them returned to their old villages in order to harvest the crops they had been forced to leave behind.
Early in March 1782, a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounded up the Christian Indians and accused them of taking part in the ongoing raids into Pennsylvania, a charge which the Indians truthfully denied. The Pennsylvanians held a council, and voted to kill them all anyway. On 8 March 1782, 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children were murdered, scalped, their bodies heaped into the mission buildings, and the town burned to the ground. The other abandoned Moravian towns were then burned as well. Two Indian boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Although there was some talk of bringing the killers to justice, no criminal charges were ever filed.
1902 - The first test to pump water through the most difficult section of the Golden Pipeline to the Western Australian goldfields is successfully carried out.
The goldfields of Western Australia, discovered in 1893, are located in one of the worlds most isolated and inhospitable areas of the worlds driest hot continent. Waterways in the west are limited to coastal areas. When people began flocking to the goldfields in their thousands, the need for clean water to be readily available increased dramatically. Premier John Forrest called on the services of CY OConnor, an engineer he had recruited to build Fremantle Harbour, and to improve the operations of the government railways. Charles Yelverton O'Connor, born on 11 January 1843 in Ireland, had arrived in Perth, Western Australia in 1891 after having been offered the position of Engineer-in-Chief by Sir John Forrest. He had proposed and delivered a bold plan for a safe harbour at Perth, and his work in the railways was underway. His next project was to convey water to the goldfields which lay approximately 600 km east of Perth.
An intelligent visionary and meticulous planner, OConnor researched the problem, consulted with renowned engineers in London, then presented a comprehensive, carefully costed proposal. His plan included constructing a dam near Mundaring Weir on the Helena River east of Perth, then pumping the water 560 km to Coolgardie via a series of 8 pumping stations. The pipeline, a massive engineering feat in itself, would need to also cater for an elevation increase of 300 metres before reaching the goldfields. It would deliver 5 million gallons, or 22 730 cubic metres, of water per day to the goldfields.
OConnor intended to utilise a new steel, rivetless pipe with two joints along its length held together by a locking-bar, that had been developed by Australian engineer Mephan Ferguson. This type of pipe was necessary to prevent leakage of valuable water, and its use was endorsed by renowned English engineer and consulting engineer to the Western Australian government, John Carruthers. The design of the pipe allowed for a heavier, more durable steel to be used, and prior to leaving the factory, each pipe was pressure tested to 400 psi. To protect the pipes, they were coated in a mixture of asphalt and coal-tar, and impregnated with sand. The pipes were then transported by train to unloading points alongside the route of the pipeline, where gangs of workers vied with each other to quickly unload them, allowing for a speedy turnaround of the locomotives. As time progressed, the gangs became quicker and more experienced at laying the pipes and caulking them, a process which was speeded up significantly after a Perth company invented an electric caulking machine.
On 8 March 1902, the first successful preliminary pumping test of the water main over the most difficult part of the pipeline was undertaken. This was over a distance of six miles, the equivalent of 9.6 km. By this stage, OConnors greatest supporter, John Forrest, had left the state government and entered Federal Parliament, and OConnor was left defenceless against the detractors who doubted his skill. Two days after the successful test, OConnor committed suicide on the beach near Fremantle. The entire pipeline was opened in January 1903, and remains in use today, a lasting legacy for a man whose vision was ahead of his detractors at the time.
1906 - The US Army massacres 600 innocent villagers in the Philippines.
In December 1898, the US purchased the Philippines and other territories from Spain at the Treaty of Paris for 20 million US dollars, after the US defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. The US government intended to make the Philippines an American colony. The Filipinos, who had fought for their independence from Spain since 1896 and had even fought alongside the Americans in their war against Spain, felt betrayed by their former allies. Tensions escalated into war between America and the Philippines, during which it is estimated that 250,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos, both military and civilian, were killed.
One of the greatest atrocities after the war was the Moro Crater Massacre, which occurred on 8 March 1906. Filipinos had continued to rebel against American authority and groups had been suppressed throughout the islands. A tribe of 600 Moros, including women and children, had fortified themselves in the crater of an extinct volcano near Jolo, sheltering from the American troops. 540 soldiers fired upon the Moros who were armed with nothing more than their knives: at the end of the day, every single one of them had been slain, while fifteen American soldiers had been lost.
1973 - 15 people are killed in a firebomb attack on the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane, Australia.
The Whiskey Au Go-Go nightclub was located in the inner Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley. On 8 March 1973, two drums of petrol were ignited in the foyer of the nightclub, causing a fireball and the release of deadly gases. Grease was smeared on the door handles to prevent patrons from escaping. Fifteen people were killed in what was Australia's worst mass murder at that time.
James Finch and John Stuart were gunmen in the underworld that was trying to control prostitution and gambling in Brisbane at the time. The two men were arrested but staunchly protested their innocence, blaming corrupt police for framing them. Both men were convicted; ultimately, Stuart died on New Years Day 1979, while Finch was paroled fifteen years later, in 1988, and deported back to England, his country of birth. Once safely in England, Finch then declared he was indeed guilty of the murders.
Cheers - John
Dougwe said
09:38 AM Mar 8, 2016
1782........Phew! I got out just in time Rocky.
1973........Again you make me feel old Rocky. Bugga ya Remember that for sure.
rockylizard said
08:16 AM Mar 9, 2016
Gday...
1837 - The settlement of Melbourne is named.
The city of Melbourne, Australia, had a controversial beginning. John Batman was a native born Australian, interested in opening up new pastureland and promoting the growth of the colonies. He applied for land in the Westernport Bay area of southern Australia, now Victoria, but was not granted any. In May 1835, he led a syndicate calling themselves the 'Port Phillip Association' to explore Port Phillip Bay, looking for suitable sites for a settlement. On 6 June 1835, he signed a 'treaty' with the Aborigines, giving him free access to almost 250,000 hectares of land. In August that year, Governor Bourke declared Batman's treaties invalid, and issued a proclamation warning off him and his syndicate as trespassers on crown land. Despite the attempts at government intervention, the foundling settlement remained.
As the settlement grew, Governor Bourke sent a Commissioner to report on its development. In the Commissioner's report he referred to the settlement as 'Bearbrass'. Following a later inspection, the name 'Glenelg' was suggested by the Colonial Secretary. On 9 March 1837, Governor Bourke named the flourishing settlement 'Melbourne' after the British Prime Minister of the day. By the end of April, the proposed Melbourne city plan by Sydney surveyor Robert Hoddle was lodged at the government survey office in Sydney. This 1837 street layout has been dubbed the Hoddle Grid, and covers the area from Flinders Street to Queen Victoria Market, and from Spencer Street to Spring Street.
1857 - South Australia holds its first elections, but an unusually large number of informal votes are submitted.
Explorer Matthew Flinders was the first European to investigate the possibilities for settlement on South Australia's coast, doing so in 1802. The South Australian Colonisation Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1834, and the first settlers arrived in 1836. The colony of South Australia was officially proclaimed on 19 February 1836 in England, the proclamation was made on 28 December that year.
South Australia's first elections as a self-governing colony was held on 9 March 1857. There were no political parties or policy platforms; the candidates standing for election submitted letters to newspapers summarising their beliefs and records of public service. 57 candidates stood for the 36 places spread across 17 multi-member seats for the House of Assembly, while 18 members were elected to represent the Colony for the Legislative Council. It was estimated that fewer than a quarter of eligible voters actually took advantage of the opportunity to have their say.
Unfamiliar with the system, many voters accidentally submitted informal votes when they crossed out the names of the candidates they did not support. This was largely because, on the morning of the elections, the South Australian Register stated the following:
"We need not dwell upon the importance of the duty which every true colonist has to perform today; all we urge upon him is that he should well weigh the merits of the various candidates ... and then ... scratch out the bad names with a good bold hand."
1870 - Granny Smith, who gave her name to the Granny Smith apple, dies.
Granny Smith is a variety of apple with green skin and tart flesh, originating in Australia around 1865 from a chance seedling propagated by Maria Ann Smith, aka Granny Smith. Granny Smith was born Maria Ann Sherwood in Peasmarsh, Sussex, England, sometime in late 1799. The daughter of an agricultural labourer, she later married a farm labourer. They emigrated to New South Wales in 1838 after being recruited by government agents looking for people with agricultural skills. They settled in the district of Ryde, Sydney, which was an intensive fruit growing area. The Granny Smith apple came about when 'Granny' Smith discovered a seedling apple, which had developed from the remains of some French crab apples grown in Tasmania, growing by a creek on her farm. It was not commercially developed in her lifetime, but the apple continued to be cultivated by local orchardists.
Maria Ann Smith died on 9 March 1870 and was buried in St. Anne's cemetery, Ryde, where her headstone can still be seen. The year after her death, in the 1891 Castle Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show, the 'Granny Smith seedlings', as they were known, were awarded the prize for the best cooking apples.
1934 - The first person to travel in space, Yuri Gagarin, is born.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born on 9 March 1934 in Klushino near Gzhatsk, which was later renamed Gagarin in his honour. Flying light aircraft became a hobby for him until he entered military flight training at the Orenburg Pilot's School in 1955. In 1960 Gagarin was selected for the Soviet space program, where he was subjected to a punishing series of experiments designed to test his physical and psychological endurance, as well as training relating to the upcoming flight. He excelled in all areas, and his height of only 157cm made him an ideal choice as the first man to be launched into space.
Gagarin launched in Vostok 3KA-2, or Vostok 1, on 12 April 1961. Soviet authorities did not expect him to survive the descent back through Earth's atmosphere, so in-flight, he was promoted from Senior Lieutenant to Major. Gagarin did survive, and he became an instant, worldwide celebrity, touring widely to promote the Soviet achievement.
Gagarin died on 27 March 1968 when he was killed in a crash of a MiG-15 on a routine training flight near Kirzhach, together with his instructor. A 1986 inquest suggested that the turbulence from an Su-11 interceptor aeroplane using its afterburners may have caused Gagarin's plane to go out of control. Weather conditions were also poor at the time.
1945 - The US firebombs Tokyo, killing 100,000.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, they underestimated the ramifications it would have for their own country, and for the outcome of WWII. Bombings by the US of Japan were carried out from 1942 to 1945. The first firebombing over Japan was on Kobe on 3 February 1945, and the first attempt on Tokyo was on the night of February 2324 when 174 B-29s destroyed around 3 km² of the city. The US declared the raid a success and planned a follow-up raid, bigger and more deadly.
Around 5:34pm on 9 March 1945, 334 Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian. They arrived at Tokyo at 12:15am on March 10 and dropped approximately 1,500 metric tons of bombs, destroying around 41 km² of Tokyo. Between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. Only 243 American airmen were lost.
1976 - 43 are killed in northern Italy in the world's worst cable car accident.
A cable car, or aerial tramway, consists of one or two fixed track cables, a loop of cable known as a haulage rope and two passenger cabins. The fixed cables provide support for the cabins. The haulage rope, by means of a grip, is solidly connected to a wheel set that rolls on the cables. The haulage rope is usually driven by an electric motor, and, being connected to the cabins, moves them up or down the mountain. Cable cars are popularly used in the Alpine regions of Europe.
The world's worst cable car accident occurred on 9 March 1976 in Italy, in the ski resort of Cavalese near Trento, in the Dolomite mountains. The steel cable snapped, causing the carriage to plunge 213 metres down a mountainside. A 3,000 kg overhead carriage assembly then fell on top of the cabin, crushing it, resulting in the deaths of 43 people, including 15 children. There was just one survivor, a 14 year old girl who was taken to hospital in a critical condition with internal injuries.
There was no safety system in place when the suspension line snapped because the construction company considered such an accident impossible at the time of construction, ten years previously. As a result of the subsequent investigation, four lift officials were jailed for faulty operation and maintenance.
Cheers - John
jules47 said
09:04 PM Mar 9, 2016
Thanks John - always makes interesting reading!!!
rockylizard said
08:03 AM Mar 10, 2016
Gday...
1794 - The Reverend Samuel Marsden, who became known colloquially as the 'Flogging Parson', arrives in the New South Wales penal colony.
The Reverend Samuel Marsden was born in Yorkshire in 1764. After he was ordained in 1793, he sailed for the new penal colony of New South Wales, arriving on 10 March 1794. He settled in Parramatta, becoming Chaplain, landowner and magistrate. He also earned a reputation as the "Flogging Parson", because even by the standards of his day, he inflicted extremely severe, cruel punishments. His savagery to convicts was probably the result of his hatred for Roman Catholics, as many convicts were political prisoners of Irish origin.
Despite his reputation in Australia, Marsden was instrumental in starting the Christian missions to New Zealand, where he and others were well received among the Maori people. He is credited with holding the first Christian service in the Islands on Christmas Day in 1814. Marsden is thus remembered favourably in New Zealand, and it is believed he is the one who introduced sheep to the islands.
1906 - Over 1060 workers are killed in a coal dust explosion in France.
Coal mining has a long history of being a perilous occupation. One of the biggest dangers is that coal dust itself is highly combustible, a problem compounded by the fact that the dust can adhere a centimetre in thickness to surfaces of pillars, walls and equipment in the mines, increasing the combustibility of the mine even further.
The idea that coal dust itself could present a problem met with considerable resistance as industrialisation powered the increasing need for coal in the nineteenth century. There was no way to mine coal without generating coal dust, so the problem was largely ignored. However, mine owners were forced to look at safety and working conditions following one of coal mining's most disastrous explosions, which occurred on 10 March 1906 at Courrieres, Pas-de-Calais, Northern France. A coal dust explosion killed between 1060 and 1099 workers. Following the tragedy, 45,000 went on strike for nearly two months against the appalling working conditions, ending only when the army suppressed the protests.
1969 - The killer of Martin Luther King is sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He became a Baptist minister, and African American civil rights activist. In his fight for civil rights, he organised and led marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Martin Luther King's life was tragically cut short when he was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968. James Earl Ray, a man who harboured intense hatred of African-Americans, was convicted of his murder and, on 10 March 1969, was sentenced by a Memphis court to 99 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to the murder on the understanding that he would be put to death by the electric chair. Three days later, he retracted his plea of guilty, claiming he had been set up by a gun dealer in Montreal known only as Raoul. Until Ray's death on 23 April 1998, he fought for the trial his guilty plea had forestalled, even winning the support of Martin Luther King's own family.
1982 - The 'Jupiter Effect', in which Los Angeles is supposed to be ravaged by an immense earthquake following the alignment of the planets, fails to eventuate.
The 'Jupiter Effect' was a chain of cataclysmic events proposed by astrophysicist Dr John Gribbin and fellow author Stephen Plageman in 1974. Gribbin's theory suggested that when the nine planets of our solar system aligned in March 1982, it would trigger an enormous earthquake which would destroy Los Angeles. To summarise, the authors proposed that the tidal forces created by the alignment of all the planets on the same side of the sun would generate sunspots which would in themselves create solar flares. In turn, these solar flares would generate streams of solar particles which would then enter the earth's upper atmosphere, changing the weather, slowing the rate of the earth's rotation, and ultimately triggering earthquakes, especially on the American West Coast. Essentially, Earth would be caught in the centre of a huge gravity struggle between the sun and the other planets, particularly the gas giant Jupiter. John Gribbin retracted his own theory in the 17 July 1980 issue of New Scientist.
On 10 March 1982, the planets aligned, though not perfectly. All nine of the planets were on the same side of the sun, as predicted, but scattered over approximately 90 degrees, in what scientists call a "Grand Alignment". There were no cataclysmic disturbances, either on the earth or under it.
Cheers - John
rockylizard said
09:06 AM Mar 11, 2016
Gday...
1864 - Over 240 are killed as the newly-completed Dale Dyke Dam bursts in Sheffield, England.
During the mid 1800s, in response to increasing demand for water, the Sheffield Waterworks Company planned four large reservoirs. Construction began on the first of these, the Dale Dyke Dam, on 1 January 1859, and the dam was completed by February 1864. By Friday, 11 March 1864, the new dam was almost full and work had already begun on the second dam in the area. A local worker returning home noticed a crack of a finger's width but quite some length running across the embankment. The Sheffield Waterworks' chief engineer, John Gunson, declared it merely a surface crack, but ordered the water level to be lowered anyway as a safeguard until the damage could be properly investigated.
By 11:30pm, water began to pour over the widening crack in increasing torrents until the dam suddenly burst. The resultant breach in the dam wall sent an estimated 3 million m³, or 700 million imperial gallons, of water flooding down the Loxley valley, through Loxley and Hillsborough, and then down the River Don through central Sheffield, Attercliffe and as far as Rotherham. Between 240 and 270 people who lived in Sheffield and the villages in the valley below the dam were killed. The flood subsided after half an hour, leaving a trail of destruction about 15km long. 415 dwelling houses, 106 factories/shops, 64 other buildings, 20 bridges and 4478 cottage/market gardens were either partially or totally destroyed. The cost of the flood was estimated at half a million pounds, an incredible sum for the time.
1871 - The springs after which Alice Springs, central Australia, was named are discovered.
The city of Alice Springs is located 1524 km from Darwin and 293 km north of the South Australian border. It is the second largest city in the Northern Territory, with a population of over 25 000.
In 1862, explorer John McDougall Stuart's third expedition succeeded in finding a route through the Centre of Australia to the north coast, navigating and mapping the country for white settlement. The construction of the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin was completed in 1872, making it viable for pastoralists to take up leases in the Red Centre. The springs after which the town was named were discovered on 11 March 1871 by the team building the Overland Telegraph Line. They lie to the north-east of the town and were named after the wife of Charles Todd, the man instrumental in securing the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line for South Australia. Surveyors William Whitfield Mills and John Ross both claim credit for the discovery of the springs.
Alice Springs was the name given to the telegraph repeater station which operated from 1872 to 1932. The actual town, originally surveyed in 1888, was 3km south of the telegraph station. Until the early 1930s, the official name of the town was Stuart. However, this created confusion for administrators in Adelaide, so on 31 August 1933 the township of Stuart was officially gazetted Alice Springs.
1952 - Douglas Adams, author of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', is born.
Douglas Noël Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge, England. He attended Brentwood School from 1959 to 1970; one incident which inspired Adams through many later periods of writer's block was when he took an English class, taught by Frank Halford, where Halford awarded Adams the only ten out of ten of Halford's entire teaching career for a creative writing exercise. Adams went on to have many of his reports and articles published in the school newspaper and magazine. An essay on religious poetry that mixed the Beatles with William Blake earned Adams a place at St John's College, Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature.
Some of Adams's early work appeared on BBC2 (television) in 1974, in an edited version of the Footlights Revue from Cambridge that year. This captured the attention of Monty Python's Graham Chapman, eventually leading to Adams contributing to skits for Monty Python. However, he is best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a science-fiction comedy radio series first pitched to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. The series led to Adams expanding the concept as a novel, and for adaptation to television. Adams also contributed to the Dr Who television series, particularly episodes starring Tom Baker.
Adams died of a heart attack on 11 May 2001, while working out at a private gym in Santa Barbara, California, where he had moved in 1999. He was survived by his wife Jane and daughter Polly. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery in north London.
1955 - Biologist and bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming dies.
Alexander Fleming was born near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 6 August 1881. He was educated at St Mary's Hospital medical school in London until World War I, when he gained further experience in a battlefield hospital in France. After seeing the effects of infections in dying soldiers, he increased his efforts to find an effective means of fighting infection.
It was Fleming's untidiness as a worker which led to his greatest discovery. In the summer of 1828 he went away for a holiday, but left a clutter of plates growing various bacteria lying about his desk. After his return, whilst working on an influenza virus he noticed that mould had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate, and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. Further experimentation proved that even a weaker-strength mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci. Thus, Fleming initiated the development and practice of antibiotic therapy for infectious diseases.
Practical difficulties with creating and isolating the discovery which he named Penicillin prevented Fleming from continuing his research. However, after 1939 two other scientists, Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, continued to work to develop a method of purifying penicillin to an effective form. The 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was shared between the three men. Fleming died of a heart attack on 11 March 1955: his legacy lies in the millions of lives that continue to be saved through his discovery of penicillin.
2004 - 170 die as bomb explosions devastate trains in Madrid.
On 11 March 2004, Madrid, Spain, became a target of terrorist attacks. A series of ten coordinated terrorist bombings which hit the city's commuter train system between 7:39am and 7:42am left 191 people dead and nearly 1,800 wounded. The attacks were the deadliest assault by a terrorist organisation against civilians in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 and the worst terrorist attack in modern Spanish history.
The attacks were initially believed to be the work of the Basque armed terrorist group ETA, or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, meaning "Basque Fatherland and Liberty". ETA, which usually claimed responsibility for its attacks, denied having any part in the train bombings. Later evidence strongly pointed to the involvement of extremist Islamist groups, with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group named as a focus of investigations. This groups appeared to have links to Al-Qaeda. In October 2003, Osama bin Laden had issued a public threat to carry out suicide bombings against any countries joining the US-led invasion of Iraq. At the time, Spain had approximately 1,300 soldiers stationed in Iraq. In addition, bin Laden had spoken earlier of wishing to return the southern Spanish region of Andalucia to Muslim control, reversing the Reconquista of 1492. Responsibility for the attacks, however, has never been conclusively proven to belong to any one group.
Cheers - John
Dougwe said
09:26 AM Mar 11, 2016
Still reading all your articles Rocky but nithing to say the last couple
I must be crook I reckon
rockylizard said
10:03 AM Mar 12, 2016
Gday...
1868 - An attempt is made to assassinate Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, on his Australian tour.
Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, born on 6 August 1844, was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria. He entered the Royal Navy in 1856 and was appointed to the HMS Euryalus. He was promoted to lieutenant in February 1863 and captain in February 1866, being then appointed to the command of the frigate HMS Galatea. He was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Kent and Earl of Ulster in the peerage of the United Kingdom in May 1866.
While in command of the Galatea, the Duke of Edinburgh started from Plymouth in January 1867 for his voyage round the world. He travelled via Gibraltar and the Cape before landing at Glenelg, South Australia, on 31 October 1867. During his stay of nearly five months he visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tasmania. Being the first English prince to visit Australia, the Duke was received with great enthusiasm.
On 12 March 1868, whilst visiting Sydney and picnicking in the beachfront suburb of Clontarf, he was wounded in the back by a revolver fired by Henry James O'Farrell. The Prince was shot in the back just to the right of his spine, and was tended for the next two weeks, making a full recovery. He was able to resume command of his ship and return home in early April 1868. Henry James O'Farrell was arrested at the scene, quickly tried, convicted and hanged on 21 April 1868.
1913 - Canberra is named the capital city of Australia, before it is even built.
Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, had been rivals since before the goldrush days. It was therefore decided that the nation's capital should be situated between the two cities. A location was chosen which was 248km from Sydney and 483km from Melbourne. It was then necessary to select someone who could design a truly unique capital city. The competition to design Australia's new capital city, Canberra, was won in 1911 by Walter Burley Griffin.
The first survey peg marking the beginning of the development of the city of Canberra was driven in on 20 February 1913. However, the city did not yet have a name. A variety of names had been suggested, some tongue-in-cheek, such as Kangaremu, Australific and Meladneyperbane, which was a combination of the other state capital's names. Other choices included Olympus, Paradise, Captain Cook, Shakespeare, Eucalypta and Myola. The final choice remained a secret until the laying of the foundation stones on 12 March 1913. Lady Denman, wife of the Governor-General, then announced the name of the city as Canberra, believed to be a derivation of an Aboriginal word for 'meeting place'. Lady Denman's pronunciation was pivotal, as it determined for all time how Australians would say the name.
1921 - The first woman is elected to an Australian parliament.
South Australia was the first colony in Australia to give women the right to vote. This right occurred with the passing of a Bill on 18 December 1894, although a letter from the Attorney-General advising Governor Kintore that Royal Assent would be required to enact the Bill is dated 21 December 1894. The Bill was enacted when Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent on 2 February 1895. Women in South Australia voted for the first time in the election of 1896. Initially, the bill included a clause preventing women from becoming members of Parliament. Ironically, the clause was removed thanks to the efforts of Ebenezer Ward, an outspoken opponent of women's suffrage. Ward hoped the inclusion of women in Parliament would be seen as so ridiculous that the whole Bill would be voted out. The change was accepted, however, allowing the women of South Australia to gain complete parliamentary equality with men. Within thirty years, the first woman was elected to Federal Parliament in Australia.
Edith Cowan was born Edith Brown on 2 August 1861 on Glengarry Station near Geraldton, Western Australia. She married magistrate James Cowan when she was 18, and his work opened her eyes to the suffering of wives and children when the man of the family was sentenced to gaol. After becoming a magistrate of the Perth Childrens Court, a position she held for 18 years, Mrs Cowan campaigned heavily for the rights of children.
Although South Australian women had gained equal parliamentary rights with men towards the close of the 19th century, women in Western Australia had to wait until 1920. In 1921, Edith Cowan stood as the candidate for the Nationalist Party in West Perth, for the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia. On 12 March 1921, Mrs Cowan narrowly defeated the sitting member, state Attorney-General TP Draper, by just 46 votes. Thus, she became the first woman to be elected to any Australian Parliament. In her debut speech in Parliament, she stated:
"I stand here today in the unique position of being the first woman in an Australian Parliament. I know many people think perhaps that it was not the wisest thing to do to send a woman into Parliament ... The views of both sides are more than ever needed in Parliament today. If men and women can work for the State side by side and represent all the different sections of the community, and if the male members of the house would be satisfied to allow women to help them and would accept their suggestions when they are offered, I cannot doubt that we should do very much better work in the community than was ever done before."
Edith Cowan served in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly until 22 March 1924.
1928 - The St Francis Dam in California, USA, fails, killing between 400 and 500 people.
The building of the St Francis Dam in the San Francisquita Canyon of California was an ambitious project undertaken between 1924 and 1926, under the supervision of William Mulholland, an engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The dam was filled for the first time on 7 March 1928, but damkeeper Tony Harnischfeger was concerned about leaks. Mulholland dismissed them as minor. Five days later, Harnischfeger found a new leak which Mulholland's son felt could be serious; but again, Mulholland himself felt it to be typical of concrete dams, and declared the leaks safe.
At a few minutes before midnight on 12 March 1928, the dam collapsed, some 12 hours after Mulholland had inspected it. 45,000,000,000 L of water surged down San Francisquito Canyon, completely demolishing the heavy concrete walls of Power Station Number Two, a hydroelectric power plant, devastating anything in the valley, and flooding numerous smaller towns. The official death toll made in August 1928 stood at 385. However more bodies were discovered every few years until the 1950s, and the remains of another victim were found deep underground near Newhall in 1992. It is generally accepted that the death toll was between 400 and 500.
Investigations over the years have indicated a number of factors which contributed to the collapse of the St Francis dam. During its construction, Mulholland ordered the dam height to be increased by a total of 6m, without factoring in the need to widen the dam's base. Analysis of the concrete used in the dam wall has proven that insufficient water was used to mix the concrete, making the concrete brittle and more likely to fail. Further, it is known by modern geologists that the type of rock found in the San Francisquito Canyon is unsuitable for supporting a dam and a reservoir, but leading geologists of the time found no problems with it. Mulholland accepted a large part of the blame.
1994 - One of the most famous photographs of the Loch Ness Monster is confirmed as a hoax.
Loch Ness, or Loch Nis in Gaelic, is a large, deep freshwater lake in the Scottish Highlands, which extends for about 37 km southwest of Inverness. It is the second largest loch (lake) in Scotland, with a surface area of 56.4 km2, but is the largest in volume. It is 226 m deep at its deepest point. For centuries, witnesses have reported sighting a large monster with a long neck in Loch Ness, Scotland. Famous photographs have been proven to be hoaxes, but still the myth of the monster has persisted.
One such photograph was supposedly taken by surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson on 19 April 1934. The photograph appears to show the long neck and head of an unidentified water creature rising from the lake's surface. The picture, which became famously known as 'the surgeon's photo', was touted as absolute evidence of the existence of the Loch Ness monster. Sixty years later, on 12 March 1994, a big game hunter by the name of Marmaduke Wetherell admitted on his deathbed that he had faked the photograph. Dr Wilson's name had only been included to add credibility to the photograph, which was in fact nothing more than a fake serpent neck attached to the back of a toy submarine.
Cheers - John
rockylizard said
07:26 AM Mar 13, 2016
Gday...
1781 - Seventh planet from the sun, Uranus, is discovered.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, with its mean distance from the sun being 2869.6 million km. A gas giant, it is third largest by diameter and fourth largest by mass. Uranus is made up mostly of rocks and various ices, with only about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. The planet was discovered by William Herschel on 13 March 1781, who reported it on 26 April 1781. Prior to Herschel's discovery, the planet was mistakenly identified as a star.
Herschel originally named it Georgium Sidus in honour of King George III of Great Britain but when it was noted that sidus means star and not planet, he renamed it the Georgian Planet, a name which was not accepted outside of Britain. Discussions amongs astronomers came up with a variety of names; the name Uranus was proposed by Johann Elert Bode, editor of the periodical, the 'Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch'. Because the name conformed to the classical mythology-derived names of other known planets, it was readily adopted by the scientific community.
William Herschel is also credited with discovering two of Uranus's 27 known moons, Titania and Oberon, on 11 January 1787.
1847 - Kennedy departs Parramatta to trace the course of the Barcoo River, hoping it will lead to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.
Edmund Kennedy was born on 5 September 1818, on the Island of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. He arrived in Australia in 1840, and took up the position of Assistant-Surveyor of New South Wales. Kennedy accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell's 1845-46 expedition to the interior of Queensland, where he gained much experience in exploration.
In 1847, Mitchell appointed Kennedy to lead a second expedition to trace the course of the Barcoo River in what is now south-western Queensland, in the hope that it would lead to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition left Parramatta on 13 March 1847, and followed the river north to Cooper Creek. This then flowed into the desert, proving it was not linked to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Never one to give up, Kennedy continued southwest, and discovered the Thomson River, on 20 August 1847. When he returned to his depot four weeks later, he was dismayed to find that Aborigines had dug up the expedition's carefully buried provisions, and mixed 181kg of flour with clay. This prevented Kennedy from continuing his northward trek, and he was forced to return prematurely to Sydney.
1875 - Giles departs Fowlers Bay on his third expedition to cross the western deserts.
Ernest Giles emigrated to Australia in 1850 and was employed at various cattle and sheep stations, allowing him to develop good bush skills. He made several expeditions in the Australian desert. The first, lasting four months, commenced in August 1872 and resulted in discoveries such as Palm Valley, Gosse's Bluff, Lake Amadeus, and the first sighting of Mount Olga.
Giles's next expedition departed in August 1873. On this expedition, Giles was able to approach closer to the Olgas, but his attempts to continue further west were thwarted by interminable sand, dust, biting ants, Aboriginal attack and lack of water. The loss of one of Giles's companions, Gibson, in April 1874 ended this second expedition, and the party arrived back at Charlotte Waters in July.
Giles was determined to explore the unknown country south of where Warburton and Forrest had explored, reaching Perth in the attempt. On 13 March 1875, Giles departed from Fowlers Bay, heading north first before crossing the western deserts. Although a short expedition, it was a difficult one, initially marked by severe water shortages until the discovery of permanent water holes. Less than a month after his return from this journey, Giles set out again to make an epic crossing through the Great Victoria Desert and back again.
1989 - The concept of the World Wide Web is proposed for the third time, and accepted.
The Internet and World Wide Web have revolutionised modern life. Now, by pressing a few buttons on the computer, all your physical needs and wants can be met. But where and when did it all begin?
In the 1980s, English physicist Tim Berners-Lee was a software consultant at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN). He graduated from the Queen's College at Oxford University, England in 1976. He built his first computer with a soldering iron and an old television.
On 13 March 1989, Berners-Lee gave his supervisor, Mike Sendall, a document entitled "Information Management: a Proposal". Tim Berners-Lee and Anders Berglund, both researchers at CERN, saw the need for a system of electronic document exchange. This proposal was an attempt to help make scientific papers readable on a large number of incompatible computer systems. Berners-Lee's creation was fuelled by a highly personal vision of the Web as a powerful force for social change and individual creativity. An open, non-proprietary, and free format for all people to use. Unfortunately, CERN remained unconvinced, and another 2 proposals were shelved as an interesting idea only. It wasn't until 25 December, 1990 that the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet was achieved. And the realisation of dream which continued to drive Tim for the next 3 years as he tried to convince people to use his invention. Robert Cailliau was a young student staff student at CERN who assisted Tim in his endeavours, and it should be noted that he was instrumental in seeing this now popular medium reach the populace.
1996 - 16 children and a teacher are killed by a gunman at Dunblane, Scotland.
Wednesday, 13 March 1996, will be a day long remembered by the people of the small town of Dunblane, Scotland. On that day, unemployed former shopkeeper Thomas Hamilton walked in to the gym hall of the primary school, armed with two pistols, two revolvers and 743 cartridges. He then opened fire, killing sixteen children, aged 4-6, and their teacher. He then turned the gun on himself, committing suicide.
Whilst Hamilton's motives will never be known, a public inquiry into the Dunblane massacre found that Hamilton had been investigated by police following complaints about his behaviour around young boys. Hamilton claimed in letters that rumours about him led to the collapse of his shop business in 1993, and in the last months of his life he complained again that his attempts to set up a boy's club were subject to persecution by the police and the scout movement.
Hamilton possessed licences for six of his guns; this led to criticism of the police for not questioning his purpose in owning so many. Following the Dunblane massacre, gun laws were tightened and in 1997, it became illegal to buy or possess a handgun.
Cheers - John
rockylizard said
07:43 AM Mar 14, 2016
Gday...
1592 - Today is 'Pi Day', a celebration of the mathematical formula of Pi.
Pi, in mathematics, is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is represented by the symbol . The ratio is the same for all circles and is approximately 3.14159. March 14, written 3-14 in the USA date format, is an unofficial celebration for Pi Day derived from the common three-digit approximation for the number : 3.14. It is usually celebrated at 1:59 pm, in recognition of the six-digit approximation of 3.14159. Pi Day may be celebrated in a variety of ways. Groups of people, typically pi clubs, give thought to the role that the number has played in their lives. Pi celebrants may hand out Pi Day greeting cards, devise alternative values for , eat pi (pie), play pi (piñata), drink pi (Piña Colada) or watch (Pi (film)). Enthusiasts also note that the day happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday.
The ultimate pi day occurred on 14 March 1592 at 6:53am and 59 seconds. When written in American-style date format, this is 3/14/1592 6:53.59, which corresponds to the first twelve digits of pi: 3.14159265359 (rounded off, as the absolutely exact value of pi cannot be computed). However, considering this was well before any kind of standardised world time had been established, and the general public had no concept of , the occurrence likely went unnoticed.
1790 - Captain William Bligh arrives back in London a year after the Mutiny on the Bounty, in which he was cast off his own boat.
William Bligh was born in Plymouth, south-west England, on 9 September 1754. He was only 8 when he first went to sea. At age 22, he was chosen to join Captain Cook's crew on the 'Resolution', and became commander of the 'HMAV Bounty' eleven years later.
The famous mutiny on the Bounty occurred after Bligh left Tahiti on his way to the Caribbean. For reasons undetermined by historical records, Master's Mate Fletcher Christian led the mutiny, with the support of a small number of the ship's crew. On 28 April 1789, Bligh and his own supporters were set adrift on a 7m launch, and given a sextant and enough provisions to enable them to reach the closest ports, but no means of navigation. Bligh chose not to head for the closer Spanish ports, which would have slowed down the process of bringing the mutineers to justice, but used his recollection of Cook's maps to head for Timor on a 41-day journey of nearly six thousand kilometres. From here, he stood a better chance of communicating quickly to British vessels which could pursue the mutineers.
After recovering in Timor and being tended to by the inhabitants of the Dutch colony, Captain Bligh finally returned to England, arriving there on 14 March 1790. His men had suffered starvation, scurvy and dehydration. Whilst some of the died from the ravages of the journey, many of them survived to serve in the Royal Navy once more. Bligh himself was honourably acquitted in a London court, and later assigned as Governor to the fledgling colony of New South Wales.
1879 - Physicist Albert Einstein is born.
Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 at Ulm in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. At six he began learning to play the violin and became a gifted amateur violinist, although it is said that once, in a violent temper, he threw a chair at his teacher. Einstein was considered a slow learner, possibly due to dyslexia, simple shyness, or the significantly rare and unusual structure of his brain, which upon his request was removed and examined after his death. There is a persistent rumour that he failed mathematics later in his education, but this is untrue; a change in the way grades were assigned caused confusion years later.
Einstein was passionately interested in physics and mathematics and read eagerly in both subjects. He is perhaps best known for his development of the special and general theories of relativity. This theory considered all observers to be equivalent, not only those moving at a uniform speed. In general relativity, gravity is no longer a force, as it was in Newton's law of gravity, but is a consequence of the curvature of space-time. Einstein's equation E = mc2 proposed that the energy in matter is equal to its mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. This equation explained how stars, like our own sun, can emit large amounts of light while losing very little mass The equation also anticipated the splitting of the atom and led to the development of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb. Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.
In the early years of the 20th century Einstein advanced theories that proposed entirely new ways of thinking about space, time, and gravitation and revolutionised scientific and philosophic inquiry. He died on 18 April 1955.
1942 - Japanese bombers make the first of nine attacks against Horn Island in Torres Strait.
During World War II, the first real attack of the Japanese on an Australian base occurred with the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942. That attack scattered the naval base at Darwin and demoralised Australians. Darwin continued to be bombed dozens more times over the following months, while other localities, both on the Australian mainland and offshore, also came under fire.
Horn Island is a small island which lies off the tip of Queensland's Cape York Peninsula, in Torres Strait. Just 53 km2 in area, it is known as Nurupai by its indigenous inhabitants. The island was settled by Europeans during the nineteenth century, mined for gold during the 1890s, and established as a pearling centre in the first half of the twentieth century. In the opening years of World War II, a large Allied air base was built, named the Horn Island Aerodrome, and used as a staging base for Allied aircraft between Australia and New Guinea, while any non-military and non-indigenous people were evacuated to the mainland.
The first of nine Japanese bombing attacks occurred on Horn Island on 14 March 1942. Mid-morning, eight G4M1 Betty bombers departed the Japanese base at Rabaul and were joined by twelve A6M2 Zeros for escort from Lae. Reaching Horn Island at 11:25am, they dropped 78 x 60kg bombs, 32 of which struck the island. Fortunately, no-one on the ground was killed. The Japanese bombers were intercepted by nine Kittyhawks of the 7th Pursuit Squadron which shot down two Zeros and claimed one bomber.
The defence of Torres Strait from Horn Island remains a little-known facet of World War II, but it was crucial, as Horn Island was the nearest operational airbase to the Japanese forces in New Guinea. Interestingly, early in 1997, divers located the wreck of one of the Zeroes near Thursday Island.
1964 - The killer of President John F Kennedy's assassin is sentenced to the electric chair.
John F Kennedy, often known simply as JFK, was the 35th President of the United States. He served from 1961 until his presidential term was cut tragically short when he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, 22 November 1963 while on a political trip through Texas. Three shots were fired at his open-topped car, hitting him in the head and throat. He was taken to Parkland Hospital, but died thirty-five minutes after being shot. Kennedy was the fourth US President to be assassinated, and the eighth to die while in office.
Within an hour of the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and later charged with the assassination of President Kennedy. Two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald as he was being transferred from police headquarters in Dallas to the county jail, at the centre of a large crowd of police officers, reporters and camera crews.
On 14 March 1964, Jack Ruby was convicted of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, and sentenced to death in the electric chair. However, Ruby's lawyers appealed on the grounds that th
Dougwe said
09:37 AM Mar 14, 2016
1592........Would you like sauce with that PI Rocky?
rockylizard said
10:07 AM Mar 14, 2016
Gday...
As long as you could guarantee no fly-blown maggots
cheers - John
Dougwe said
04:44 PM Mar 14, 2016
Only in the PI Rocky, the sauce will cover them up mate.
Tony Bev said
05:31 PM Mar 14, 2016
Hello rockylizard Your historic post are very good reading, so thanks for that
Back in the day (JFK1963), in the first hours of confusion, as a normal teenager with better things to do, I was glued to the TV
-- Edited by Tony Bev on Monday 14th of March 2016 05:38:23 PM
rockylizard said
09:44 AM Mar 15, 2016
Gday...
44 - Roman emperor Julius Caesar is assassinated, receiving between 23 and 35 stab wounds.
Gaius Julius Caesar was born on 13 July 100 BC in Rome. His conquest of Gaul extended the Roman territory all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, with the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC. He is regarded as one of the greatest military strategists of all time, as well as a brilliant politician. As leader of the Roman world, Caesar implemented extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He overthrew the already faltering government of the weak Republic, and was proclaimed Dictator for life. Caesar's friend Marcus Brutus conspired with around 60 other senators to assassinate Caesar in hopes of saving the Republic, and to prevent Caesar from being declared 'King'.
The assassination took place on 15 March 44 BC, known as the Ides of March, an auspicious day in the Roman calendar. It is said that a soothsayer warned Caesar ahead of time of the date. The phrases "Beware the Ides of March" and "Et tu, Brut?" (denoting the ultimate in betrayal from a friend) from Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', are two of the most remembered lines of any of Shakespeare's plays.
Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, born 20 July 1797, was a Polish explorer and skilled geologist who emigrated to London following the national uprising against tsarist Russia in 1830. In 1839 he arrived in Australia, where he made influential friends, among them wealthy grazier James MacArthur. MacArthur was keen to explore promising-looking land in Australia's southeastern corner with the view to acquiring more grazing land and establishing a harbour from which to export pastoral products. Interested in the geology of the Great Dividing Range, Strzelecki agreed to accompany MacArthur, and the two departed from Ellerslie Station near Adelong, New South Wales, in February 1840.
A month later, the two men climbed Mt Townsend, believing it to be the highest peak in the Australian Alps. Using his numerous geological instruments, Strzelecki determined that another peak was higher. Whilst not interesting in acquiring land, Strzelecki was interested in the fame that accompanied important discoveries, and he was determined to climb the peak. He did so, on 15 March 1840, and named the mountain after a Polish patriot, Tadeusz Kosciuszko. At the time, Strzelecki determined the height of the mountain to be 6,510 feet (1984m) above sea level, but it is probable that, whilst making the steep and perilous descent during which he fell many times, Strzelecki damaged his instruments. The actual height of Kosciuszko is 7,316 feet, or 2228m.
1877 - The first international cricket Test Match on Australian ground begins at the Melbourne Cricket ground.
The sport of cricket is regarded as synonymous with Australia. Although Australia has no official sport, cricket is regarded as the countrys unofficial sport. The first reported cricket game took place in Sydney at what is now known as Hyde Park on 8 January 1804. Inter-colonial games began when a team Victoria travelled to Launceston, Tasmania for a game in February 1851. The first visit by an English cricket team to Australia occurred during Australia's summer of 1861-62. Australia reciprocated with a team to England, made up of indigenous players, in 1868. The team played 47 matches, of which they won 14, drew 19 and lost 14.
As cricket increased in popularity, Melbourne became the first city to establish a large cricket ground. Still the largest cricket ground in Australia and the Southern hemisphere, the MCG was developed after 1853, when the site was selected. The first cricket Test Match on Australian home ground between Australia and England began at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 15 March 1877. The match continued over four days, with Australia winning by 45 runs.
1917 - Russian Czar Nicholas II is forced to abdicate amidst civil war.
Czar Nicholas II, born Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov on 18 May 1868, was the last crowned Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. Nicholas was ill-prepared to receive the crown when his father died prematurely in 1894, and his inability to rule effectively was compounded by a number of difficult events during his reign. The failure of the Russo-Japanese War led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which Nicholas diffused only after signing a manifesto promising representative government and basic civil liberties in Russia. However, he recanted on a number of his promises, allowing the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups to gain wide support. World War I broke out on 1 August 1914, and although unprepared, Russia immediately attacked the German province of East Prussia. The Germans mobilised their armies efficiently and completely defeated the two invading Russian armies.
The cumulative effect of these events was that Russia suffered severe food shortages, soldiers became war-weary, and morale was at an all-time low. On 15 March 1917, Nicholas was forced to abdicate amidst civil war. A year later, on 17 July 1918, he and his wife, together with their five children, the family doctor and three attendants, were taken to the cellar of a house in Yekatarinburg, where they were executed by a firing squad.
1927 - An explanation is given in the southern newspaper, the 'Register', for the origin of the nickname "crow-eater" as applied to South Australians.
South Australians have long been referred to as "crow-eaters", and there have been numerous theories suggested through the years regarding the origin of the nickname. Several explanations for the term have been made through the years, the first being published in the newspaper, the 'Register', on 6 February 1925. On this day, the paper reported the following:
"[It] was first applied to some of the original settlers at Mount Barker who - whether from necessity or a desire to sample strange native fauna - killed, cooked and ate some crows disguised under the term "Mount Barker pheasants"... Later the term... was applied generally to all."
However, there is a strong possibility that the term originated with the goldrushes. On 15 March 1927, another report suggested the term originated as early as the 1850s. A reader recounted how, when his father and grandfather arrived at the gold diggings in Bendigo, upon being discovered as coming from South Australia they were accused of being "crow eaters". This was because their arrival had been preceded by another group of South Australians who had run out of food during their journey across from their home state and had been forced to shoot crows to eat. When they recounted their experience, they were dubbed "crow-eaters", a term which was henceforth applied to all new arrivals from South Australia.
3019 - The Battle of Pelennor Fields in JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' will take place.
JRR Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Tolkien is best known for his novels 'The Hobbit' (1937) and the classic trilogy 'The Lord of the Rings' (published 1954-56), encompassing 'The Fellowship of the Ring', 'The Two Towers' and 'The Return of the King'.
According to the third novel in the 'Lord of the Rings' series, the Battle of Pelennor Fields will take place on 15 March, TA 3019. TA refers to "Third Age", a time period which will begin after the first downfall of the Dark Lord Sauron (the main antagonist in the series), and which will be marked by the waning of the Elves. The Battle of Pelennor Fields will be between the forces of Gondor and its allies, and those of Sauron, to determine who will win the city of Minas Tirith. The site of the battle, Pelennor Fields, is located between Minas Tirith and the River Anduin.
Cheers John
PS that covered a few centuries
Tony Bev said
11:06 AM Mar 15, 2016
Hello rockylizard
Very interesting read, thanks for that
Re 1927
Now that I know how the Croweaters were named, I do not feel so bad being called a Sandgroper
Dougwe said
01:36 PM Mar 15, 2016
44 - 3019..........Yep, just a few centuries Rocky.
rockylizard said
07:25 AM Mar 16, 2016
Gday...
1774 - Sea explorer and the first to circumnavigate Australia, Matthew Flinders, is born.
Matthew Flinders was born on 16 March 1774 in Lincolnshire, England. In 1789, he entered the Royal Navy. He became a sea explorer, and arrived in Australia in the 1790s. Together with George Bass, Flinders completed much sea exploration around Australia, adding to the knowledge of the coastline, and producing accurate maps. Flinders, together with Bass, was the first to prove that Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, was an island and not connected to the mainland. Flinders was also the first to circumnavigate the continent, and between December 1801 and June 1803, he charted most of the coastline of Australia. Australia was previously known as New Holland, and Flinders first proposed the name "Terra Australis", which became "Australia", the name adopted in 1824.
Flinders was captured by the French on the island of Mauritius in 1803. He was kept prisoner until 1810 on the grounds that he was a spy. He was finally released to return to England, but his health began to fail and he died young, on 19 July 1814. Before his death he completed a book on his travels called 'A Voyage to Terra Australis', and died on the day that his book was published.
1949 - The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is established.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, or ASIO, is the national security service of Australia. Its main role is to gather information and produce intelligence in order to safeguard national security, which the organisation defines as "the protection of Australia's territorial and border integrity from serious threats, and the protection of Australia and its people from espionage, sabotage, politically motivated violence, the promotion of communal violence, attacks on Australia's defence system, and acts of foreign interference."
ASIO was originally established in response to perceived threats to Australia's national security following World War II. During the post-war period, it was revealed that sensitive British and Australian government data was being leaked through Soviet diplomatic channels. Investigations tracked the leak to a spy ring which was operating from the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. As a result, then-Prime minister Ben Chifley issued a Directive for the "Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service" on 16 March 1949. This later became the 'Australian Security Intelligence Organization', the name of which was amended in 1999 to 'Australian Security Intelligence Organisation' in line with Australian standard spelling.
The first Director-General of Security was South Australian Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Reed, and it was he who gave the organisation its name. ASIO was modelled on MI5, the Security Service of the UK, and an MI5 liaison team was attached to ASIO during the early 1950s to guide and advise the development of ASIO's duties and operations. By 2008, ASIO had established liaison relationships with 311 authorities in 120 countries. It remains integral to Australia's national security, fulfilling the role for which it was established.
1968 - American soldiers massacre villagers in My Lai, Vietnam.
During the Vietnam War, the Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam was suspected of being a haven for guerrillas of the People's Liberation Armed Forces and other cadres of the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (NLF), also called the "Viet Cong". The military was determined to wipe out all NLF operatives - real or imagined.
Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, American Division arrived in Vietnam in December 1967. US military intelligence believed that the 48th battalion of the NLF had taken refuge in a nearby village, My Lai. Charlie Company was advised by US military command that any genuine civilians at My Lai would have left their homes to go to market early. They were told that they could assume that all who remained behind were either VC or active VC sympathisers. They were instructed to destroy the village.
A memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names of villagers who were executed on the morning of 16 March 1968, including old men, women, children, and babies. Some were tortured or raped. Dozens were herded into a ditch and executed with automatic weapons.
Not all troops were in agreement with the action: a US Army helicopter crew saved a group of villagers by landing between the American troops and the remaining Vietnamese hiding in a bunker. The 24-year-old pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., confronted the leaders of the troops and threatened to open fire on them if they continued their attack on civilians.
1973 - The current London Bridge, the most recent of many, is opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
There have been a number of different London Bridges over the past 2000 years. In 46AD, the Romans built the first bridge across the Thames River; it was a simple wooden construction which was burnt down in 1014. The replacement bridge was destroyed by a storm in 1091, and the next bridge after that was destroyed again by fire in 1136.
Forty years later, a new stone bridge was constructed by Peter of Colechurch between 1176 and 1209. This bridge contained an intricate complex of houses, shops and a chapel, had 19 small arches and a drawbridge with a gatehouse at each end. It was so heavily populated that it was made a ward of the City with its own alderman. Due to the heavy population of the bridge, it suffered damage from many fires over the years, deaths from fire and deaths from drowning as the many arches produced vigorous rapids underneath. The houses were not removed from the bridge until the mid 1700s.
By the early 1800s, traffic congestion and the dangers posed by the bridge prompted the necessity for a new bridge. Engineer John Rennie started construction in 1825 and finished the bridge in 1831. The design was superior, containing only five high arches, and constructed from strong Dartmoor granite. It was opened by King William the fourth in 1831. However, a necessary widening process some 70 years later weakened the bridge's foundations to the point where it began sinking an inch every eight years. In 1968, it was auctioned and sold for $2,460,000 to Robert McCulloch who moved it to Havasu City, Arizona, where it was rebuilt brick by brick, and finally opened and dedicated in October 1971.
The current London Bridge was constructed by contractors John Mowlem from 1967 to 1972 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973. It was built in conjunction with the careful dismantling of the previous bridge, so that a river crossing was maintained in use at the site at all times.
1978 - Former Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, is kidnapped at gunpoint.
Aldo Moro, born 23 September 1916, was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers. He served as Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968, and again from 1974 to 1976. One of the most important leaders of Democrazia Cristiana, or DC (in English the Christian Democrats), Moro was considered an intellectual and an exceptional mediator, especially in the internal life of his party.
On 16 March 1978, Moro was kidnapped by militant members of the Red Brigades, a left-wing terrorist group formed in 1970 with the sole aim of overthrowing capitalist Italy by violent means. Moro's five police bodyguards were killed when he was kidnapped at gunpoint from a car near a cafe in full view of rush-hour witnesses, whilst being driven to a session of the house of representatives. The Red Brigades proposed to exchange Moro's life for the freedom of 13 Red imprisoned Red Brigades terrorists. However, the government immediately took a hardline position on terrorist requests, that the "State must not bend". Moro was held at a secret location in Rome and permitted to send letters to his family and fellow politicians, begging the government to negotiate with his captors. There has been some conjecture since then that the letters contained cryptic messages for his family and colleagues.
Moro was executed at gunpoint around 9 May 1978, and his body found in the boot of a car in Via Caetani in central Rome. Most of their leading members of the Red Brigades were captured and imprisoned by the mid-1980s.
1988 - The northern Iraq Kurdish city of Halabja is bombarded with chemical weapons, killing thousands of civilians.
The war between Iran and Iraq, also known as the First Persian Gulf War, began when Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980. The two countries had a long history of border disputes, going right back to when the countries were the kingdoms of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and Persia (Iran). Catching Iranian forces by surprise, Iraq held the advantage early in the war. However, Iran mounted a successful counter-offensive in 1982, regaining lost ground.
The Halabja poison gas attack was the largest-scale chemical weapons attack against a civilian population in modern times. It began early in the evening of 16 March 1988, when a group of eight aircraft maintained a chemical bombardment all night on Halabja, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq. The attack involved multiple chemical agents, including mustard gas, and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX. The final death toll was between 3,200 people and 5,000, whilst up to 10,000 more were injured. Initially the bombardment was believed to have originated from Iran. However, evidence now suggests that the attack was an Iraqi assault against Iranian forces, pro-Iranian Kurdish forces and Halabja's citizens during a protracted battle.
The United Nations Security Council repeatedly called upon both countries to end the conflict, but it was not until August of 1988 that a ceasefire was agreed to. Ultimately, the war changed the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, and led to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Cheers - John
Dougwe said
03:58 PM Mar 16, 2016
The ribbon on the old Remington must need replacing now Rocky. Careful of RSI too mate.
rockylizard said
09:08 AM Mar 17, 2016
Gday...
461 - Today is St Patrick's Day, celebrating the patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick's Day, celebrated on March 17, is the Irish feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St Patrick was born around the year 386, in a village along the west coast of Britain. As a teenager, Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave to a Druidic chieftain named Milchu. His enslavement significantly strengthened his faith. He escaped at the age of twenty-two, and spent twelve years in a monastery in Auxerre, where he adopted the name Patrick (Patricius, in Old Irish spelled Pádraig). One night he heard voices begging him to return to Ireland, and thus he became one of the first Christian missionaries in Ireland.
Missionaries such as Secundus and Palladius had been active in Ireland, but Patrick made a greater impact, travelling throughout the country preaching, teaching, building churches, opening schools and monasteries, converting chiefs and bards, and everywhere supporting his preaching with miracles.
It is believed that St Patrick died on 17 March 461. St Patrick's Day has grown in importance through the centuries, to the point where countries around the world, as well as Ireland itself, celebrate with parades and festivities.
1830 - Sturt's party reaches the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers on their arduous journey upstream to Sydney.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling. Pleased with Sturt's discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. Sturt followed the Murrumbidgee in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume).
Sturt continued to trace the course of the Murray southwards, arriving at Lake Alexandrina, from which he could see the open sea of the southern coast, in February 1830. However, the expedition then had to face an agonising journey rowing back up the Murray against the current. The men rowed in shifts from dawn until dusk each day, low on rations, through extreme heat, and against the floodwaters heading downstream. On 17 March 1830, they reached the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. By the time they reached their depot at Maude on the Murrumbidgee, they had rowed and sailed 3,000 km on Australia's inland rivers, with no loss of life.
1910 - The first flight of a powered aircraft in Australia is made by Frederick Custance, near Adelaide.
Frederick C 'Fred' Custance, a motor mechanic who migrated from England in 1906, was born in 1889. It is believed that Fred Custance was the first person to make a controlled flight of a powered aircraft in Australia. Custance flew a Bleriot monoplane for 5 minutes and 25 seconds near Bolivar, not far from Adelaide, capital city of South Australia. Custance allegedly took off at 5:00am on 17 March 1910 for his first flight; on his second flight, which departed at 6:15am, he over-corrected the elevator and crashed, damaging the plane. The flight was witnessed by F H Jones, owner of both the aircraft and the property where the flight took place, but later conflicting accounts by Jones have cast doubt on who flew the aircraft, and whether or not the flight did, in fact, even take place.
1912 - Lawrence Oates, of Scott's ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic, utters his famous last words: 'I am just going outside and I may be some time.'
Robert Falcon Scott, born in 1868, was a Royal Naval officer and explorer who commanded the National Antarctic Expedition in Discovery which began in 1900. In December 1902, Scott's expedition reached the farthest point south of any known exploration party. Following new discoveries in the Antarctic region, Scott was keen to be the first to reach the South Pole. He took with him Lieutenant Henry Bowers, Dr Edward Wilson, Petty Officer Edgar Evans and army Captain Lawrence Oates. Upon reaching the Pole on 17 January 1912, he found that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it by just one month.
Scott's party made slow progress, due to a combination of particularly severe weather, and their own determination to forge ahead laden with their rock samples. Evans died after a fall which resulted in a quick physical and mental breakdown. Lawrence Oates lost a foot to frostbite and was suffering residual effects of an old war wound. Oates is remembered as the consummate British sacrificial hero as, feeling he was holding the party back, he departed their shelter one morning, uttering the famous words, "I am just going outside and I may be some time." This was on 17 March 1912. He did not return. The bodies of the remaining three members of Scott's party were found in their camp on 10 February 1913, just twenty kilometres from a substantial depot of supplies. With them were their diaries detailing their journey and their demise.
1966 - The Queens Commendation is awarded to personnel who disarmed a WWII sea mine which washed up on the beach at Surfers Paradise earlier in March.
In March 1966, Surfers Paradise in Queensland was already a popular destination for holiday-makers. The region became a scene of considerable drama when a German sea mine, believed to have been adrift since the 1940s, washed up on the Esplanade beach.
The sea mine was first detected near the Southport Bar by the crew of the 'Heather', a Gold Coast trawler. At first, the 'Heather' and a second trawler, the 'Winnie Vee', attempted to tow the mine out to sea using a net. Their attempts were unsuccessful as the towing net was cut by barnacles and shells. Residents were then evacuated, while police and personnel from the Royal Australian Navy cordoned off the area. The mine was observed for two days, while navy personnel determined whether or not it could be moved.
The greatest danger posed by the mine was a self-explosion mechanism beneath a hatch. Lieutenant Tom Parker, leading an RAN Clearance Diving Team, secured the mine onto a specially built sledge, and the explosive was moved slowly to a deserted part of The Spit, a procedure which took most of the night. The self-explosion mechanism, which was essentially a booby trap, was prepared for "delousing", in a procedure which took until the following afternoon. Following this, around 250kg of explosives were removed from the mine and detonated on the beach.
On 17 March 1966, Lt Parker and personnel from the RAN Clearance Diving Team were awarded the Queens Commendation for their successful operation.
Cheers - John
Tony Bev said
01:23 PM Mar 17, 2016
Hello rockylizard
Very good read, thanks for these posts
1830 shows just some of the hardships the early settlers endured. When the going got tough, the tough had no other option, but to get going.
rockylizard said
07:56 AM Mar 18, 2016
Gday...
1314 - The leader of the order of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, is executed.
The order of the Knights Templar was founded around 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade. The order was recognised at the Council of Troyes in 1128 and confirmed by Pope Honorius III. The order grew to become one of the most powerful in Europe. The Knights Templar started lending money to Spanish pilgrims who wanted to travel to the Holy Land, and they gained wealth as the Church showered blessings and money on the order; but with the wealth came power and corruption. Pope Clement V urged Philip IV of France to find some means to extinguish their presence and power.
Thus it was that on 13 October 1307, Philip IV ordered the arrest of the entire order of Knights Templar in France, and had their possessions confiscated. This act served as the origin of the superstition which regards Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. The knights were put on trial and were tortured to extract confessions of sacrilegious practices, including heresy and witchcraft. Many were burnt and tortured, and under duress, admitted to a variety of heresies. These admissions were later retracted as being forced admissions. The leader of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was executed on 18 March 1314, by which time the Templars had been virtually hunted out of existence.
1910 - American escapologist, Harry Houdini, makes Australia's first officially recorded controlled, powered flight of an aircraft.
Frederick C 'Fred' Custance is believed by some to be the first person to fly a powered aircraft in Australia. Custance flew a Bleriot monoplane for 5 minutes and 25 seconds near Bolivar, South Australia, on 17 March 1910. The flight was witnessed by F H Jones, owner of both the aircraft and the property where the flight took place, but later conflicting accounts by Jones have cast doubt on who flew the aircraft, and whether or not the flight did, in fact, even take place.
The first controlled flight of a powered aircraft in Australia to be authenticated took place on 18 March 1910, by American escapologist, Harry Houdini. Houdini powered a Voisin biplane, reaching an altitude of about 30 metres over a distance of ten kilometres for 7 minutes and 37 seconds. At least thirty people were present to witness the flight near Digger's Rest, a small town about 30km northwest of Melbourne, Victoria. It was Australia's first officially recorded powered flight.
1922 - The first section of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria is officially opened.
The Great Ocean Road is a scenic highway in southern Victoria which begins at Torquay and extends west for 243 km, ending at Allansford, just east of Warrnambool. Hailed as an engineering feat for its time, the road was built by around 3000 returned servicemen, or Diggers, following World War I.
The concept of such a road was first put forward as early as the 1870s. Settlers along the coast could only reach the larger communities inland via rough tracks over the Otway ranges, so calls were made for either a rail or road route connecting these otherwise isolated coastal settlements. Shortly after Geelong businessmen E H Lascelles and Walter Howard Smith proposed a road be built between Geelong and Lorne, the Country Roads Board (CRB) was formed in 1912. Following World War I, CRB chairman William Calder suggested that returned Diggers be gainfully employed on various road projects, including a road extending from Barwon Heads to Warrnambool. The plan was soundly approved by Mayor of Geelong, Howard Hitch****, who saw not only the value in such a road for tourism, but also as a permanent memorial to the many thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in the Great War.
The Great Ocean Road Trust was officially formed on 22 March 1918, and surveying began in August of that year. On 19 September 1919, the project to construct the Great Ocean Road was officially launched by the Premier of Victoria, Harry Lawson. Taking 13 years to complete, the road is regarded as a tremendous engineering feat for the 1920s. With the absence of any machinery at the time, it required back-breaking manual labour as the men had only shovels, picks and horse-drawn carts to hew out the rocky cliffside. The first section, extending from Lorne to the Eastern View section of the Great Ocean Road, was officially opened on 18 March 1922. The second official opening occurred on 27 April 1932, and this celebrated the extension of the road to Warrnambool.
Although modernised since its original construction, the Great Ocean Road continues to stand as the world's largest memorial to the soldiers of World War I.
1944 - Dick Smith, Australian businessman, entrepreneur and aviator, is born.
Dick Smith was born on 18 March 1944 in Roseville, Sydney. In 1968, he founded electronics retailer Dick Smith Electronics, which he sold to Woolworths in 1982. A multi-millionaire, he generously supports charities whilst also encouraging the growth of the Australian product market. To that end, he has launched a range of products which are entirely Australian made and Australian owned, such as Dick Smith foods, which he founded in 1999.
Dick Smith has made a number of 'firsts' as an aviator. In 1983, he made the first solo helicopter flight around the world, landing on container ships at sea to refuel. In 1987, he made the first helicopter flight to the North Pole, and he was the first person to fly around the world via the poles in 1989. In 1993, he made the first non-stop balloon crossing of the Australian continent, and in 2000 he made the first Trans-Tasman Balloon flight.
Other achievements include founding the magazine Australian Geographic in 1985, a National Geographic-style magazine focusing on Australia. Smith was named Australian of the Year in 1986. In 1992, he was awarded the Lindbergh Award, an annual world-wide award given to one individual for lifetime achievement for a balance between technical advancement and environmental preservation.
1990 - The first and only free elections in the history of East Germany are held, signalling the end of the country's existence.
Following Germany's defeat in World War II, Germany was split into two separately controlled countries. West Germany, also known as the Federal Republic of Germany, was proclaimed on 23 May 1949, with Bonn as its capital. As a liberal parliamentary republic and part of NATO, the country maintained good relations with the Western Allies. East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed in East Berlin on 7 October 1949. It adopted a socialist republic, and remained allied with the communist powers, being occupied by Soviet forces.
The Soviet powers began to dwindle in the late 1980s, and the Communist Party in East Germany began to lose its grip on power. On 18 March 1990, the first and only free elections in the history of East Germany were held, producing a government whose major mandate was to negotiate an end to itself and its state. The German "Einigungsvertrag" (Unification Treaty) was signed on 31 August 1990 by representatives of West Germany and East Germany. German reunification took place on 3 October 1990, when the areas of the former East Germany ceased to exist, having been incorporated into The Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany.
Gday...
1804 - The Australian Battle of Vinegar Hill, also known as the Battle of Castle Hill, begins.
Castle Hill is a suburb in Sydney, Australia, about 30 kilometres northwest of the central business district. The area was established as a government farm by Governor King in July 1801. Most of the convicts who worked the farm were Irish, many of them having been transported for agitation against British rule.
On 4 March 1804 the convicts, led by Phillip Cunningham and William Johnston, rebelled in the Castle Hill Rebellion, which also became known as the 'Battle of Vinegar Hill'. It was named the Battle of Vinegar Hill after an uprising of Irish rebels against British authority in 1798 - an uprising which saw many of the rebels transported to New South Wales as political prisoners. One convict set fire to his hut in Castle Hill at 9:00 pm, the signal for the rebellion to begin. Cunningham led as 200 rebels broke into the Government Farm's buildings, taking firearms, ammunition and other weapons. The rebels then began marching towards Constitution Hill at Parramatta, gathering more firearms and supplies as they went.
New South Wales Corps soldiers caught up to the rebels the following day. The rebels were outgunned and outnumbered by British troops, who massacred about twenty of them. Cunningham was hanged on March 6 without a trial: several more of the rebels were hanged following swift trials over the following days.
1831 - Lieutenant-Governor James Stirling is commissioned first governor of the Swan River colony.
Australia's western coastline was first sighted by Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer in 1611 when he experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. As the route became more popular, the western half of the continent became known as "New Holland", and more Dutch explorers ventured to explore the coastline. However, the Dutch saw no benefits in colonising the western coast, as the land seemed dry and barren.
In 1826 Edmund Lockyer was sent to claim the western half of the Australian continent for Britain. He arrived at King George Sound on Christmas Day in 1826, and established a military base which he named Frederick's Town (now Albany). Just over two years later, Captain Charles Fremantle was sent to take formal possession of the remainder of New Holland which had not already been claimed for Britain under the territory of New South Wales. On 2 May 1829, Captain Fremantle raised the Union Jack on the south head of the Swan River, thus claiming the territory for Britain.
In late 1828, Captain Sir James Stirling RN was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Swan River colony, although there was no formal legislative basis for his appointment. The first steps were taken under the 1829 Act to provide for the government of the Colony in November 1830, and Stirling was then commissioned as Governor and Commander-in-Chief on 4 March 1831.
1899 - Cyclone Mahina hits north Queensland, killing over 400.
Cyclone Mahina, which hit north Queensland on 4 March 1899, was a category 5 cyclone, and resulted in the greatest death toll of any natural disaster in Australia. It hit a pearling fleet of around 100 vessels which lay at anchor at Bathurst Bay, driving the boats onto the shore or onto the Great Barrier Reef. 307 people were killed in this one act alone, and only 4 sailors survived. Just before the eye of the cyclone passed overland to the north a tidal wave 13 - 15 metres high, caused by the storm surge, swept inland for about 5 kilometres, destroying anything that was left of the Bathurst Bay pearling fleet, along with the settlement. The death toll of between 400 and 410 included at least 100 indigenous Australians, some of whom died when they were caught by the back surge and swept into the sea while trying to help shipwrecked men. A memorial stone to 'The Pearlers' who were lost to the hurricane was erected on Cape Melville. The disaster is also commemorated in the Anglican church on Thursday Island.
1933 - Amidst the Great Depression, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is inaugurated.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, was born on 30 January 1882 at Hyde Park in upstate New York. After initially studying law, he sought public office and was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910. After a bout with poliomyelitis, a viral infection of the nerve fibres of the spinal cord which left his lower body partially paralysed for the remainder of his life, Roosevelt returned to politics, and became governor of New York. In this position, he worked tirelessly for tax relief for farmers, as well as implementing practical action such as the development of hydroelectricity on the St Lawrence River. He was re-elected governor just after the October 1929 stock market crash was developing into a major depression.
In his second term as governor, Roosevelt mobilised the state government to provide relief and spur economic recovery. His aggressive approach to the economic crisis resulted in his gaining the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. By the time he took office on 4 March 1933, most banks were closed, farms were suffering, 13 million workers were unemployed, and industrial production stood at just over half its 1929 level. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt uttered his famous words, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." In the subsequent years, many of Roosevelt's reforms (under his "New Deal" policy) helped aid the American economy into recovery. Such reforms included the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, and creation of the Public Works Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority. As WWII approached, Roosevelt was also aware of the growing threat from the Germans and Japanese, and provided strong leadership through the crises that followed, including the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war.
Roosevelt was re-elected for a third term in 1940, and again for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. However, a few months after his inauguration, he died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage, on 12 April 1945. He had been President for more than 12 years, longer than any other person, and had led the country through some of its greatest crises to the brink of its greatest triumph, the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, and to within sight of the defeat of Japan as well.
Cheers - John
Gday...
1770 - The Boston Massacre occurs, as British troops fire on American demonstrators.
The Boston Massacre of 1770 was a catalyst to the American Revolution several years later. The incident grew out of the resentment felt by the Americans against the British troops sent to maintain law and order in the colony. There was a tendency for groups of young men to taunt the troops until finally, on 5 March 1770, the troops fired into a rioting crowd. Three Americans were killed immediately, and two more died later from their wounds. British captain Thomas Preston and his men were tried for murder: Preston and six of his men were acquitted, whilst two others were found guilty of manslaughter, punished, and released.
The pressure that resulted from the "massacre" caused Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson to withdraw the troops to an island in the harbour. Whilst this temporarily eased the tensions, it also highlighted the fact that the British were unwelcome, and unable to maintain the law and order they were supposedly there to protect. The incident laid the foundation for Americans to fight for their independence against British rule.
1803 - Australia's first newspaper is printed.
Australia was built on the skills of the convicts. This was important for the construction of the first buildings, roads and bridges. Convicts were also significant to the colony's early literary and intellectual development.
In November 1800, convict transport ship "The Royal Admiral" brought George Howe to Australia's shores. Howe was born in the West Indies but was well-educated in classical European literature, and he had extensive printing experience. His original death sentence for shoplifting in England was commuted to transportation to New South Wales. His skills in printing were immediately put to use for the publication of government documents. In 1802 he issued the first book printed in Australia, "New South Wales General Standing Orders", which listed Government and General Orders issued between 1791 and 1802.
Howe was also permitted to commence Australia's first newspaper, which he printed from a shed at the back of Government House. On 5 March 1803, publication commenced of "The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser". Initially it was printed weekly, and held four portfolio pages of official material, with a small number of private notices. Early editions comprised shipping news, auction results, crime reports and agricultural notices, poems, literature and religious advice. Due to the lengthy shipping journeys, overseas news tended to be out of date by 10-14 weeks, but it was still eagerly received by the public.
Howe's newspaper remained the only one in Sydney until the appearance of explorer William Wentworth's "The Australian" in 1824.
1839 - George Grey discovers the Gascoyne River, longest river in Western Australia.
Sir George Edward Grey, born 14 April 1812, was Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Governor of Cape Colony (South Africa), Premier of New Zealand and a writer. Prior to his political career, however, he was an explorer to one of Australia's remotest regions - the northwest.
His first expedition to the area was in late 1837, but was beset with numerous problems including Aboriginal attack and intense heat and humidity (in some areas, over 50 degrees C) compounded by lack of water. Grey himself was speared in the hip and spent two weeks recovering. His first sight of luxuriant country beyond the Macdonald Range convinced him to continue, and after several more days, he discovered the Glenelg River, named after Lord Glenelg, the Colonial Secretary of State. He returned to Hanover Bay in April 1838, but was determined to make another attempt to penetrate inland, hoping to find an overland route to Perth.
Grey departed on his next expedition to the northwest in February 1839. Insufficient water impeded the party's progress until, after pushing on through thick mangrove swamps, the men arrived at what is now called the Gascoyne River. Arriving there on 5 March 1839, Grey described it as "a stream of magnitude"; indeed, the river is the longest in Western Australia, extending 800km from the Carnarvon Range to the ocean. However, the teeming multitudes of immigrants that Grey envisaged as settling the area never eventuated.
1937 - The USA formally apologises to Nazi Germany for the New York mayor's reference to Hitler as a "brown-shirted fanatic".
Fiorello La Guardia was born to poor Italian immigrants in 1882. After earning his law degree through night school, he was appointed as the Deputy Attorney General of New York in 1914. He served in the armed forces during World War I, then returned to New York to run for the House of Representatives in 1922. Winning the election, he served as congressman until early 1933. He then became Mayor of New York City for three terms from 1934 to 1945, during which time he revitalised New York city, instigating reforms that served the people well.
La Guardia was wary of Hitler's influence and strongly critical of his policies and the methods of the Nazi regime as Hitler began to gain power during the 1930s. He warned of Hitler's agenda to eradicate the Jewish race as early as 1934. In 1937, he called for the creation of a special pavilion at the upcoming 1939 New York World's Fair: "a chamber of horrors" for "that brown-shirted fanatic."
La Guardia's inflammatory delivery was quickly denounced, and on 5 March 1937, the United States officially apologised for the statement. However, this action did not stop La Guardia from continuing to be an outspoken activist up until his death in 1947.
1946 - Winston Churchill first popularises the phrase 'Iron Curtain' in his famous oration prior to the Cold War.
The "Iron Curtain" refers to the boundary which symbolically, politically and physically divided Europe into two separate zones from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, approximately 1945 to 1990. While the Iron Curtain was in place, some Eastern and Central European countries, apart from West Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria, were under the political influence of the Soviet Union. To the west of the Iron Curtain the remainder of Europe operated market economies and was, for the most part, ruled by democratic governments.
The term "Iron Curtain" was used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and later Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the closing days of the war. Its use, however, was popularised by the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who used it in his "Sinews of Peace" address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946:
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow."
Churchill's use of the term "Iron Curtain" came to symbolise the beginning of the Cold War. This was the period marked by political tension and military rivalry, stopping just short of escalating into full-scale war, between the West as represented by the USA, and the East headed by the Soviet Union.
2002 - The last commercial Ansett Airlines flight completes its run from Perth to Sydney.
Australia's national airline is Qantas. However, for nearly seven decades, the domestic airline scene had another significant player in Ansett Airlines.
Ansett Airways Pty Ltd was founded by Sir Reginald Myles "Reg" Ansett in 1935. The very first flight, a single engine Fokker Universal, departed Hamilton, Victoria bound for Melbourne, on 17 February 1936. In 1957, Ansett Airways became Ansett-ANA after taking over the private airline Australian National Airways (ANA), which had gone bankrupt. Further acquisitions of domestic airlines occurred in ensuing decades, and Ansett continued to operate very profitably, well into the latter years of the twentieth century.
In 1987, Ansett made its first international flights, expanding into New Zealand through its subsidiary Ansett New Zealand. Although Air New Zealand had previously become a 50% shareholder, it acquired full ownership of Ansett in February 2000. Unfortunately, a series of poor financial decisions meant that Ansett became more of a liability than an asset to Air New Zealand, and in September 2001, Air New Zealand placed the Ansett group of companies into voluntary administration. Despite an attempt by the federal government to prop up Ansett via government guarantee, the last commercial flight, AN152 from Perth to Sydney, touched down just after 6am on 5 March 2002.
2004 - Officers of the Mexican airforce film a group of UFOs visible in infrared footage but invisible to the naked eye.
Unidentified Flying Objects have long attracted man's fascination, and the sightings have continued well into modern times. Mexico is a virtual hotspot of UFO activity, with some reports appearing legitimate and others unsubstantiated.
On 5 March 2004, Mexican air force pilots captured infrared footage of a group of 11 UFOs flying in apparent formation over southern Campeche. The UFOs flew at an altitude of about 3,500 metres, and changed speed and direction regularly, even appearing at one stage to be encircling the aircraft that was on a routine anti-drug trafficking reconnaissance mission.
What was particularly unusual about this group of UFOs was the fact that they could not be seen with the naked eye. Three of the objects appeared on radar, and eleven showed up on infrared film footage. They were reported to have mass and energy, and to be capable of moving freely.
Cheers - John
Gday...
1475 - Michelangelo, Renaissance sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, is born.
Michelangelo was born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni on 6 March 1475 near Tuscany, Italy. Young Michelangelo was raised in Florence and later lived with a sculptor and his wife in the town of Settignano where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. Initially studying in linguistics, Michelangelo went against his father's wishes and took up an apprenticeship in painting with Domenico Ghirlandaio and in sculpture with Bertoldo di Giovanni.
Ghirlandaio was so impressed with his young protege that he recommended him to Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts. After demonstrating his mastery of sculpture in such works as the Pietý (1498) and David (1504), he was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the chief consecrated space in the Vatican. Michelangelo spent four years painting the epic ceiling frescoes, depicting detailed Biblical scenes. There are nine panels devoted to biblical world history, the most famous of which is The Creation of Adam, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are stretching toward each other. Michelangelo's frescoes on the vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome were first shown to the public on 1 November 1512. Other famous frescoes of Michelangelo include The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo was also a skilled architect, designing the Dome of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, the Laurentian Library in Florence at the church of San Lorenzo, transforming the Campidoglio and completing the Palazzo Farnese, considered the most beautiful palace of Rome, after the death of its previous designer, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
Michelangelo died on 18 February 1564, aged 88.
1788 - Lieutenant Philip Gidley King establishes the first settlement on Norfolk Island.
Norfolk Island lies approximately 1,500 km northeast of Sydney, and along with two neighbouring islands forms one of Australia's external territories. The first European to discover Norfolk was Captain Cook, on 10 October 1774. Cook's reports of tall, straight trees (Norfolk pines) and flax-like plants piqued the interest of Britain, whose Royal Navy was dependent on flax for sails and hemp for ropes from Baltic sea ports. Norfolk Island promised a ready supply of these items, and its tall pines could be utilised as ships' masts. Thus, Governor Arthur Phillip, Captain of the First Fleet to New South Wales, was ordered to also colonise Norfolk Island, before the French could take it.
When the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson in January 1788, Phillip ordered Lieutenant Philip Gidley King to lead a party of fifteen convicts and seven free men to take control of the island and prepare for its commercial development. They arrived on 6 March 1788. Neither the flax nor the timber industry proved to be viable, and the island developed as a farm, supplying Sydney with grain and vegetables during the early years of the colony's near-starvation. More convicts were sent, and many chose to remain after they had served their sentences. By 1792, four years after its initial settlement, the population was over 1000.
1937 - The first woman in space, Russian Valentina Tereshkova, is born.
Valentina Tereshkova was born in a small village in the Yaroslavl Oblast in western Russia on 6 March 1937. She was interested in parachuting and flight from a young age, and made her first jump when she was 22, on 21 May 1959. Although a humble textile-factory assembly worker by trade, it was her expertise in parachute jumping that resulted in her selection as a cosmonaut.
Tereshkova became the first woman in space, and the only woman to ever fly solo in space. She was the fifth Russian cosmonaut to go into the Earth's orbit when her spaceship Vostok VI was launched on 16 June 1963. She completed 49 orbits of the Earth in two days, 22 hours and fifty minutes. Even though there were plans for further female flights, it was 19 years before the second woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, flew into space.
1987 - 193 are killed as a car ferry, the 'Herald of Free Enterprise', capsizes just outside Zeebrugge, Belgium, enroute to England.
M/S Herald of Free Enterprise was a car and passenger ferry which worked the English Channel ferry routes between Dover and Calais, and Dover and Zeebrugge. In the early evening of 6 March 1987, as the ferry departed the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on its way to Dover, England, it capsized in calm conditions and shallow water. The ferry had a crew of 80 and carried 459 passengers, 81 cars, 3 buses, and 47 trucks. It capsized in about 90 seconds after leaving the harbour, causing many people to be trapped inside. 193 died, many succumbing to hypothermia in the freezing waters of the channel.
Investigations later revealed that the ferry left port with her bow doors open and the extra ballast still in her tanks. Due to the crew's failure to close the bow door, water began flowing onto the car deck and the vessel quickly became unstable. The captain turned rapidly to starboard, causing the ferry to capsize onto a sand-bar rather than in deeper waters. As a result of this tragedy and a second ferry disaster when the Estonia sank in 1994 with the loss of 850 lives, new safety measures were implemented in 1999, such as the installation of cameras so the crew can see from the bridge whether or not the doors have been closed before sailing.
1994 - The second Biosphere 2 mission begins.
Biosphere 2 is an artificial, sealed ecological system in the desert outside Oracle, Arizona. It was built in the late 1980s, to test whether people could live and study in a closed, isolated environment, whilst carrying out scientific experiments. Biosphere 2 was designed as an airtight replica of Earth's environment, and included a 3,406,000 litre ocean, rainforest, a desert, agricultural areas and a human habitat. It was called Biosphere 2, because Earth itself is considered the first biosphere. The experiment was intended to explore the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonisation.
The first mission involved four men and four women living in the Biosphere for two years from 26 September 1991 until 26 September 1993. The experiment lost some credibility when oxygen and other necessities were required to be provided.
The second Biosphere 2 mission began on 6 March 1994. Seven people from five countries were selected for this experiment, remaining in the Biosphere for six months. The experiment was fraught with problems and the project met with considerable disdain among the scientific community. Biosphere 2 is now open as a hands-on, interactive science centre.
Cheers - John
Gday...
203 - Perpetua, a young Christian, and her slave Felicitas are martyred in the arena at Carthage.
The Roman persecution of Christians began during the reign of Nero, around 64 AD, and continued until Christianity was embraced by the Emperor Constantine 249 years later. Vibia Perpetua was a twenty-two year old woman of noble birth, married though recently widowed, with a young son. She and her slave Felicitas, who herself had just given birth to a baby daughter, were among five Christians condemned, under the emperor Septimius Severus, to die in the arena. On 7 March 203, the five condemned Christians were led to the arena where the men were attacked by boar, a bear and a leopard, whilst the women were attacked by a bull. After being tossed, gored and wounded, both women were then stabbed to death by gladiators.
Their bodied were interred at Carthage. Centuries later, a majestic basilica was erected over their tomb, the Basilica Majorum, where an ancient inscription bearing the names of the martyrs has been found.
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 3 March 1847. It was whilst living in Canada, from 1870, that Bell pursued his interest in telephony and communications, improving on the technology that had enabled the development of the telegraph. He moved to the US shortly afterwards to continue developing his inventions.
On 7 March 1876, Bell was granted US Patent Number 174,465 for "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound", i.e. the telephone. Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877. Also in 1877, Bell published the details of his telephone in the Scientific American. Following this publication, enthusiasts from around the world began to develop their own telephones.
Bell also collaborated with other inventors to produce such items as the phonograph, photophone (a device enabling the transmission of sound over a beam of light), metal detector and hydrofoil.
1954 - The "Sydney Morning Herald" reports a new craze of flattening pennies under the Royal Train of Queen Elizabeth II.
Princess Elizabeth, who became Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, was born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on 21 April 1926. She was proclaimed queen on 6 February 1952, following the death of her father, George VI. She ascended the throne the following year, on 2 June 1953.
The year following her coronation, Queen Elizabeth II undertook a tour of Australia. Still fiercely patriotic towards the British Monarchy, Australia received the new Queen with enthusiasm. On 7 March 1954, Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, reported a new craze which had developed amongst Australians. Many of them had taken to placing pennies on the tracks ahead of the train on which Queen Elizabeth and her entourage were travelling. The sole purpose of this activity was to have the Queen's royal carriage flatten the coins, creating a unique souvenir of her visit.
1965 - State troopers attack a group of African-American demonstrators in Alabama.
Civil rights for African-Americans, who had been denied basic equal rights in every aspect of society, began gaining prominence in the 1950s. Martin Luther King fought for civil rights, organising and leading marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, not all state governors upheld the rights.
The southern US state of Alabama had seen a number of demonstrations in January and February of 1965, as African-Americans tried to draw attention to violations of existing voting rights laws. The Governor, George Wallace, had insisted on breaking up each protest forcefully, resulting in the death of activist Jimmy Lee Jackson. On 7 March 1965, State troopers and volunteer officers in Alabama broke up a demonstration by about 500 protestors using tear gas, whips and sticks after Wallace ordered the planned march from Selma to the state capital Montgomery to be halted on the grounds of public safety. Seventeen people were injured in the violence that resulted, and March 7 came to be known as "Bloody Sunday".
Martin Luther King organised another march in the town, filing a federal lawsuit for the right to march on Montgomery. As they proceeded on March 21, they were protected by federal troops. The march lasted a week and culminated in a rally attended by thousands.
1996 - The first photographs of Pluto's surface are released.
For many years, Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet in the solar system, named after the Roman god of the underworld, Pluto. Recently, its status has been downgraded to that of a minor planet. Its largest moon is Charon, discovered in 1978, and two smaller moons, Nix and Hydra, were discovered in 2005. It remains the only planet that has not been visited by human spacecraft, and knowledge of Pluto is limited due to the fact that it is too far away for in-depth investigations with telescopes from earth.
Pluto remained undiscovered until the twentieth century due to its small size, being smaller than the Earth's moon, and its unusual orbit. It was determined to be a planet on 18 February 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. However, Pluto has since been reclassified as a "planetoid" and is now considered the largest member of the Kuiper belt. Like other members of the belt, it is composed primarily of rock and ice and is relatively small: approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth's moon and a third its volume.
On 7 March 1996, the first photographs of Pluto's surface were released. Astronomers had actually constructed a global map of Pluto in 1994 by taking 12 images at 4 different longitudes in visible light and 8 images in ultraviolet light. The photographs showed clear topographic features such as craters, a northern polar cap bisected by a dark strip, one bright spot and a cluster of dark spots.
Cheers - John
Could be a fitting punishment....nah! say no more.
Gday...
1702 - William III of England, also known as William of Orange, dies after being thrown from his horse.
William III of England was born on 14 November 1650, in The Hague, Netherlands. He became the Sovereign Prince of Orange at his birth because his father died of smallpox eight days before he was born. Known by many titles including William III of England, William II of Scotland and William of Orange, he was King of England and Ireland from 13 February 1689, and King of Scotland from 11 April 1689. As a Protestant, William participated in many wars against the powerful Roman Catholic King of France, Louis XIV.
After James II of England ascended the throne in 1685, the English feared that the kings policies were directed too much towards restoring the power of the Roman Catholic church. In June 1688, a group of political figures known as the "Immortal Seven" secretly invited William to bring an army of liberation to England. William and a force of about 15,000 men landed at southwest England on 5 November 1688. James, his support base dissolved, was allowed to escape to France, and William had no wish to make him a martyr for Roman Catholicism. Whilst the Scottish parliament accepted the new rulers, Ireland, being mostly Catholic, remained loyal to the deposed king and had to be taken by force. In 1690 William led the army that defeated James and his Irish partisans at the Battle of the Boyne, and members of Parliament accepted him in order to restore their own power.
King William died on 8 March 1702, five days after a riding accident. Whilst riding in the Park at Hampton Court, his horse stumbled on a molehill and the King was thrown. As he left no heirs, the crown passed to Anne, second daughter of King James II of England.
1782 - The Gnadenhutten Massacre of Christian Indians occurs in Pittsburgh, USA.
During the American War of Independence, the Delaware, or Lenape, Indians who lived in the Ohio Country were divided into three main groups. Some decided to fight against the Americans, while others were sympathetic to the United States, signing a treaty with the Americans in 1778 through which they hoped to establish the Ohio Country as an American Indian state within the new United States. The third group had converted to Christianity, and lived in several nearby villages run by Moravian missionaries.
American Indians tended to be viewed with suspicion, as there were some violent tribes that had engaged in the killing of settlers. In September 1781, British allied Indians, mainly Wyandots and Delawares, forcibly removed the Christian Indians and the white missionaries from the Moravian villages, relocating them to a new village known as Captive Town on the Sandusky River. Two missionaries were suspected of providing military intelligence to the American army at Fort Pitt and tried for treason, but ultimately acquitted. The Christian Indians were left to starve at Captive Town, and in February 1782, over 100 of them returned to their old villages in order to harvest the crops they had been forced to leave behind.
Early in March 1782, a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounded up the Christian Indians and accused them of taking part in the ongoing raids into Pennsylvania, a charge which the Indians truthfully denied. The Pennsylvanians held a council, and voted to kill them all anyway. On 8 March 1782, 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children were murdered, scalped, their bodies heaped into the mission buildings, and the town burned to the ground. The other abandoned Moravian towns were then burned as well. Two Indian boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Although there was some talk of bringing the killers to justice, no criminal charges were ever filed.
1902 - The first test to pump water through the most difficult section of the Golden Pipeline to the Western Australian goldfields is successfully carried out.
The goldfields of Western Australia, discovered in 1893, are located in one of the worlds most isolated and inhospitable areas of the worlds driest hot continent. Waterways in the west are limited to coastal areas. When people began flocking to the goldfields in their thousands, the need for clean water to be readily available increased dramatically. Premier John Forrest called on the services of CY OConnor, an engineer he had recruited to build Fremantle Harbour, and to improve the operations of the government railways. Charles Yelverton O'Connor, born on 11 January 1843 in Ireland, had arrived in Perth, Western Australia in 1891 after having been offered the position of Engineer-in-Chief by Sir John Forrest. He had proposed and delivered a bold plan for a safe harbour at Perth, and his work in the railways was underway. His next project was to convey water to the goldfields which lay approximately 600 km east of Perth.
An intelligent visionary and meticulous planner, OConnor researched the problem, consulted with renowned engineers in London, then presented a comprehensive, carefully costed proposal. His plan included constructing a dam near Mundaring Weir on the Helena River east of Perth, then pumping the water 560 km to Coolgardie via a series of 8 pumping stations. The pipeline, a massive engineering feat in itself, would need to also cater for an elevation increase of 300 metres before reaching the goldfields. It would deliver 5 million gallons, or 22 730 cubic metres, of water per day to the goldfields.
OConnor intended to utilise a new steel, rivetless pipe with two joints along its length held together by a locking-bar, that had been developed by Australian engineer Mephan Ferguson. This type of pipe was necessary to prevent leakage of valuable water, and its use was endorsed by renowned English engineer and consulting engineer to the Western Australian government, John Carruthers. The design of the pipe allowed for a heavier, more durable steel to be used, and prior to leaving the factory, each pipe was pressure tested to 400 psi. To protect the pipes, they were coated in a mixture of asphalt and coal-tar, and impregnated with sand. The pipes were then transported by train to unloading points alongside the route of the pipeline, where gangs of workers vied with each other to quickly unload them, allowing for a speedy turnaround of the locomotives. As time progressed, the gangs became quicker and more experienced at laying the pipes and caulking them, a process which was speeded up significantly after a Perth company invented an electric caulking machine.
On 8 March 1902, the first successful preliminary pumping test of the water main over the most difficult part of the pipeline was undertaken. This was over a distance of six miles, the equivalent of 9.6 km. By this stage, OConnors greatest supporter, John Forrest, had left the state government and entered Federal Parliament, and OConnor was left defenceless against the detractors who doubted his skill. Two days after the successful test, OConnor committed suicide on the beach near Fremantle. The entire pipeline was opened in January 1903, and remains in use today, a lasting legacy for a man whose vision was ahead of his detractors at the time.
1906 - The US Army massacres 600 innocent villagers in the Philippines.
In December 1898, the US purchased the Philippines and other territories from Spain at the Treaty of Paris for 20 million US dollars, after the US defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. The US government intended to make the Philippines an American colony. The Filipinos, who had fought for their independence from Spain since 1896 and had even fought alongside the Americans in their war against Spain, felt betrayed by their former allies. Tensions escalated into war between America and the Philippines, during which it is estimated that 250,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos, both military and civilian, were killed.
One of the greatest atrocities after the war was the Moro Crater Massacre, which occurred on 8 March 1906. Filipinos had continued to rebel against American authority and groups had been suppressed throughout the islands. A tribe of 600 Moros, including women and children, had fortified themselves in the crater of an extinct volcano near Jolo, sheltering from the American troops. 540 soldiers fired upon the Moros who were armed with nothing more than their knives: at the end of the day, every single one of them had been slain, while fifteen American soldiers had been lost.
1973 - 15 people are killed in a firebomb attack on the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane, Australia.
The Whiskey Au Go-Go nightclub was located in the inner Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley. On 8 March 1973, two drums of petrol were ignited in the foyer of the nightclub, causing a fireball and the release of deadly gases. Grease was smeared on the door handles to prevent patrons from escaping. Fifteen people were killed in what was Australia's worst mass murder at that time.
James Finch and John Stuart were gunmen in the underworld that was trying to control prostitution and gambling in Brisbane at the time. The two men were arrested but staunchly protested their innocence, blaming corrupt police for framing them. Both men were convicted; ultimately, Stuart died on New Years Day 1979, while Finch was paroled fifteen years later, in 1988, and deported back to England, his country of birth. Once safely in England, Finch then declared he was indeed guilty of the murders.
Cheers - John
1782........Phew! I got out just in time Rocky.
Remember that for sure.
1973........Again you make me feel old Rocky. Bugga ya
Gday...
1837 - The settlement of Melbourne is named.
The city of Melbourne, Australia, had a controversial beginning. John Batman was a native born Australian, interested in opening up new pastureland and promoting the growth of the colonies. He applied for land in the Westernport Bay area of southern Australia, now Victoria, but was not granted any. In May 1835, he led a syndicate calling themselves the 'Port Phillip Association' to explore Port Phillip Bay, looking for suitable sites for a settlement. On 6 June 1835, he signed a 'treaty' with the Aborigines, giving him free access to almost 250,000 hectares of land. In August that year, Governor Bourke declared Batman's treaties invalid, and issued a proclamation warning off him and his syndicate as trespassers on crown land. Despite the attempts at government intervention, the foundling settlement remained.
As the settlement grew, Governor Bourke sent a Commissioner to report on its development. In the Commissioner's report he referred to the settlement as 'Bearbrass'. Following a later inspection, the name 'Glenelg' was suggested by the Colonial Secretary. On 9 March 1837, Governor Bourke named the flourishing settlement 'Melbourne' after the British Prime Minister of the day. By the end of April, the proposed Melbourne city plan by Sydney surveyor Robert Hoddle was lodged at the government survey office in Sydney. This 1837 street layout has been dubbed the Hoddle Grid, and covers the area from Flinders Street to Queen Victoria Market, and from Spencer Street to Spring Street.
1857 - South Australia holds its first elections, but an unusually large number of informal votes are submitted.
Explorer Matthew Flinders was the first European to investigate the possibilities for settlement on South Australia's coast, doing so in 1802. The South Australian Colonisation Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1834, and the first settlers arrived in 1836. The colony of South Australia was officially proclaimed on 19 February 1836 in England, the proclamation was made on 28 December that year.
South Australia's first elections as a self-governing colony was held on 9 March 1857. There were no political parties or policy platforms; the candidates standing for election submitted letters to newspapers summarising their beliefs and records of public service. 57 candidates stood for the 36 places spread across 17 multi-member seats for the House of Assembly, while 18 members were elected to represent the Colony for the Legislative Council. It was estimated that fewer than a quarter of eligible voters actually took advantage of the opportunity to have their say.
Unfamiliar with the system, many voters accidentally submitted informal votes when they crossed out the names of the candidates they did not support. This was largely because, on the morning of the elections, the South Australian Register stated the following:
"We need not dwell upon the importance of the duty which every true colonist has to perform today; all we urge upon him is that he should well weigh the merits of the various candidates ... and then ... scratch out the bad names with a good bold hand."
1870 - Granny Smith, who gave her name to the Granny Smith apple, dies.
Granny Smith is a variety of apple with green skin and tart flesh, originating in Australia around 1865 from a chance seedling propagated by Maria Ann Smith, aka Granny Smith. Granny Smith was born Maria Ann Sherwood in Peasmarsh, Sussex, England, sometime in late 1799. The daughter of an agricultural labourer, she later married a farm labourer. They emigrated to New South Wales in 1838 after being recruited by government agents looking for people with agricultural skills. They settled in the district of Ryde, Sydney, which was an intensive fruit growing area. The Granny Smith apple came about when 'Granny' Smith discovered a seedling apple, which had developed from the remains of some French crab apples grown in Tasmania, growing by a creek on her farm. It was not commercially developed in her lifetime, but the apple continued to be cultivated by local orchardists.
Maria Ann Smith died on 9 March 1870 and was buried in St. Anne's cemetery, Ryde, where her headstone can still be seen. The year after her death, in the 1891 Castle Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show, the 'Granny Smith seedlings', as they were known, were awarded the prize for the best cooking apples.
1934 - The first person to travel in space, Yuri Gagarin, is born.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born on 9 March 1934 in Klushino near Gzhatsk, which was later renamed Gagarin in his honour. Flying light aircraft became a hobby for him until he entered military flight training at the Orenburg Pilot's School in 1955. In 1960 Gagarin was selected for the Soviet space program, where he was subjected to a punishing series of experiments designed to test his physical and psychological endurance, as well as training relating to the upcoming flight. He excelled in all areas, and his height of only 157cm made him an ideal choice as the first man to be launched into space.
Gagarin launched in Vostok 3KA-2, or Vostok 1, on 12 April 1961. Soviet authorities did not expect him to survive the descent back through Earth's atmosphere, so in-flight, he was promoted from Senior Lieutenant to Major. Gagarin did survive, and he became an instant, worldwide celebrity, touring widely to promote the Soviet achievement.
Gagarin died on 27 March 1968 when he was killed in a crash of a MiG-15 on a routine training flight near Kirzhach, together with his instructor. A 1986 inquest suggested that the turbulence from an Su-11 interceptor aeroplane using its afterburners may have caused Gagarin's plane to go out of control. Weather conditions were also poor at the time.
1945 - The US firebombs Tokyo, killing 100,000.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, they underestimated the ramifications it would have for their own country, and for the outcome of WWII. Bombings by the US of Japan were carried out from 1942 to 1945. The first firebombing over Japan was on Kobe on 3 February 1945, and the first attempt on Tokyo was on the night of February 2324 when 174 B-29s destroyed around 3 km² of the city. The US declared the raid a success and planned a follow-up raid, bigger and more deadly.
Around 5:34pm on 9 March 1945, 334 Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian. They arrived at Tokyo at 12:15am on March 10 and dropped approximately 1,500 metric tons of bombs, destroying around 41 km² of Tokyo. Between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. Only 243 American airmen were lost.
1976 - 43 are killed in northern Italy in the world's worst cable car accident.
A cable car, or aerial tramway, consists of one or two fixed track cables, a loop of cable known as a haulage rope and two passenger cabins. The fixed cables provide support for the cabins. The haulage rope, by means of a grip, is solidly connected to a wheel set that rolls on the cables. The haulage rope is usually driven by an electric motor, and, being connected to the cabins, moves them up or down the mountain. Cable cars are popularly used in the Alpine regions of Europe.
The world's worst cable car accident occurred on 9 March 1976 in Italy, in the ski resort of Cavalese near Trento, in the Dolomite mountains. The steel cable snapped, causing the carriage to plunge 213 metres down a mountainside. A 3,000 kg overhead carriage assembly then fell on top of the cabin, crushing it, resulting in the deaths of 43 people, including 15 children. There was just one survivor, a 14 year old girl who was taken to hospital in a critical condition with internal injuries.
There was no safety system in place when the suspension line snapped because the construction company considered such an accident impossible at the time of construction, ten years previously. As a result of the subsequent investigation, four lift officials were jailed for faulty operation and maintenance.
Cheers - John
Gday...
1794 - The Reverend Samuel Marsden, who became known colloquially as the 'Flogging Parson', arrives in the New South Wales penal colony.
The Reverend Samuel Marsden was born in Yorkshire in 1764. After he was ordained in 1793, he sailed for the new penal colony of New South Wales, arriving on 10 March 1794. He settled in Parramatta, becoming Chaplain, landowner and magistrate. He also earned a reputation as the "Flogging Parson", because even by the standards of his day, he inflicted extremely severe, cruel punishments. His savagery to convicts was probably the result of his hatred for Roman Catholics, as many convicts were political prisoners of Irish origin.
Despite his reputation in Australia, Marsden was instrumental in starting the Christian missions to New Zealand, where he and others were well received among the Maori people. He is credited with holding the first Christian service in the Islands on Christmas Day in 1814. Marsden is thus remembered favourably in New Zealand, and it is believed he is the one who introduced sheep to the islands.
1906 - Over 1060 workers are killed in a coal dust explosion in France.
Coal mining has a long history of being a perilous occupation. One of the biggest dangers is that coal dust itself is highly combustible, a problem compounded by the fact that the dust can adhere a centimetre in thickness to surfaces of pillars, walls and equipment in the mines, increasing the combustibility of the mine even further.
The idea that coal dust itself could present a problem met with considerable resistance as industrialisation powered the increasing need for coal in the nineteenth century. There was no way to mine coal without generating coal dust, so the problem was largely ignored. However, mine owners were forced to look at safety and working conditions following one of coal mining's most disastrous explosions, which occurred on 10 March 1906 at Courrieres, Pas-de-Calais, Northern France. A coal dust explosion killed between 1060 and 1099 workers. Following the tragedy, 45,000 went on strike for nearly two months against the appalling working conditions, ending only when the army suppressed the protests.
1969 - The killer of Martin Luther King is sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on 15 January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He became a Baptist minister, and African American civil rights activist. In his fight for civil rights, he organised and led marches for desegregation, fair hiring, the right of African Americans to vote, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted later into United States law with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Martin Luther King's life was tragically cut short when he was shot in the neck by a rifle bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on 4 April 1968. James Earl Ray, a man who harboured intense hatred of African-Americans, was convicted of his murder and, on 10 March 1969, was sentenced by a Memphis court to 99 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to the murder on the understanding that he would be put to death by the electric chair. Three days later, he retracted his plea of guilty, claiming he had been set up by a gun dealer in Montreal known only as Raoul. Until Ray's death on 23 April 1998, he fought for the trial his guilty plea had forestalled, even winning the support of Martin Luther King's own family.
1982 - The 'Jupiter Effect', in which Los Angeles is supposed to be ravaged by an immense earthquake following the alignment of the planets, fails to eventuate.
The 'Jupiter Effect' was a chain of cataclysmic events proposed by astrophysicist Dr John Gribbin and fellow author Stephen Plageman in 1974. Gribbin's theory suggested that when the nine planets of our solar system aligned in March 1982, it would trigger an enormous earthquake which would destroy Los Angeles. To summarise, the authors proposed that the tidal forces created by the alignment of all the planets on the same side of the sun would generate sunspots which would in themselves create solar flares. In turn, these solar flares would generate streams of solar particles which would then enter the earth's upper atmosphere, changing the weather, slowing the rate of the earth's rotation, and ultimately triggering earthquakes, especially on the American West Coast. Essentially, Earth would be caught in the centre of a huge gravity struggle between the sun and the other planets, particularly the gas giant Jupiter. John Gribbin retracted his own theory in the 17 July 1980 issue of New Scientist.
On 10 March 1982, the planets aligned, though not perfectly. All nine of the planets were on the same side of the sun, as predicted, but scattered over approximately 90 degrees, in what scientists call a "Grand Alignment". There were no cataclysmic disturbances, either on the earth or under it.
Cheers - John
Gday...
1864 - Over 240 are killed as the newly-completed Dale Dyke Dam bursts in Sheffield, England.
During the mid 1800s, in response to increasing demand for water, the Sheffield Waterworks Company planned four large reservoirs. Construction began on the first of these, the Dale Dyke Dam, on 1 January 1859, and the dam was completed by February 1864. By Friday, 11 March 1864, the new dam was almost full and work had already begun on the second dam in the area. A local worker returning home noticed a crack of a finger's width but quite some length running across the embankment. The Sheffield Waterworks' chief engineer, John Gunson, declared it merely a surface crack, but ordered the water level to be lowered anyway as a safeguard until the damage could be properly investigated.
By 11:30pm, water began to pour over the widening crack in increasing torrents until the dam suddenly burst. The resultant breach in the dam wall sent an estimated 3 million m³, or 700 million imperial gallons, of water flooding down the Loxley valley, through Loxley and Hillsborough, and then down the River Don through central Sheffield, Attercliffe and as far as Rotherham. Between 240 and 270 people who lived in Sheffield and the villages in the valley below the dam were killed. The flood subsided after half an hour, leaving a trail of destruction about 15km long. 415 dwelling houses, 106 factories/shops, 64 other buildings, 20 bridges and 4478 cottage/market gardens were either partially or totally destroyed. The cost of the flood was estimated at half a million pounds, an incredible sum for the time.
1871 - The springs after which Alice Springs, central Australia, was named are discovered.
The city of Alice Springs is located 1524 km from Darwin and 293 km north of the South Australian border. It is the second largest city in the Northern Territory, with a population of over 25 000.
In 1862, explorer John McDougall Stuart's third expedition succeeded in finding a route through the Centre of Australia to the north coast, navigating and mapping the country for white settlement. The construction of the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin was completed in 1872, making it viable for pastoralists to take up leases in the Red Centre. The springs after which the town was named were discovered on 11 March 1871 by the team building the Overland Telegraph Line. They lie to the north-east of the town and were named after the wife of Charles Todd, the man instrumental in securing the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line for South Australia. Surveyors William Whitfield Mills and John Ross both claim credit for the discovery of the springs.
Alice Springs was the name given to the telegraph repeater station which operated from 1872 to 1932. The actual town, originally surveyed in 1888, was 3km south of the telegraph station. Until the early 1930s, the official name of the town was Stuart. However, this created confusion for administrators in Adelaide, so on 31 August 1933 the township of Stuart was officially gazetted Alice Springs.
1952 - Douglas Adams, author of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', is born.
Douglas Noël Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge, England. He attended Brentwood School from 1959 to 1970; one incident which inspired Adams through many later periods of writer's block was when he took an English class, taught by Frank Halford, where Halford awarded Adams the only ten out of ten of Halford's entire teaching career for a creative writing exercise. Adams went on to have many of his reports and articles published in the school newspaper and magazine. An essay on religious poetry that mixed the Beatles with William Blake earned Adams a place at St John's College, Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature.
Some of Adams's early work appeared on BBC2 (television) in 1974, in an edited version of the Footlights Revue from Cambridge that year. This captured the attention of Monty Python's Graham Chapman, eventually leading to Adams contributing to skits for Monty Python. However, he is best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a science-fiction comedy radio series first pitched to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. The series led to Adams expanding the concept as a novel, and for adaptation to television. Adams also contributed to the Dr Who television series, particularly episodes starring Tom Baker.
Adams died of a heart attack on 11 May 2001, while working out at a private gym in Santa Barbara, California, where he had moved in 1999. He was survived by his wife Jane and daughter Polly. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery in north London.
1955 - Biologist and bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming dies.
Alexander Fleming was born near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 6 August 1881. He was educated at St Mary's Hospital medical school in London until World War I, when he gained further experience in a battlefield hospital in France. After seeing the effects of infections in dying soldiers, he increased his efforts to find an effective means of fighting infection.
It was Fleming's untidiness as a worker which led to his greatest discovery. In the summer of 1828 he went away for a holiday, but left a clutter of plates growing various bacteria lying about his desk. After his return, whilst working on an influenza virus he noticed that mould had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate, and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. Further experimentation proved that even a weaker-strength mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci. Thus, Fleming initiated the development and practice of antibiotic therapy for infectious diseases.
Practical difficulties with creating and isolating the discovery which he named Penicillin prevented Fleming from continuing his research. However, after 1939 two other scientists, Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, continued to work to develop a method of purifying penicillin to an effective form. The 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was shared between the three men. Fleming died of a heart attack on 11 March 1955: his legacy lies in the millions of lives that continue to be saved through his discovery of penicillin.
2004 - 170 die as bomb explosions devastate trains in Madrid.
On 11 March 2004, Madrid, Spain, became a target of terrorist attacks. A series of ten coordinated terrorist bombings which hit the city's commuter train system between 7:39am and 7:42am left 191 people dead and nearly 1,800 wounded. The attacks were the deadliest assault by a terrorist organisation against civilians in Europe since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 and the worst terrorist attack in modern Spanish history.
The attacks were initially believed to be the work of the Basque armed terrorist group ETA, or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, meaning "Basque Fatherland and Liberty". ETA, which usually claimed responsibility for its attacks, denied having any part in the train bombings. Later evidence strongly pointed to the involvement of extremist Islamist groups, with the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group named as a focus of investigations. This groups appeared to have links to Al-Qaeda. In October 2003, Osama bin Laden had issued a public threat to carry out suicide bombings against any countries joining the US-led invasion of Iraq. At the time, Spain had approximately 1,300 soldiers stationed in Iraq. In addition, bin Laden had spoken earlier of wishing to return the southern Spanish region of Andalucia to Muslim control, reversing the Reconquista of 1492. Responsibility for the attacks, however, has never been conclusively proven to belong to any one group.
Cheers - John
Still reading all your articles Rocky but nithing to say the last couple
I must be crook I reckon
Gday...
1868 - An attempt is made to assassinate Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, on his Australian tour.
Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, born on 6 August 1844, was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria. He entered the Royal Navy in 1856 and was appointed to the HMS Euryalus. He was promoted to lieutenant in February 1863 and captain in February 1866, being then appointed to the command of the frigate HMS Galatea. He was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Kent and Earl of Ulster in the peerage of the United Kingdom in May 1866.
While in command of the Galatea, the Duke of Edinburgh started from Plymouth in January 1867 for his voyage round the world. He travelled via Gibraltar and the Cape before landing at Glenelg, South Australia, on 31 October 1867. During his stay of nearly five months he visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tasmania. Being the first English prince to visit Australia, the Duke was received with great enthusiasm.
On 12 March 1868, whilst visiting Sydney and picnicking in the beachfront suburb of Clontarf, he was wounded in the back by a revolver fired by Henry James O'Farrell. The Prince was shot in the back just to the right of his spine, and was tended for the next two weeks, making a full recovery. He was able to resume command of his ship and return home in early April 1868. Henry James O'Farrell was arrested at the scene, quickly tried, convicted and hanged on 21 April 1868.
1913 - Canberra is named the capital city of Australia, before it is even built.
Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, had been rivals since before the goldrush days. It was therefore decided that the nation's capital should be situated between the two cities. A location was chosen which was 248km from Sydney and 483km from Melbourne. It was then necessary to select someone who could design a truly unique capital city. The competition to design Australia's new capital city, Canberra, was won in 1911 by Walter Burley Griffin.
The first survey peg marking the beginning of the development of the city of Canberra was driven in on 20 February 1913. However, the city did not yet have a name. A variety of names had been suggested, some tongue-in-cheek, such as Kangaremu, Australific and Meladneyperbane, which was a combination of the other state capital's names. Other choices included Olympus, Paradise, Captain Cook, Shakespeare, Eucalypta and Myola. The final choice remained a secret until the laying of the foundation stones on 12 March 1913. Lady Denman, wife of the Governor-General, then announced the name of the city as Canberra, believed to be a derivation of an Aboriginal word for 'meeting place'. Lady Denman's pronunciation was pivotal, as it determined for all time how Australians would say the name.
1921 - The first woman is elected to an Australian parliament.
South Australia was the first colony in Australia to give women the right to vote. This right occurred with the passing of a Bill on 18 December 1894, although a letter from the Attorney-General advising Governor Kintore that Royal Assent would be required to enact the Bill is dated 21 December 1894. The Bill was enacted when Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent on 2 February 1895. Women in South Australia voted for the first time in the election of 1896. Initially, the bill included a clause preventing women from becoming members of Parliament. Ironically, the clause was removed thanks to the efforts of Ebenezer Ward, an outspoken opponent of women's suffrage. Ward hoped the inclusion of women in Parliament would be seen as so ridiculous that the whole Bill would be voted out. The change was accepted, however, allowing the women of South Australia to gain complete parliamentary equality with men. Within thirty years, the first woman was elected to Federal Parliament in Australia.
Edith Cowan was born Edith Brown on 2 August 1861 on Glengarry Station near Geraldton, Western Australia. She married magistrate James Cowan when she was 18, and his work opened her eyes to the suffering of wives and children when the man of the family was sentenced to gaol. After becoming a magistrate of the Perth Childrens Court, a position she held for 18 years, Mrs Cowan campaigned heavily for the rights of children.
Although South Australian women had gained equal parliamentary rights with men towards the close of the 19th century, women in Western Australia had to wait until 1920. In 1921, Edith Cowan stood as the candidate for the Nationalist Party in West Perth, for the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia. On 12 March 1921, Mrs Cowan narrowly defeated the sitting member, state Attorney-General TP Draper, by just 46 votes. Thus, she became the first woman to be elected to any Australian Parliament. In her debut speech in Parliament, she stated:
"I stand here today in the unique position of being the first woman in an Australian Parliament. I know many people think perhaps that it was not the wisest thing to do to send a woman into Parliament ... The views of both sides are more than ever needed in Parliament today. If men and women can work for the State side by side and represent all the different sections of the community, and if the male members of the house would be satisfied to allow women to help them and would accept their suggestions when they are offered, I cannot doubt that we should do very much better work in the community than was ever done before."
Edith Cowan served in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly until 22 March 1924.
1928 - The St Francis Dam in California, USA, fails, killing between 400 and 500 people.
The building of the St Francis Dam in the San Francisquita Canyon of California was an ambitious project undertaken between 1924 and 1926, under the supervision of William Mulholland, an engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The dam was filled for the first time on 7 March 1928, but damkeeper Tony Harnischfeger was concerned about leaks. Mulholland dismissed them as minor. Five days later, Harnischfeger found a new leak which Mulholland's son felt could be serious; but again, Mulholland himself felt it to be typical of concrete dams, and declared the leaks safe.
At a few minutes before midnight on 12 March 1928, the dam collapsed, some 12 hours after Mulholland had inspected it. 45,000,000,000 L of water surged down San Francisquito Canyon, completely demolishing the heavy concrete walls of Power Station Number Two, a hydroelectric power plant, devastating anything in the valley, and flooding numerous smaller towns. The official death toll made in August 1928 stood at 385. However more bodies were discovered every few years until the 1950s, and the remains of another victim were found deep underground near Newhall in 1992. It is generally accepted that the death toll was between 400 and 500.
Investigations over the years have indicated a number of factors which contributed to the collapse of the St Francis dam. During its construction, Mulholland ordered the dam height to be increased by a total of 6m, without factoring in the need to widen the dam's base. Analysis of the concrete used in the dam wall has proven that insufficient water was used to mix the concrete, making the concrete brittle and more likely to fail. Further, it is known by modern geologists that the type of rock found in the San Francisquito Canyon is unsuitable for supporting a dam and a reservoir, but leading geologists of the time found no problems with it. Mulholland accepted a large part of the blame.
1994 - One of the most famous photographs of the Loch Ness Monster is confirmed as a hoax.
Loch Ness, or Loch Nis in Gaelic, is a large, deep freshwater lake in the Scottish Highlands, which extends for about 37 km southwest of Inverness. It is the second largest loch (lake) in Scotland, with a surface area of 56.4 km2, but is the largest in volume. It is 226 m deep at its deepest point. For centuries, witnesses have reported sighting a large monster with a long neck in Loch Ness, Scotland. Famous photographs have been proven to be hoaxes, but still the myth of the monster has persisted.
One such photograph was supposedly taken by surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson on 19 April 1934. The photograph appears to show the long neck and head of an unidentified water creature rising from the lake's surface. The picture, which became famously known as 'the surgeon's photo', was touted as absolute evidence of the existence of the Loch Ness monster. Sixty years later, on 12 March 1994, a big game hunter by the name of Marmaduke Wetherell admitted on his deathbed that he had faked the photograph. Dr Wilson's name had only been included to add credibility to the photograph, which was in fact nothing more than a fake serpent neck attached to the back of a toy submarine.
Cheers - John
Gday...
1781 - Seventh planet from the sun, Uranus, is discovered.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, with its mean distance from the sun being 2869.6 million km. A gas giant, it is third largest by diameter and fourth largest by mass. Uranus is made up mostly of rocks and various ices, with only about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. The planet was discovered by William Herschel on 13 March 1781, who reported it on 26 April 1781. Prior to Herschel's discovery, the planet was mistakenly identified as a star.
Herschel originally named it Georgium Sidus in honour of King George III of Great Britain but when it was noted that sidus means star and not planet, he renamed it the Georgian Planet, a name which was not accepted outside of Britain. Discussions amongs astronomers came up with a variety of names; the name Uranus was proposed by Johann Elert Bode, editor of the periodical, the 'Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch'. Because the name conformed to the classical mythology-derived names of other known planets, it was readily adopted by the scientific community.
William Herschel is also credited with discovering two of Uranus's 27 known moons, Titania and Oberon, on 11 January 1787.
1847 - Kennedy departs Parramatta to trace the course of the Barcoo River, hoping it will lead to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.
Edmund Kennedy was born on 5 September 1818, on the Island of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. He arrived in Australia in 1840, and took up the position of Assistant-Surveyor of New South Wales. Kennedy accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell's 1845-46 expedition to the interior of Queensland, where he gained much experience in exploration.
In 1847, Mitchell appointed Kennedy to lead a second expedition to trace the course of the Barcoo River in what is now south-western Queensland, in the hope that it would lead to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition left Parramatta on 13 March 1847, and followed the river north to Cooper Creek. This then flowed into the desert, proving it was not linked to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Never one to give up, Kennedy continued southwest, and discovered the Thomson River, on 20 August 1847. When he returned to his depot four weeks later, he was dismayed to find that Aborigines had dug up the expedition's carefully buried provisions, and mixed 181kg of flour with clay. This prevented Kennedy from continuing his northward trek, and he was forced to return prematurely to Sydney.
1875 - Giles departs Fowlers Bay on his third expedition to cross the western deserts.
Ernest Giles emigrated to Australia in 1850 and was employed at various cattle and sheep stations, allowing him to develop good bush skills. He made several expeditions in the Australian desert. The first, lasting four months, commenced in August 1872 and resulted in discoveries such as Palm Valley, Gosse's Bluff, Lake Amadeus, and the first sighting of Mount Olga.
Giles's next expedition departed in August 1873. On this expedition, Giles was able to approach closer to the Olgas, but his attempts to continue further west were thwarted by interminable sand, dust, biting ants, Aboriginal attack and lack of water. The loss of one of Giles's companions, Gibson, in April 1874 ended this second expedition, and the party arrived back at Charlotte Waters in July.
Giles was determined to explore the unknown country south of where Warburton and Forrest had explored, reaching Perth in the attempt. On 13 March 1875, Giles departed from Fowlers Bay, heading north first before crossing the western deserts. Although a short expedition, it was a difficult one, initially marked by severe water shortages until the discovery of permanent water holes. Less than a month after his return from this journey, Giles set out again to make an epic crossing through the Great Victoria Desert and back again.
1989 - The concept of the World Wide Web is proposed for the third time, and accepted.
The Internet and World Wide Web have revolutionised modern life. Now, by pressing a few buttons on the computer, all your physical needs and wants can be met. But where and when did it all begin?
In the 1980s, English physicist Tim Berners-Lee was a software consultant at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN). He graduated from the Queen's College at Oxford University, England in 1976. He built his first computer with a soldering iron and an old television.
On 13 March 1989, Berners-Lee gave his supervisor, Mike Sendall, a document entitled "Information Management: a Proposal". Tim Berners-Lee and Anders Berglund, both researchers at CERN, saw the need for a system of electronic document exchange. This proposal was an attempt to help make scientific papers readable on a large number of incompatible computer systems. Berners-Lee's creation was fuelled by a highly personal vision of the Web as a powerful force for social change and individual creativity. An open, non-proprietary, and free format for all people to use. Unfortunately, CERN remained unconvinced, and another 2 proposals were shelved as an interesting idea only. It wasn't until 25 December, 1990 that the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet was achieved. And the realisation of dream which continued to drive Tim for the next 3 years as he tried to convince people to use his invention. Robert Cailliau was a young student staff student at CERN who assisted Tim in his endeavours, and it should be noted that he was instrumental in seeing this now popular medium reach the populace.
1996 - 16 children and a teacher are killed by a gunman at Dunblane, Scotland.
Wednesday, 13 March 1996, will be a day long remembered by the people of the small town of Dunblane, Scotland. On that day, unemployed former shopkeeper Thomas Hamilton walked in to the gym hall of the primary school, armed with two pistols, two revolvers and 743 cartridges. He then opened fire, killing sixteen children, aged 4-6, and their teacher. He then turned the gun on himself, committing suicide.
Whilst Hamilton's motives will never be known, a public inquiry into the Dunblane massacre found that Hamilton had been investigated by police following complaints about his behaviour around young boys. Hamilton claimed in letters that rumours about him led to the collapse of his shop business in 1993, and in the last months of his life he complained again that his attempts to set up a boy's club were subject to persecution by the police and the scout movement.
Hamilton possessed licences for six of his guns; this led to criticism of the police for not questioning his purpose in owning so many. Following the Dunblane massacre, gun laws were tightened and in 1997, it became illegal to buy or possess a handgun.
Cheers - John
Gday...
1592 - Today is 'Pi Day', a celebration of the mathematical formula of Pi.
Pi, in mathematics, is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is represented by the symbol . The ratio is the same for all circles and is approximately 3.14159. March 14, written 3-14 in the USA date format, is an unofficial celebration for Pi Day derived from the common three-digit approximation for the number : 3.14. It is usually celebrated at 1:59 pm, in recognition of the six-digit approximation of 3.14159. Pi Day may be celebrated in a variety of ways. Groups of people, typically pi clubs, give thought to the role that the number has played in their lives. Pi celebrants may hand out Pi Day greeting cards, devise alternative values for , eat pi (pie), play pi (piñata), drink pi (Piña Colada) or watch (Pi (film)). Enthusiasts also note that the day happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday.
The ultimate pi day occurred on 14 March 1592 at 6:53am and 59 seconds. When written in American-style date format, this is 3/14/1592 6:53.59, which corresponds to the first twelve digits of pi: 3.14159265359 (rounded off, as the absolutely exact value of pi cannot be computed). However, considering this was well before any kind of standardised world time had been established, and the general public had no concept of , the occurrence likely went unnoticed.
1790 - Captain William Bligh arrives back in London a year after the Mutiny on the Bounty, in which he was cast off his own boat.
William Bligh was born in Plymouth, south-west England, on 9 September 1754. He was only 8 when he first went to sea. At age 22, he was chosen to join Captain Cook's crew on the 'Resolution', and became commander of the 'HMAV Bounty' eleven years later.
The famous mutiny on the Bounty occurred after Bligh left Tahiti on his way to the Caribbean. For reasons undetermined by historical records, Master's Mate Fletcher Christian led the mutiny, with the support of a small number of the ship's crew. On 28 April 1789, Bligh and his own supporters were set adrift on a 7m launch, and given a sextant and enough provisions to enable them to reach the closest ports, but no means of navigation. Bligh chose not to head for the closer Spanish ports, which would have slowed down the process of bringing the mutineers to justice, but used his recollection of Cook's maps to head for Timor on a 41-day journey of nearly six thousand kilometres. From here, he stood a better chance of communicating quickly to British vessels which could pursue the mutineers.
After recovering in Timor and being tended to by the inhabitants of the Dutch colony, Captain Bligh finally returned to England, arriving there on 14 March 1790. His men had suffered starvation, scurvy and dehydration. Whilst some of the died from the ravages of the journey, many of them survived to serve in the Royal Navy once more. Bligh himself was honourably acquitted in a London court, and later assigned as Governor to the fledgling colony of New South Wales.
1879 - Physicist Albert Einstein is born.
Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 at Ulm in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. At six he began learning to play the violin and became a gifted amateur violinist, although it is said that once, in a violent temper, he threw a chair at his teacher. Einstein was considered a slow learner, possibly due to dyslexia, simple shyness, or the significantly rare and unusual structure of his brain, which upon his request was removed and examined after his death. There is a persistent rumour that he failed mathematics later in his education, but this is untrue; a change in the way grades were assigned caused confusion years later.
Einstein was passionately interested in physics and mathematics and read eagerly in both subjects. He is perhaps best known for his development of the special and general theories of relativity. This theory considered all observers to be equivalent, not only those moving at a uniform speed. In general relativity, gravity is no longer a force, as it was in Newton's law of gravity, but is a consequence of the curvature of space-time. Einstein's equation E = mc2 proposed that the energy in matter is equal to its mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. This equation explained how stars, like our own sun, can emit large amounts of light while losing very little mass The equation also anticipated the splitting of the atom and led to the development of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb. Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.
In the early years of the 20th century Einstein advanced theories that proposed entirely new ways of thinking about space, time, and gravitation and revolutionised scientific and philosophic inquiry. He died on 18 April 1955.
1942 - Japanese bombers make the first of nine attacks against Horn Island in Torres Strait.
During World War II, the first real attack of the Japanese on an Australian base occurred with the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942. That attack scattered the naval base at Darwin and demoralised Australians. Darwin continued to be bombed dozens more times over the following months, while other localities, both on the Australian mainland and offshore, also came under fire.
Horn Island is a small island which lies off the tip of Queensland's Cape York Peninsula, in Torres Strait. Just 53 km2 in area, it is known as Nurupai by its indigenous inhabitants. The island was settled by Europeans during the nineteenth century, mined for gold during the 1890s, and established as a pearling centre in the first half of the twentieth century. In the opening years of World War II, a large Allied air base was built, named the Horn Island Aerodrome, and used as a staging base for Allied aircraft between Australia and New Guinea, while any non-military and non-indigenous people were evacuated to the mainland.
The first of nine Japanese bombing attacks occurred on Horn Island on 14 March 1942. Mid-morning, eight G4M1 Betty bombers departed the Japanese base at Rabaul and were joined by twelve A6M2 Zeros for escort from Lae. Reaching Horn Island at 11:25am, they dropped 78 x 60kg bombs, 32 of which struck the island. Fortunately, no-one on the ground was killed. The Japanese bombers were intercepted by nine Kittyhawks of the 7th Pursuit Squadron which shot down two Zeros and claimed one bomber.
The defence of Torres Strait from Horn Island remains a little-known facet of World War II, but it was crucial, as Horn Island was the nearest operational airbase to the Japanese forces in New Guinea. Interestingly, early in 1997, divers located the wreck of one of the Zeroes near Thursday Island.
1964 - The killer of President John F Kennedy's assassin is sentenced to the electric chair.
John F Kennedy, often known simply as JFK, was the 35th President of the United States. He served from 1961 until his presidential term was cut tragically short when he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, 22 November 1963 while on a political trip through Texas. Three shots were fired at his open-topped car, hitting him in the head and throat. He was taken to Parkland Hospital, but died thirty-five minutes after being shot. Kennedy was the fourth US President to be assassinated, and the eighth to die while in office.
Within an hour of the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and later charged with the assassination of President Kennedy. Two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald as he was being transferred from police headquarters in Dallas to the county jail, at the centre of a large crowd of police officers, reporters and camera crews.
On 14 March 1964, Jack Ruby was convicted of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, and sentenced to death in the electric chair. However, Ruby's lawyers appealed on the grounds that th
Gday...
As long as you could guarantee no fly-blown maggots
cheers - John
Hello rockylizard
Your historic post are very good reading, so thanks for that
Back in the day (JFK1963), in the first hours of confusion, as a normal teenager with better things to do, I was glued to the TV
-- Edited by Tony Bev on Monday 14th of March 2016 05:38:23 PM
Gday...
44 - Roman emperor Julius Caesar is assassinated, receiving between 23 and 35 stab wounds.
Gaius Julius Caesar was born on 13 July 100 BC in Rome. His conquest of Gaul extended the Roman territory all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, with the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC. He is regarded as one of the greatest military strategists of all time, as well as a brilliant politician. As leader of the Roman world, Caesar implemented extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He overthrew the already faltering government of the weak Republic, and was proclaimed Dictator for life. Caesar's friend Marcus Brutus conspired with around 60 other senators to assassinate Caesar in hopes of saving the Republic, and to prevent Caesar from being declared 'King'.
The assassination took place on 15 March 44 BC, known as the Ides of March, an auspicious day in the Roman calendar. It is said that a soothsayer warned Caesar ahead of time of the date. The phrases "Beware the Ides of March" and "Et tu, Brut?" (denoting the ultimate in betrayal from a friend) from Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', are two of the most remembered lines of any of Shakespeare's plays.
1840 - Strzelecki climbs and names Mt Kosciuszko, Australia's highest mountain.
Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, born 20 July 1797, was a Polish explorer and skilled geologist who emigrated to London following the national uprising against tsarist Russia in 1830. In 1839 he arrived in Australia, where he made influential friends, among them wealthy grazier James MacArthur. MacArthur was keen to explore promising-looking land in Australia's southeastern corner with the view to acquiring more grazing land and establishing a harbour from which to export pastoral products. Interested in the geology of the Great Dividing Range, Strzelecki agreed to accompany MacArthur, and the two departed from Ellerslie Station near Adelong, New South Wales, in February 1840.
A month later, the two men climbed Mt Townsend, believing it to be the highest peak in the Australian Alps. Using his numerous geological instruments, Strzelecki determined that another peak was higher. Whilst not interesting in acquiring land, Strzelecki was interested in the fame that accompanied important discoveries, and he was determined to climb the peak. He did so, on 15 March 1840, and named the mountain after a Polish patriot, Tadeusz Kosciuszko. At the time, Strzelecki determined the height of the mountain to be 6,510 feet (1984m) above sea level, but it is probable that, whilst making the steep and perilous descent during which he fell many times, Strzelecki damaged his instruments. The actual height of Kosciuszko is 7,316 feet, or 2228m.
1877 - The first international cricket Test Match on Australian ground begins at the Melbourne Cricket ground.
The sport of cricket is regarded as synonymous with Australia. Although Australia has no official sport, cricket is regarded as the countrys unofficial sport. The first reported cricket game took place in Sydney at what is now known as Hyde Park on 8 January 1804. Inter-colonial games began when a team Victoria travelled to Launceston, Tasmania for a game in February 1851. The first visit by an English cricket team to Australia occurred during Australia's summer of 1861-62. Australia reciprocated with a team to England, made up of indigenous players, in 1868. The team played 47 matches, of which they won 14, drew 19 and lost 14.
As cricket increased in popularity, Melbourne became the first city to establish a large cricket ground. Still the largest cricket ground in Australia and the Southern hemisphere, the MCG was developed after 1853, when the site was selected. The first cricket Test Match on Australian home ground between Australia and England began at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 15 March 1877. The match continued over four days, with Australia winning by 45 runs.
1917 - Russian Czar Nicholas II is forced to abdicate amidst civil war.
Czar Nicholas II, born Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov on 18 May 1868, was the last crowned Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. Nicholas was ill-prepared to receive the crown when his father died prematurely in 1894, and his inability to rule effectively was compounded by a number of difficult events during his reign. The failure of the Russo-Japanese War led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which Nicholas diffused only after signing a manifesto promising representative government and basic civil liberties in Russia. However, he recanted on a number of his promises, allowing the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups to gain wide support. World War I broke out on 1 August 1914, and although unprepared, Russia immediately attacked the German province of East Prussia. The Germans mobilised their armies efficiently and completely defeated the two invading Russian armies.
The cumulative effect of these events was that Russia suffered severe food shortages, soldiers became war-weary, and morale was at an all-time low. On 15 March 1917, Nicholas was forced to abdicate amidst civil war. A year later, on 17 July 1918, he and his wife, together with their five children, the family doctor and three attendants, were taken to the cellar of a house in Yekatarinburg, where they were executed by a firing squad.
1927 - An explanation is given in the southern newspaper, the 'Register', for the origin of the nickname "crow-eater" as applied to South Australians.
South Australians have long been referred to as "crow-eaters", and there have been numerous theories suggested through the years regarding the origin of the nickname. Several explanations for the term have been made through the years, the first being published in the newspaper, the 'Register', on 6 February 1925. On this day, the paper reported the following:
"[It] was first applied to some of the original settlers at Mount Barker who - whether from necessity or a desire to sample strange native fauna - killed, cooked and ate some crows disguised under the term "Mount Barker pheasants"... Later the term... was applied generally to all."
However, there is a strong possibility that the term originated with the goldrushes. On 15 March 1927, another report suggested the term originated as early as the 1850s. A reader recounted how, when his father and grandfather arrived at the gold diggings in Bendigo, upon being discovered as coming from South Australia they were accused of being "crow eaters". This was because their arrival had been preceded by another group of South Australians who had run out of food during their journey across from their home state and had been forced to shoot crows to eat. When they recounted their experience, they were dubbed "crow-eaters", a term which was henceforth applied to all new arrivals from South Australia.
3019 - The Battle of Pelennor Fields in JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' will take place.
JRR Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Tolkien is best known for his novels 'The Hobbit' (1937) and the classic trilogy 'The Lord of the Rings' (published 1954-56), encompassing 'The Fellowship of the Ring', 'The Two Towers' and 'The Return of the King'.
According to the third novel in the 'Lord of the Rings' series, the Battle of Pelennor Fields will take place on 15 March, TA 3019. TA refers to "Third Age", a time period which will begin after the first downfall of the Dark Lord Sauron (the main antagonist in the series), and which will be marked by the waning of the Elves. The Battle of Pelennor Fields will be between the forces of Gondor and its allies, and those of Sauron, to determine who will win the city of Minas Tirith. The site of the battle, Pelennor Fields, is located between Minas Tirith and the River Anduin.
Cheers John
PS that covered a few centuries
Very interesting read, thanks for that
Re 1927
Now that I know how the Croweaters were named, I do not feel so bad being called a Sandgroper
Gday...
1774 - Sea explorer and the first to circumnavigate Australia, Matthew Flinders, is born.
Matthew Flinders was born on 16 March 1774 in Lincolnshire, England. In 1789, he entered the Royal Navy. He became a sea explorer, and arrived in Australia in the 1790s. Together with George Bass, Flinders completed much sea exploration around Australia, adding to the knowledge of the coastline, and producing accurate maps. Flinders, together with Bass, was the first to prove that Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, was an island and not connected to the mainland. Flinders was also the first to circumnavigate the continent, and between December 1801 and June 1803, he charted most of the coastline of Australia. Australia was previously known as New Holland, and Flinders first proposed the name "Terra Australis", which became "Australia", the name adopted in 1824.
Flinders was captured by the French on the island of Mauritius in 1803. He was kept prisoner until 1810 on the grounds that he was a spy. He was finally released to return to England, but his health began to fail and he died young, on 19 July 1814. Before his death he completed a book on his travels called 'A Voyage to Terra Australis', and died on the day that his book was published.
1949 - The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is established.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, or ASIO, is the national security service of Australia. Its main role is to gather information and produce intelligence in order to safeguard national security, which the organisation defines as "the protection of Australia's territorial and border integrity from serious threats, and the protection of Australia and its people from espionage, sabotage, politically motivated violence, the promotion of communal violence, attacks on Australia's defence system, and acts of foreign interference."
ASIO was originally established in response to perceived threats to Australia's national security following World War II. During the post-war period, it was revealed that sensitive British and Australian government data was being leaked through Soviet diplomatic channels. Investigations tracked the leak to a spy ring which was operating from the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. As a result, then-Prime minister Ben Chifley issued a Directive for the "Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service" on 16 March 1949. This later became the 'Australian Security Intelligence Organization', the name of which was amended in 1999 to 'Australian Security Intelligence Organisation' in line with Australian standard spelling.
The first Director-General of Security was South Australian Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Reed, and it was he who gave the organisation its name. ASIO was modelled on MI5, the Security Service of the UK, and an MI5 liaison team was attached to ASIO during the early 1950s to guide and advise the development of ASIO's duties and operations. By 2008, ASIO had established liaison relationships with 311 authorities in 120 countries. It remains integral to Australia's national security, fulfilling the role for which it was established.
1968 - American soldiers massacre villagers in My Lai, Vietnam.
During the Vietnam War, the Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam was suspected of being a haven for guerrillas of the People's Liberation Armed Forces and other cadres of the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (NLF), also called the "Viet Cong". The military was determined to wipe out all NLF operatives - real or imagined.
Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, American Division arrived in Vietnam in December 1967. US military intelligence believed that the 48th battalion of the NLF had taken refuge in a nearby village, My Lai. Charlie Company was advised by US military command that any genuine civilians at My Lai would have left their homes to go to market early. They were told that they could assume that all who remained behind were either VC or active VC sympathisers. They were instructed to destroy the village.
A memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names of villagers who were executed on the morning of 16 March 1968, including old men, women, children, and babies. Some were tortured or raped. Dozens were herded into a ditch and executed with automatic weapons.
Not all troops were in agreement with the action: a US Army helicopter crew saved a group of villagers by landing between the American troops and the remaining Vietnamese hiding in a bunker. The 24-year-old pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., confronted the leaders of the troops and threatened to open fire on them if they continued their attack on civilians.
1973 - The current London Bridge, the most recent of many, is opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
There have been a number of different London Bridges over the past 2000 years. In 46AD, the Romans built the first bridge across the Thames River; it was a simple wooden construction which was burnt down in 1014. The replacement bridge was destroyed by a storm in 1091, and the next bridge after that was destroyed again by fire in 1136.
Forty years later, a new stone bridge was constructed by Peter of Colechurch between 1176 and 1209. This bridge contained an intricate complex of houses, shops and a chapel, had 19 small arches and a drawbridge with a gatehouse at each end. It was so heavily populated that it was made a ward of the City with its own alderman. Due to the heavy population of the bridge, it suffered damage from many fires over the years, deaths from fire and deaths from drowning as the many arches produced vigorous rapids underneath. The houses were not removed from the bridge until the mid 1700s.
By the early 1800s, traffic congestion and the dangers posed by the bridge prompted the necessity for a new bridge. Engineer John Rennie started construction in 1825 and finished the bridge in 1831. The design was superior, containing only five high arches, and constructed from strong Dartmoor granite. It was opened by King William the fourth in 1831. However, a necessary widening process some 70 years later weakened the bridge's foundations to the point where it began sinking an inch every eight years. In 1968, it was auctioned and sold for $2,460,000 to Robert McCulloch who moved it to Havasu City, Arizona, where it was rebuilt brick by brick, and finally opened and dedicated in October 1971.
The current London Bridge was constructed by contractors John Mowlem from 1967 to 1972 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 March 1973. It was built in conjunction with the careful dismantling of the previous bridge, so that a river crossing was maintained in use at the site at all times.
1978 - Former Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, is kidnapped at gunpoint.
Aldo Moro, born 23 September 1916, was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers. He served as Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968, and again from 1974 to 1976. One of the most important leaders of Democrazia Cristiana, or DC (in English the Christian Democrats), Moro was considered an intellectual and an exceptional mediator, especially in the internal life of his party.
On 16 March 1978, Moro was kidnapped by militant members of the Red Brigades, a left-wing terrorist group formed in 1970 with the sole aim of overthrowing capitalist Italy by violent means. Moro's five police bodyguards were killed when he was kidnapped at gunpoint from a car near a cafe in full view of rush-hour witnesses, whilst being driven to a session of the house of representatives. The Red Brigades proposed to exchange Moro's life for the freedom of 13 Red imprisoned Red Brigades terrorists. However, the government immediately took a hardline position on terrorist requests, that the "State must not bend". Moro was held at a secret location in Rome and permitted to send letters to his family and fellow politicians, begging the government to negotiate with his captors. There has been some conjecture since then that the letters contained cryptic messages for his family and colleagues.
Moro was executed at gunpoint around 9 May 1978, and his body found in the boot of a car in Via Caetani in central Rome. Most of their leading members of the Red Brigades were captured and imprisoned by the mid-1980s.
1988 - The northern Iraq Kurdish city of Halabja is bombarded with chemical weapons, killing thousands of civilians.
The war between Iran and Iraq, also known as the First Persian Gulf War, began when Iraq invaded Iran on 22 September 1980. The two countries had a long history of border disputes, going right back to when the countries were the kingdoms of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and Persia (Iran). Catching Iranian forces by surprise, Iraq held the advantage early in the war. However, Iran mounted a successful counter-offensive in 1982, regaining lost ground.
The Halabja poison gas attack was the largest-scale chemical weapons attack against a civilian population in modern times. It began early in the evening of 16 March 1988, when a group of eight aircraft maintained a chemical bombardment all night on Halabja, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq. The attack involved multiple chemical agents, including mustard gas, and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX. The final death toll was between 3,200 people and 5,000, whilst up to 10,000 more were injured. Initially the bombardment was believed to have originated from Iran. However, evidence now suggests that the attack was an Iraqi assault against Iranian forces, pro-Iranian Kurdish forces and Halabja's citizens during a protracted battle.
The United Nations Security Council repeatedly called upon both countries to end the conflict, but it was not until August of 1988 that a ceasefire was agreed to. Ultimately, the war changed the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, and led to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Cheers - John
Gday...
461 - Today is St Patrick's Day, celebrating the patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick's Day, celebrated on March 17, is the Irish feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St Patrick was born around the year 386, in a village along the west coast of Britain. As a teenager, Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave to a Druidic chieftain named Milchu. His enslavement significantly strengthened his faith. He escaped at the age of twenty-two, and spent twelve years in a monastery in Auxerre, where he adopted the name Patrick (Patricius, in Old Irish spelled Pádraig). One night he heard voices begging him to return to Ireland, and thus he became one of the first Christian missionaries in Ireland.
Missionaries such as Secundus and Palladius had been active in Ireland, but Patrick made a greater impact, travelling throughout the country preaching, teaching, building churches, opening schools and monasteries, converting chiefs and bards, and everywhere supporting his preaching with miracles.
It is believed that St Patrick died on 17 March 461. St Patrick's Day has grown in importance through the centuries, to the point where countries around the world, as well as Ireland itself, celebrate with parades and festivities.
1830 - Sturt's party reaches the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers on their arduous journey upstream to Sydney.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling. Pleased with Sturt's discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. Sturt followed the Murrumbidgee in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume).
Sturt continued to trace the course of the Murray southwards, arriving at Lake Alexandrina, from which he could see the open sea of the southern coast, in February 1830. However, the expedition then had to face an agonising journey rowing back up the Murray against the current. The men rowed in shifts from dawn until dusk each day, low on rations, through extreme heat, and against the floodwaters heading downstream. On 17 March 1830, they reached the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. By the time they reached their depot at Maude on the Murrumbidgee, they had rowed and sailed 3,000 km on Australia's inland rivers, with no loss of life.
1910 - The first flight of a powered aircraft in Australia is made by Frederick Custance, near Adelaide.
Frederick C 'Fred' Custance, a motor mechanic who migrated from England in 1906, was born in 1889. It is believed that Fred Custance was the first person to make a controlled flight of a powered aircraft in Australia. Custance flew a Bleriot monoplane for 5 minutes and 25 seconds near Bolivar, not far from Adelaide, capital city of South Australia. Custance allegedly took off at 5:00am on 17 March 1910 for his first flight; on his second flight, which departed at 6:15am, he over-corrected the elevator and crashed, damaging the plane. The flight was witnessed by F H Jones, owner of both the aircraft and the property where the flight took place, but later conflicting accounts by Jones have cast doubt on who flew the aircraft, and whether or not the flight did, in fact, even take place.
1912 - Lawrence Oates, of Scott's ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic, utters his famous last words: 'I am just going outside and I may be some time.'
Robert Falcon Scott, born in 1868, was a Royal Naval officer and explorer who commanded the National Antarctic Expedition in Discovery which began in 1900. In December 1902, Scott's expedition reached the farthest point south of any known exploration party. Following new discoveries in the Antarctic region, Scott was keen to be the first to reach the South Pole. He took with him Lieutenant Henry Bowers, Dr Edward Wilson, Petty Officer Edgar Evans and army Captain Lawrence Oates. Upon reaching the Pole on 17 January 1912, he found that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it by just one month.
Scott's party made slow progress, due to a combination of particularly severe weather, and their own determination to forge ahead laden with their rock samples. Evans died after a fall which resulted in a quick physical and mental breakdown. Lawrence Oates lost a foot to frostbite and was suffering residual effects of an old war wound. Oates is remembered as the consummate British sacrificial hero as, feeling he was holding the party back, he departed their shelter one morning, uttering the famous words, "I am just going outside and I may be some time." This was on 17 March 1912. He did not return. The bodies of the remaining three members of Scott's party were found in their camp on 10 February 1913, just twenty kilometres from a substantial depot of supplies. With them were their diaries detailing their journey and their demise.
1966 - The Queens Commendation is awarded to personnel who disarmed a WWII sea mine which washed up on the beach at Surfers Paradise earlier in March.
In March 1966, Surfers Paradise in Queensland was already a popular destination for holiday-makers. The region became a scene of considerable drama when a German sea mine, believed to have been adrift since the 1940s, washed up on the Esplanade beach.
The sea mine was first detected near the Southport Bar by the crew of the 'Heather', a Gold Coast trawler. At first, the 'Heather' and a second trawler, the 'Winnie Vee', attempted to tow the mine out to sea using a net. Their attempts were unsuccessful as the towing net was cut by barnacles and shells. Residents were then evacuated, while police and personnel from the Royal Australian Navy cordoned off the area. The mine was observed for two days, while navy personnel determined whether or not it could be moved.
The greatest danger posed by the mine was a self-explosion mechanism beneath a hatch. Lieutenant Tom Parker, leading an RAN Clearance Diving Team, secured the mine onto a specially built sledge, and the explosive was moved slowly to a deserted part of The Spit, a procedure which took most of the night. The self-explosion mechanism, which was essentially a booby trap, was prepared for "delousing", in a procedure which took until the following afternoon. Following this, around 250kg of explosives were removed from the mine and detonated on the beach.
On 17 March 1966, Lt Parker and personnel from the RAN Clearance Diving Team were awarded the Queens Commendation for their successful operation.
Cheers - John
Very good read, thanks for these posts
1830 shows just some of the hardships the early settlers endured. When the going got tough, the tough had no other option, but to get going.
Gday...
1314 - The leader of the order of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, is executed.
The order of the Knights Templar was founded around 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade. The order was recognised at the Council of Troyes in 1128 and confirmed by Pope Honorius III. The order grew to become one of the most powerful in Europe. The Knights Templar started lending money to Spanish pilgrims who wanted to travel to the Holy Land, and they gained wealth as the Church showered blessings and money on the order; but with the wealth came power and corruption. Pope Clement V urged Philip IV of France to find some means to extinguish their presence and power.
Thus it was that on 13 October 1307, Philip IV ordered the arrest of the entire order of Knights Templar in France, and had their possessions confiscated. This act served as the origin of the superstition which regards Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. The knights were put on trial and were tortured to extract confessions of sacrilegious practices, including heresy and witchcraft. Many were burnt and tortured, and under duress, admitted to a variety of heresies. These admissions were later retracted as being forced admissions. The leader of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was executed on 18 March 1314, by which time the Templars had been virtually hunted out of existence.
1910 - American escapologist, Harry Houdini, makes Australia's first officially recorded controlled, powered flight of an aircraft.
Frederick C 'Fred' Custance is believed by some to be the first person to fly a powered aircraft in Australia. Custance flew a Bleriot monoplane for 5 minutes and 25 seconds near Bolivar, South Australia, on 17 March 1910. The flight was witnessed by F H Jones, owner of both the aircraft and the property where the flight took place, but later conflicting accounts by Jones have cast doubt on who flew the aircraft, and whether or not the flight did, in fact, even take place.
The first controlled flight of a powered aircraft in Australia to be authenticated took place on 18 March 1910, by American escapologist, Harry Houdini. Houdini powered a Voisin biplane, reaching an altitude of about 30 metres over a distance of ten kilometres for 7 minutes and 37 seconds. At least thirty people were present to witness the flight near Digger's Rest, a small town about 30km northwest of Melbourne, Victoria. It was Australia's first officially recorded powered flight.
1922 - The first section of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria is officially opened.
The Great Ocean Road is a scenic highway in southern Victoria which begins at Torquay and extends west for 243 km, ending at Allansford, just east of Warrnambool. Hailed as an engineering feat for its time, the road was built by around 3000 returned servicemen, or Diggers, following World War I.
The concept of such a road was first put forward as early as the 1870s. Settlers along the coast could only reach the larger communities inland via rough tracks over the Otway ranges, so calls were made for either a rail or road route connecting these otherwise isolated coastal settlements. Shortly after Geelong businessmen E H Lascelles and Walter Howard Smith proposed a road be built between Geelong and Lorne, the Country Roads Board (CRB) was formed in 1912. Following World War I, CRB chairman William Calder suggested that returned Diggers be gainfully employed on various road projects, including a road extending from Barwon Heads to Warrnambool. The plan was soundly approved by Mayor of Geelong, Howard Hitch****, who saw not only the value in such a road for tourism, but also as a permanent memorial to the many thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in the Great War.
The Great Ocean Road Trust was officially formed on 22 March 1918, and surveying began in August of that year. On 19 September 1919, the project to construct the Great Ocean Road was officially launched by the Premier of Victoria, Harry Lawson. Taking 13 years to complete, the road is regarded as a tremendous engineering feat for the 1920s. With the absence of any machinery at the time, it required back-breaking manual labour as the men had only shovels, picks and horse-drawn carts to hew out the rocky cliffside. The first section, extending from Lorne to the Eastern View section of the Great Ocean Road, was officially opened on 18 March 1922. The second official opening occurred on 27 April 1932, and this celebrated the extension of the road to Warrnambool.
Although modernised since its original construction, the Great Ocean Road continues to stand as the world's largest memorial to the soldiers of World War I.
1944 - Dick Smith, Australian businessman, entrepreneur and aviator, is born.
Dick Smith was born on 18 March 1944 in Roseville, Sydney. In 1968, he founded electronics retailer Dick Smith Electronics, which he sold to Woolworths in 1982. A multi-millionaire, he generously supports charities whilst also encouraging the growth of the Australian product market. To that end, he has launched a range of products which are entirely Australian made and Australian owned, such as Dick Smith foods, which he founded in 1999.
Dick Smith has made a number of 'firsts' as an aviator. In 1983, he made the first solo helicopter flight around the world, landing on container ships at sea to refuel. In 1987, he made the first helicopter flight to the North Pole, and he was the first person to fly around the world via the poles in 1989. In 1993, he made the first non-stop balloon crossing of the Australian continent, and in 2000 he made the first Trans-Tasman Balloon flight.
Other achievements include founding the magazine Australian Geographic in 1985, a National Geographic-style magazine focusing on Australia. Smith was named Australian of the Year in 1986. In 1992, he was awarded the Lindbergh Award, an annual world-wide award given to one individual for lifetime achievement for a balance between technical advancement and environmental preservation.
1990 - The first and only free elections in the history of East Germany are held, signalling the end of the country's existence.
Following Germany's defeat in World War II, Germany was split into two separately controlled countries. West Germany, also known as the Federal Republic of Germany, was proclaimed on 23 May 1949, with Bonn as its capital. As a liberal parliamentary republic and part of NATO, the country maintained good relations with the Western Allies. East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic, was proclaimed in East Berlin on 7 October 1949. It adopted a socialist republic, and remained allied with the communist powers, being occupied by Soviet forces.
The Soviet powers began to dwindle in the late 1980s, and the Communist Party in East Germany began to lose its grip on power. On 18 March 1990, the first and only free elections in the history of East Germany were held, producing a government whose major mandate was to negotiate an end to itself and its state. The German "Einigungsvertrag" (Unification Treaty) was signed on 31 August 1990 by representatives of West Germany and East Germany. German reunification took place on 3 October 1990, when the areas of the former East Germany ceased to exist, having been incorporated into The Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany.
Cheers - John