If Dr Who, had been on that bus Dougwe, we would now know him as Dr Whonomore, LOL

The largest piece found, was on display at the Kalgoorlie Town Hall, it fitted on a small trailer.
It was a tank of some description, covered with green fibreglass type strips, approximately just over one cubic metre in volume

Gday...

1770  -             Lieutenant James Cook discovers and names Queenland's Glass House Mountains.

Lieutenant James Cook was not the first to discover Australia, as he was preceded by numerous Portuguese and Dutch explorers. However, he was the first to sight and map the eastern coastline. Cook's ship, the 'Endeavour', departed Plymouth, England, on 26 August 1768. After completing the objective of his mission, which was to observe the transit of Venus from the vantage point of Tahiti, Cook went on to search for Terra Australis Incognita, the great continent which some believed to extend round the pole. After spending nearly a year charting the coastline of New Zealand, which had been documented by Abel Tasman in 1642, he set sail east.

On 19 April 1770, Cook's crew first sighted land, although it was not known whether the land belonged to an island or a continent. The land was in fact the far southeastern corner of the Australian continent, and Cook went on to chart the eastern coast of what was then known as New Holland, claiming it for Great Britain under the name of New South Wales.

Cook named many points of interest along the way. On 17 May 1770, he sighted and named the Glass House Mountains, which lie in what is now Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland. He named the series of volcanic plugs Glass House because they reminded him of Yorkshire's glass furnace chimneys. On this day, he also documented Noosa Head.

1893  -             Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination sparked WWI, arrives in Australia for a tour marked by hunting parties and barbeques.

His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este, was born 18 December 1863. He was an Archduke of Austria and from 1896 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Archduke was one of the leading advocates of maintaining the peace within the Austro-Hungarian government during both the Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909 and the Balkan Wars Crises of 1912-1913.

On 17 May 1893, the Archduke arrived in Sydney, Australia. His visit was unique in that he spent much time hunting in the New South Wales outback, near the then-remote towns of Nyngan and Narromine. In his diary, Ferdinand noted a dislike for the barbeques organised for his hunting parties, and he remarked on the "wasteful" practice of ringbarking trees for clearing. He was also astonished by, and admired, the speed and endurance of Australian horses.

Following the completion of his tour in Australia, the Archduke then went on to the United States, where his most notable observation was disgust at the Americans' attitude to and treatment of the poor.

Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated by "The Black hand", a secret nationalistic Serb society, at approximately 11:00am on 28 June 1914. The assassination led to war between Austria and Serbia, which escalated into World War I as other European countries allied themselves with one side or the other.

1902  -             Archaeologist Spyridon Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, believed to be an early clockwork mechanism from circa 87 BC.

Spyridon Stais was a leading archaeologist working a shipwreck that had been discovered at a depth of about 40 metres off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900. On 17 May 1902, divers retrieving statues and other items from the wreck brought up a piece of rock which had a gear wheel embedded in it. The item, which has become known as the Antikythera mechanism, is one of the oldest surviving geared mechanisms, made from bronze in a wooden frame.

Since its discovery, scientists have theorised over its purpose. The most commonly accepted theory of its function is that it was an analog computer designed to model the movements of heavenly objects. Recent working reconstructions of the device support this analysis. The device is all the more impressive for its use of a differential gear, which was previously believed to have only been invented in the 16th century.

1909  -             Professor Julius Sumner Miller is born.

Julius Sumner Miller, the man who popularised science with children, was born on 17 May 1909. Sumner Miller studied under Albert Einstein, but was best known for his work on children's television programs, being Disney's "Professor Wonderful" on The Mickey Mouse Club and in Canada, the "mad professor" on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. In Australia, Sumner Miller's catchphrase was "Why is it so?", and this was also the title of his show which was broadcast from 1963 to 1986. In "Why Is It So?", he piqued children's (and adults') curiosity by investigating common questions by using common household equipment to conduct experiments.

One of Sumner Miller's more popular experiments showed how air pressure could exert sufficient force on a boiled egg (with shell removed) to push it into a milk bottle which had an opening of lesser circumference than that of the egg. Unfortunately, Sumner Miller omitted information on how to then remove the egg: subsequently, milk factories all over Australia encountered the problem of having to scrap returned milk bottles with boiled eggs inside.

Sumner Miller died of leukaemia on 14 April 1987. Information on how to remove the boiled egg can be found at:

http://physics.about.com/cs/airandfluidexp/a/210603.htm

1943  -             The Day of the Dam-Busters: During WW2, Britain carries out strategic bombing attacks on crucial dams in Germany's industrial region.

The Ruhr Valley in northwestern Germany was Germany's main industrial region during the first half of the twentieth century. Bordered by the Ruhr, Rhine and Lippe Rivers, it holds three major dams, the Möhne, Sorpe and the Edersee Dams, which were key producers of hydroelectric power during World War II. The industrial area was also central to the manufacture of Germany's war munitions.

During World War II, the dams became the target of a series of bold bombing raids by Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). The "bouncing bomb" was invented and developed by Barnes Wallis, Assistant Chief Designer at British engineering firm Vickers. When dropped from the correct angle and height, the bomb was designed to skip over the surface of the water, thus avoiding obstacles such as torpedo nets. After executing a series of bounces, it would reach the dam wall, where its residual backward spin would cause the bomb to run down the side of the dam to its underwater base, exploding and damaging the dam wall.

Codenamed Operation Chastise, the raid was carried out over the night of 16-17 May 1943. It was a dangerous assignment as the aircraft dropping the bombs had to avoid German anti-aircraft fire while flying low enough to deploy the bombs. 53 of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack were killed. The dam walls of the Möhne and Edersee were destroyed, while the Sorpe received minor damage. With an estimated two-thirds of the area's water supply compromised, massive flooding inundated the Ruhr Valley. Several underground mines were flooded, numerous factories were destroyed and over a hundred damaged, along with over a thousand houses. Many roads, railways and bridges were flooded in a radius of about 80km from the breaches. Two hydro-electric powerplants were destroyed and seven others damaged, causing massive disruption to the industrial region for at least two weeks. At least 1,650 people were killed, and hundreds more were never found: over one thousand of these were foreign prisoners of war and forced-labourers, mostly from the Soviet Union prison camps.

Although later analysis indicates the operation was not the military and strategic success it was believed to be at the time, it proved to be a tremendous morale-booster for the British. An interesting, although unexpected, result was the development of improved bombing technology as a result of acceptance of Barnes Wallis's ideas. His concept of "earthquake bombing", which had been previously rejected, was now accepted. This involved dropping a large, specially designed heavy bomb at supersonic speed so it penetrated underground and exploded, with the resulting shockwaves producing the equivalent of a small earthquake. Nearby structures such as dams, railways, viaducts and other crucial infrastructure would be destroyed, especially as any concrete foundations served to magnify the effects of the bomb. Ultimately, this led to the development of the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, which caused catastrophic damage to German infrastructure in the latter part of the war.

1973  -             Televised hearings begin on the Watergate affair.

The Watergate scandal was an American political scandal and constitutional crisis that led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon. It began with a burglary at the Watergate Apartment complex. On 17 June 1972, five men were caught searching through confidential papers and bugging the office of President Nixon's political opponents, the Democratic National Committee. One of the men, James McCord, was officially employed as Chief of Security at the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP), indicating that the burglary was linked to US President Nixon's re-election campaign.

On 17 May 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities began televised proceedings on the escalating Watergate scandal. On 24 July 1973, it was revealed that Nixon had secretly taped all conversations in the Oval Office. With this information available, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered President Richard Nixon to surrender the tape recordings. After prevaricating for three months, Nixon finally produced the tapes.

The break-in, resultant cover-up by Nixon and his aides, and the subsequent investigation ultimately led to the resignation of the President on 9 August 1974, preventing his impeachment by the Senate. When President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon a month later, this prevented any criminal charges from being filed against the former president.

Cheers - John

Hello rockylizard

This is a great topic as always, so please keep it up

Re 1909 - Professor Julius Sumner Miller is born.

I have always liked to know "Why is it so"

I have just had a quick read about him in WikipediA on the Internet.

He had a masters degree and a PhD in physics, but due to the Great Depression era, he ended up working as a Butler for two years.
He finally received work, utilising his academic skills, after submitting 700 applications.
I can only "dips my lid to him", for persevering to enter his chosen profession

Gday...

1841  -             Eyre's sole surviving companion, Wylie the Aborigine, gorges himself on a penguin and most of a kangaroo.

Edward John Eyre was the first white man to cross southern Australia from Adelaide to the west, travelling across the Nullarbor Plain to King George's Sound, now called Albany. Eyre originally intended to cross the continent from south to north, taking with him his overseer, John Baxter, and three Aborigines. He was forced to revise his plans when his way became blocked by the numerous saltpans of South Australia, leading him to believe that a gigantic inland sea in the shape of a horseshoe prevented access to the north.

Following this fruitless attempt, Eyre regrouped at Streaky Bay on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. He then continued west, which had never before been attempted, in a gruelling journey across the Nullarbor, during which his party faced starvation and thirst. Eyre's overseer, Baxter, was killed on the night of 29 April 1841, as he tried to stop two of the expedition's Aborigines from raiding the meagre supplies. After Baxter died, Eyre was left with just one loyal companion, the Aborigine Wylie. The two continued on, trying to outrun the Aborigines whilst subsisting on very few rations.

On 18 May 1841, Eyre and Wylie found that the hard, porous limestone gave way to land that was more promising by the beach, with grass for the horses and an abundance of food for the men. Eyre wrote in his journal that Wylie ate:

"... the entrails, paunch, liver, lights, tail and two hind legs of [a] young kangaroo, next followed a penguin that he found dead upon the beach, upon this he forced down the whole of the hide of the kangaroo after singeing the hair off, and wound up this meal by swallowing the tough skin of the penguin ..." Eyre and Wylie rested at this place, Point Malcolm, for another week before continuing their journey westwards.

1854  -             Australia's first horse-drawn railway line commences operations in South Australia.

Victoria is generally accepted as the first place in Australia to have had a completed railway line. The first steam train in Australia made its maiden voyage on 12 September 1854, running between Flinders Street and Sandridge, now Port Melbourne. However, the first railway ever to run in Australia was actually in South Australia.

South Australia was one of only two Australian states to have been founded by free settlers (the other being Western Australia), and the only state that remained entirely free of convicts during its early history. Its capital city, Adelaide, was designed by Colonel William Light, who arrived in South Australia in 1836.

The southern colony quickly grew, fed by immigrants and free settlers in search of a better life or escaping religious persecution. South Australia was known for a number of "firsts". It was the site where Australia's first paddle steamer was launched. It was the site from which both the first east to west crossing and successful south to north crossing of the continent was undertaken. It was also the first colony to implement a railway.

South Australia began operations of horse-drawn trains on 18 May 1854. The line ran from Goolwa, on the Murray River, to the harbour at Port Elliot, and was used to move supplies between craft navigating the Murray River, and coastal and ocean-going vessels. After numerous vessels were shipwrecked at the entrance to the bay, the terminus was moved from Port Elliot and the line extended to Victor Harbor, in 1864.

1910  -             Halley's comet passes in front of the sun in a spectacular light show.

Halley's Comet, officially designated 1P/Halley, is from the Kuiper belt and visits the inner solar system in a 76-year orbit. Its nucleus is potato-shaped, with dimensions around 8 by 8 by 16 kilometres. Its surface is composed largely of carbon, and other elements include water, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, other hydrocarbons, iron, and sodium.

When Halley's Comet returned in May 1910, its appearance was notable for several reasons: it was the first approach of which photographs exist, and the comet made a relatively close approach, making it a spectacular sight. On 18 May 1910, the comet transited, or appeared to move across the face of the Sun's disc, and the Earth actually passed through its tail. At the time, the comet's tail was known to contain poisonous cyanogen gas. The media picked up this fact and, despite the pleas of astronomers, wove sensational tales of mass cyanide poisoning engulfing the planet. In reality, the gas is so diffuse that the world suffered no ill-effects from the passage through the tail.

The May 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet is not to be confused with the Great Daylight Comet of 1910, which surpassed Halley in brilliance and was actually visible in broad daylight for a short time, about four months before Halley returned.

1980  -             Mount St Helens, Washington state, USA, erupts in spectacular fashion.

Mount St Helens is an active volcano in Skamania County, Washington, located 154 km south of Seattle and 85 km northeast of Portland, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. After having been dormant for 123 years, Mt St Helens erupted on 18 May 1980 with an blast estimated to have been 500 times as powerful as that caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in WWII. 57 people were killed, and 65,000 hectares (or 160,000 acres) of forest obliterated. The lateral blast stripped trees from mountain slopes within ten kilometres of the volcano and levelled nearly all vegetation for as far as 18 km away. 250 homes, 47 bridges, 24 km of railways and 300 km of highway were destroyed. The northern face of the volcano was engulfed in a massive rockslide and its summit reduced from 2,950 m to 2,550m, completely altering the landscape of the mountain.

Since 1980, Mount St Helens has continued to exhibit regular activity, with a new lava dome forming in the crater. Included in the new dome is a fascinating geological feature nicknamed 'whaleback', due to its close resemblance to the back of a whale. This rock, which continues to grow, is a long shaft of solidified magma being exuded by pressure of magma underneath it.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1780  -             An unexplained darkness engulfs the New England region of North America.

The New England region of the United States is located in the northeastern corner of the country, and covers the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. 19 May 1780 came to be known as New England's Dark Day, as an abnormal darkening of the day sky was observed over the New England states and parts of Canada. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon until midnight, when it finally dispersed and the stars could be seen. It was believed by many that the darkness signalled the end of the world, especially as there were some reports of the air smelling like a malt-house or a coal kiln.

Scientists have never determined conclusively what caused the darkness. It was not an eclipse. It is currently thought it was due to a combination of smoke from forest fires and a thick fog, but this is still theory and has not been substantiated.

1840  -             Strzelecki names the Gippsland region of southeast Australia.

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.

In March 1840, Strzelecki climbed and named Australia's highest peak after a Polish patriot, Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Strzelecki then continued towards what is now Victoria's eastern coast, passing through rich countryside which he named Gippsland on 19 May 1840, after Governor Gipps, then the Governor of New South Wales.

1861  -             Dame Nellie Melba, Australian operatic singer, is born.

Dame Nellie Melba was born Helen Porter Mitchell on 19 May 1861 at "Doonside" in the inner Melbourne subrub of Richmond. She became the first Australian to achieve international recognition as an Opera soprano.

Born into a musically gifted family, she travelled to Europe in 1886 in an attempt to launch her own musical career. After failing to find success in London, she continued to Paris where a prominent music teacher, Madame Marchesi, saw her potential and agreed to tutor her. Her debut in Brussels in 1887 initiated a professional career in Australia and England that saw her as the prima donna at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden through to the 1920s. Marchesi persuaded her to adopt a suitable stage name: 'Melba' was chosen as a contraction of the name of her native city of Melbourne. Melba was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918, and was elevated to Dame Grand Cross in 1927.

Dame Nellie Melba died of septicaemia on 23 February 1931. She was given a state funeral from Scots' Church, Melbourne, which her father had built and where as a teenageer she had sung in the choir. She was buried in Lilydale, near Coldstream. Her legacy continues as her name is associated with two foods, a dessert (the Pêche Melba), and Melba toast, while the music hall at the University of Melbourne is known as Melba Hall, and the Australian 100-dollar note features her image.

1915  -             John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the man who heroically rescued 300 wounded soldiers with a donkey at Gallipoli, is killed.

John Simpson Kirkpatrick, born on 6 July 1892 in South Shields, County Durham, England, was a stretcher bearer with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) at Gallipoli during World War I. Originally finding employment stevedoring and stoking on merchant ships, at the outbreak of World War I he immediately joined the Australian Army Medical Corps as a stretcher bearer under the name of "Jack Simpson".

Simpson landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915 and, on the second day, took a donkey that had been landed as a water-carrier for one of the field artillery units. Several dozen donkeys had been bought at a Greek island on the way to Gallipoli but, with no way to land them, had been pushed overboard to swim to shore. Only four donkeys did not drown. Simpson's gentle touch convinced the terrified donkey to walk through the artillery noise and chaos, and the two of them began carrying wounded soldiers from the battle line to the beach for evacuation.

Leading the donkey or donkeys, which he variously named Duffy or Murphy, Simpson began his journeys from the beach, up Shrapnel Gully and then Monash Valley. He carried water on his way up and wounded on his way back, whistling confidently the whole time. Simpson continued this for three and a half weeks, disregarding the danger until, on the morning of 19 May 1915, following a night of vicious fighting after the arrival of turkish reinforcements, he was killed by Turkish machine gun fire near Steele's Post as he was returning down Monash Valley with two wounded men. One man was shot with Simpson, but the man on the donkey's back remained. The donkey continued on the well-worn track, obediently carrying the wounded man to where he would be tended.

Today, the story of Simpson and his donkey is an Anzac legend. Though recommended twice for the Victoria Cross, and the Distinguished Conduct Medal, he was never decorated for his actions.

The donkey or donkeys were taken over by New Zealand primary school teacher Richard Henderson, who continued the work of Simpson, maintaining the legend throughout the ANZAC campaign. When the ANZACs were evacuated under cover of darkness, eight months later, the donkey was also evacuated.

1948  -             Australia's Federal Government announces that rail gauges across Australia will be standardised.

Railway travel in Australia began in May 1854 with the first horse-drawn carriage running between Port Elliott and Goolwa in South Australia. Victoria followed with the first steam train in September of that year, which ran between Flinders Street and Sandridge, now Port Melbourne.

From the beginning of the development of railways in Australia, however, rather than having a standardised railway gauge across the continent, the colonies each adopted their own width of railway track. In Victoria, Tasmania and parts of South Australia, the gauge was 1600 mm; in Western Australia, Queensland and the remainder of South Australia, it was a narrow 1067 mm, while Tasmania also changed to 1067 mm in the late 1800s; but New South Wales adopted the standard European gauge of 1435 mm. Passengers crossing Australia from Brisbane to Perth were required to change trains six times.

When the Commonwealth of Australia was created at Federation in 1901, the new Australian Constitution made provision for the Federal Parliament to make laws with respect to railway acquisition, construction and extension within the states. This opened the way for eventual standardisation of the gauges.

World War II highlighted the difficulty of having incompatible railway gauges across the country, when large amounts of goods and personnel needed to be moved quickly throughout Australia. In March 1945, a report into the standardisation of the rail gauges was completed by former Victorian Railways Chief Commissioner Sir Harold Winthrop Clapp for the Commonwealth Land Transport Board. Following the recommendations of Clapp's report, on 19 May 1948, the Federal Government announced that rail gauges across Australia would be standardised. The European standard of 1435 mm, already in use in New South Wales, was established as the new national standard.

It took until 2004 before the capital cities, as well as Alice Springs and Darwin, were linked by standard gauge. Conversion of railway lines continues; however, some states have retained their own gauges for particular purposes, such as the high speed tilt-trains being used on Queensland's narrow gauge.

Cheers - John

Gday...

325  -   Emperor Constantine convenes the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea.

The First Council of Nicaea, convoked by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in on 20 May AD 325, was the first ecumenical conference of bishops of the Christian Church. The purpose of the council, also called a synod, was to resolve disagreements in the Church of Alexandria. Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to freely allow Christianity, opened the Council with the entreaty to "remove the causes of dissension among you and to establish peace." The Council of Nicaea was historically significant because it was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.

It was at the Council that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was adopted, now known as simply the Nicene creed, and the most widely accepted creed in the Christian church. With the creation of the Nicene Creed, a precedent was established for subsequent general councils to create a statement of belief and canons which was intended to become orthodox for all Christians. It would serve to unify the Church and provide a clear guideline over matters of dispute regarding the practice of Christianity throughout the known world.

1506  -             Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the "New World", dies, believing all his journeys had been along the East Coast of Asia.

Christopher Columbus was born circa 30 October 1451: there is some doubt as to his actual country and region of birth. Columbus was determined to pioneer a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. On 3 August 1492 Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Marýa, the Pinta, and the Niña. During his journeys, Columbus explored the West Indies, South America, and Central America. He became the first explorer and trader to cross the Atlantic Ocean and sight the land of the Americas, on 12 October 1492, under the flag of Castile, a former kingdom of modern day Spain. It is most probable that the land he first sighted was Watling Island in the Bahamas.

Columbus returned to Spain laden with gold and new discoveries from his travels, including the previously unknown tobacco plant and the pineapple fruit. The success of his first expedition prompted his commissioning for a second voyage to the New World, and he set out from Cýdiz in September 1493. He explored Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and various smaller Caribbean islands, and further ensuing explorations yielded discoveries such as Venezuela. Through all this, Columbus believed that he was travelling to parts of Asia. He believed Hispaniola was Japan, and that the peaks of Cuba were the Himalayas of India.

Although passionate about converting the world to Christianity, Columbus fell out with the Spanish King and Queen, as he repeatedly suggested slavery as a way to profit from the new colonies. These suggestions were all rejected by the monarchs, who preferred to view the natives as future members of Christendom. Columbus was stripped of his governorship of Hispaniola for mismanagement and his treatment of rebellious settlers and Indians. Thus, although he became wealthy as a result of his explorations, he was not given the rewards he felt he was due. Columbus died on 20 May 1506, still believing that he had found the route to the Asian continent.

1867  -             Copper is first discovered in Queensland, sparking the founding of the town of Cloncurry.

Copper is a highly valued metal, known to have been used throughout recorded history. It has high elecrtical conductivity, enabling its use in electrical and mechanical applications, and it is also valued in plumbing as it does not corrode.

Australia has copper mines in each of its states and territories except for Victoria and the ACT. The earliest copper deposits to be discovered were in South Australia, New South Wales followed with its own deposits, and the next major discovery was in Queensland. Ernest Henry was an explorer and prospector, born in England in 1837. He explored the far western Queensland area from 1866, discovering copper on 20 May 1867. In doing so, he became the founder of the town of Cloncurry.

1927  -             Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born on 4 February 1902 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Displaying an interest in machines from an early age, Lindbergh enrolled in a mechanical engineering program, but quit when he was eighteen. He then joined a pilot and mechanist training programme with Nebraska Aircraft, bought his own airplane and became a stunt pilot. In 1924, he started training as a US military aviator with the United States Army Air Corps. After finishing first in his class, he worked as a civilian airmail pilot on the St Louis line in the 1920s.

Lindbergh is most famous for being the first pilot to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. He departed from Roosevelt Airfield, Long Island, New York City on 20 May 1927 on his way to Paris in his single-engine airplane, The Spirit of St Louis. Whilst 500 people saw him off at Long Island, 100,000 awaited his arrival in France. The journey took him 33.5 hours and won him the Orteig Prize of $25,000.

Cheers - John

Hello rockylizard

Re 1506 - Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the "New World", dies, believing all his journeys had been along the East Coast of Asia

I was unaware until I saw this post, that Columbus was involved in the slave trade

After doing some quick research, I found that he was probably one of the first to ship slaves across the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a 48 page report (written back in the day), which was found in a Spanish archives in 2006, describing the brutality of Columbus, and his two brothers, when he was governor of Hispaniola.

Quote from Wikipedia
"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."
Unquote

Gday...

1840  -             Governor William Hobson declares British sovereignty over the islands of New Zealand.

The first known European to sight the islands of New Zealand was Dutch trader and explorer Abel Tasman, who did so in 1642. The next explorer to venture through New Zealand waters was James Cook, who charted and circumnavigated the North and South Islands late in 1769. In November, Cook claimed New Zealand for Great Britain, raising the British flag at Mercury Bay, on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. This signalled the start of British occupation of the islands previously occupied only by the Maori.

In 1839, the British government appointed William Hobson as consul to New Zealand. New Zealand was made a British colony following the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed by over 50 Maori chiefs of New Zealand and William Hobson, on 6 February 1840, and another 500 or so chiefs throughout the islands between February and October.

Hobson was also instructed by the British authorities to obtain sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand, but he was required to have the consent of a sufficient number of chiefs. On 21 May 1840, Hobson issued a proclamation declaring British sovereignty over the Islands of New Zealand. Formal approval of the assertion of sovereignty over New Zealand by the British Government was published in the London Gazette on 2 October 1840.

1848  -             Kennedy lands at Rockingham Bay, to commence his fateful expedition.

Edmund Kennedy was born in 1818 on Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands of the English channel. As a surveyor, he arrived in Sydney in 1840 where he joined the Surveyor-General's Department as assistant to Sir Thomas Mitchell. In 1845, he accompanied Mitchell on an expedition into the interior of Queensland (then still part of New South Wales), and two years later led another expedition through central Queensland, tracing the course of the Victoria River, later renamed the Barcoo.

In 1848, Kennedy was chosen to lead an expedition to explore overland to Cape York Peninsula, mapping the eastern coast of north Queensland. On 21 May 1848, his party was deposited at Rockingham Bay, north of Townsville, from where he intended to travel with 12 other men to Cape York, where the ship 'Ariel' was to meet him at the conclusion of his journey. Dense rainforest and the barrier of the Great Dividing Range made the journey extremely difficult. By the time Kennedy's party reached Weymouth Bay in November, they were starving and exhausted. Kennedy left eight sick men and two horses at Weymouth Bay before continuing on with three white men and a loyal Aborigine named Jackey-Jackey.

Kennedy elected to leave the three white men near the Shelburne River when one of them accidentally shot himself in the shoulder. Continuing on with Jackey-Jackey, Kennedy was close to reaching his rendezvous with the 'Ariel' when he found himself surrounded by hostile aborigines. Their spears quickly found their mark with Kennedy, whilst Jackey-Jackey tried to hold off the Aborigines with gunfire. On 11 December 1848, Kennedy died in Jackey-Jackey's arms, signifying the tragic loss of a promising young explorer.

1932  -             Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on 24 July 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, USA. She was the first woman to achieve the feat of flying across the Atlantic. Her first trip across the Atlantic in a Fokker F7 Friendship took 20 hours and 40 minutes. Five years after Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, Earhart became the first person to repeat his feat, and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Departing from Newfoundland, she landed in Ireland on 21 May 1932. For her achievement, she was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross by the US Congress.

On 11 January 1935 Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to California. She had departed Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, and after a journey of over 3,800km in 18 hours, she arrived at Oakland Airport in Oakland, California, to be awarded the prize of $10,000. In 1937, together with her navigator Fred Noonan, she attempted a round-the-world flight in a Lockheed Electra. Approximately five weeks after she set off, her plane disappeared, last heard about 100 miles off Howland Island in the Pacific. Speculation has been rife over the years regarding what happened to Amelia Earhart.

1996  -             An overcrowded ferry capsizes on Lake Victoria, Africa, killing hundreds.

Lake Victoria, at 68,870 square kilometres in size, is Africa's largest lake, the largest tropical lake in the world, and the second largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area. Millions of people live around its shores in one of the most densely populated regions on earth.

Since the 1900s, Lake Victoria ferries have been an important means of transport between Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. On 21 May 1996, the Lake Victoria ferry MV Bukoba capsized and sank near the northern Tanzanian town of Mwanza. Whilst the steamer's capacity was 430, there were at least twice that number on board. The manifest showed 443 passengers in the first and second class cabins, but the cheaper third class compartment had no manifest. It is estimated that between 500 and 800 people were killed; there were only 114 survivors. The lack of equipment and divers were partially to blame for the tragedy.

2008  -             It is reported that the Tasmanian government has declared the Tasmanian Devil an endangered species.

The Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus Harrisii, is a dasyurid, or carnivorous marsupial, now endemic to the Australian island state of Tasmania. There is fossil evidence to suggest that this marsupial was once found on the mainland, but it is believed that the introduction of the dingo by the Australian Aborigines created too much competition for food, leading to the extinction of the tasmanian Devil on the Australian mainland.

A nocturnal hunter, the Tasmanian Devil eats other mammals, and is an opportunistic feeder, readily eating carrion and roadkill. However, once European settlement in Australia began, the Tasmanian Devil population suffered a major decline, as farmers believed it was a threat to their stock, and tended to shoot the animal on sight. A further major threat to the Tasmanian Devil has been the emergence of DFTD, Devil Facial Tumour Disease, which causes facial lesions that increase in size until the animal can no longer eat, and thus it becomes susceptible to infections.

DFTD has caused a massive blow to the Tasmanian devil population, reducing numbers by 64% in the decade to 2008. On 21 May 2008, it was reported that the Tasmanian Government had officially declared the Tasmanian Devil to be an endangered species.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1840  -             New South Wales ceases to be a convict colony as the Order-in-Council ending transportation of convicts is issued.

18th century England saw a great many economic and social changes. The industrial revolution had removed many people's opportunities to earn an honest wage as simpler tasks were replaced by machine labour. In addition, imported goods processed in factories and mills replaced foods and materials which had hitherto been supplied by farms across Great Britain. Farm labourers, no longer required, left the land in droves, hoping to find work in the cities. As unemployment rose in both the city and the country, so did crime, especially the theft of basic necessities such as food and clothing. The British prison system was soon full to overflowing, and a new place had to be found to ship the prison inmates. Following James Cook's voyage to the South Pacific in 1770, the previously uncharted continent of New Holland proved to be suitable. Cook had claimed the eastern coast of the continent for England, naming it "New South Wales", and determined that a small bay in the south which he named "Botany Bay" would present the ideal conditions for a penal colony.

In 1786 the decision was made to send a colonisation party of convicts, military and civilian personnel to Botany Bay, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, who was appointed Governor-designate. The First Fleet consisted of over 700 convicts on board six transport ships, accompanied by officials, crew, marines and their families who together totalled another 645. As well as the convict transports, there were two naval escorts and three storeships.

The First Fleet arrived in New South Wales in January 1788. It was followed by the Second Fleet in 1790 and the Third Fleet in 1791. By this stage, free settlement had also begun, as English folk began to regard New South Wales as a place of promise and new opportunities. Many more convicts arrived over the ensuing decades, but these years also saw massive increases in the numbers of free settlers. Conditions were far more favourable than in England, and many free settlers were supported by various migration schemes. As settlement expanded beyond Sydney and new colonies were established in the north and south, many of Australias residents, as well as the Colonial Government, wanted to be rid of the stigma of a convict colony.

In 1837, the cessation of transportation to Australia was recommended by British Parliamentarian Sir William Molesworth. Thus, on 22 May 1840, the Order-in-Council ending transportation of convicts to New South Wales was issued from the Privy Council. This meant that convicts could no longer be sent to New South Wales, which comprised the eastern half of Australia, from Van Diemen's Land to Cape York. From this point, New South Wales ceased to be a penal colony, and was now officially a free colony.

1851  -             The official announcement is made of the discovery of gold in New South Wales, Australia.

Gold was discovered in Australia as early as the 1830s, but discoveries were kept secret, for fear of sparking off unrest among the convicts. The discoveries were usually made by farmers who did not want to subject their sheep and cattle runs to a sudden influx of prospectors and lawlessness that would inevitably follow. However, as more people left the Australian colonies to join the gold rush in California, it became apparent that the outward tide of manpower would need to be stemmed. The government began to seek experts who could locate gold in Australian countrysides.

Gold was first officially discovered in Australia in 1851, not far from Bathurst, New South Wales. Edward Hargraves had carefully studied the geology of the area and, convinced that it was similar to that of the California goldfields, from where he had just returned, went prospecting. He enlisted the assistance of John Lister, a man who had already found gold in the region. Lister led Hargraves directly to where gold was found, at Summerhill Creek, at a site which Hargraves named "Ophir". After reporting his discovery, he was appointed a 'Commissioner of Land', receiving a reward of £10,000 plus a life pension. The New South Wales government made the official announcement of the discovery of gold on 22 May 1851. Lister, however, was never given any credit or reward for his part in the discovery.

1860  -             The first elected Parliament of Queensland, Australia, meets.

The Queensland Legislative Assembly is the unicameral, or single house, Parliament of Queensland. Originally part of New South Wales, Queensland gained its independence from Australia's founding state in 1859, when Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent, which declared that Queensland was now a separate colony. On 6 June 1859, the former Moreton Bay District was granted separation from New South Wales, and given the name of Queensland, with Brisbane as its capital city. The first elected Queensland Parliament, or Legislative Assembly, consisted of 26 members and met on 22 May 1860 in Courthouse Building, which was formerly part of the convict barracks in Brisbane's Queen Street.

1888  -             Australian illustrator Hal Gye is born.

Hal Gye, pronounced Jye, was born Harold Frederick Neville on 22 May 1888 at Ryde, New South Wales. Originally a law clerk in Melbourne, Gye became an illustrator for book publishers Angus & Robertson, and various newspapers and magazines including The Bulletin, the Melbourne Punch, and the Sydney Daily Telegraph. He is best known for his distinctive illustrations of C J Dennis's Sentimental Bloke (1915) and of other works by Dennis, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. Gye was also a poet and short story writer, writing under the name of James Hackston. From 1936, Gye wrote the 'Father' series of short stories for the Bulletin and published two collections of short fiction. He also wrote "Den" - A Memory and The Dennis Omelette, both of which are poems about C J Dennis. Hal Gye died in 1967.

1957  -             A hydrogen bomb accidentally drops from a bomber over New Mexico, USA.

In 1985, a journalist in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, was on assignment to investigate New Mexico's nuclear weapons research facilities. His assignment began with a simple question: Had the facilities in New Mexico ever had a nuclear accident? His investigations revealed a cover-up of nearly thirty years.

On 22 May 1957, a B-36 Air Force plane was carrying a 19,050kg hydrogen bomb from Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, to Kirtland Air Force Base, at Albuquerque, New Mexico. According to standard procedure, as the aircraft approached Kirtland, the pilot released the bomb's locking pin. However, the aircraft then hit turbulence, causing the bomb to drop through the closed bomb bay doors. The bomb, which was 625 times greater than the atomic bomb that was used on Hiroshima, was unarmed at the time, but still managed to gouge a crater 4 metres deep and 8 metres across, also killing a cow that was grazing nearby.

1981  -             Britain's 'Yorkshire Ripper' is jailed for life.

Beginning in 1975 and continuing for six years, the Yorkshire region of England was suddenly subject to a series of horrific attacks on women, initially most of them prostitutes, who were beaten, stabbed and left for dead. However, in 1977, a sixteen year old teenager was also killed in the same manner as other victims, though she was not a prostitute: the frightening implication of this was that all women were potential victims.

Some of the women survived their attacks, and their testimonials enabled police officers to slowly build up a picture of possible perpetrators. Peter Sutcliffe, born 2 June 1946, was a seemingly happily-married lorry driver who was repeatedly interviewed, and just as often disregarded, as the Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe was eventually caught after police discovered he had put false number plates on his car and found weapons in the boot. After being questioned intensively for two days, Sutcliffe suddenly admitted his part in the killings, and graphically recounted all the details for the police.

At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to thirteen counts of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He also pleaded guilty to seven counts of attempted murder. After demanding details of the prosecution's reasoning, trial judge Mr Justice Boreham rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the case was sent to trial by jury. On 22 May 1981, Sutcliffe was found guilty of thirteen counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey. He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and interred in Broadmoor secure mental hospital in Berkshire in 1983. However, Sutcliffe could still be released from custody in 2011 if the parole board decides that he is no longer a danger to the public.

Cheers - John

Hello rockylizard

Very interesting post, as always

Re 1981 - Britain's 'Yorkshire Ripper' is jailed for life

In 2010, it was decided that he would not receive parole, but stay in prison for the rest of his natural life.
He appealed in the high court, and the appeal failed.
I had hoped that this was the last we would hear of this person

Unfortunately, in 2015 he was baptised as a Jehovah Witness.
I just hope that he is not trying to get the do-gooders on his side, to obtain a get out of gaol card

Gday...

1837  -             Streets and squares in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, are first named.

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia, the only Australian state to have remained entirely free of convicts during its early history. The city of Adelaide was designed by Colonel William Light, born at Kuala Kedah, Malaya on 27 April 1786. He was the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, arriving in South Australia in 1836 to decide on a suitable site for the new settlement.

Colonel Light began surveying Adelaide on 11 January 1837, beginning at the junction of where North and West Terraces now stands. This point is now marked by a granite obelisk. Completing his survey on 10 March 1837, Colonel Light then commenced the task of naming streets and squares in the new town on 23 May 1837.

Following Light's death on 6 October 1839, he was buried in Light Square, Adelaide.

1930  -             Extensive aerial surveying and mapping of the Australian outback begins.

Donald George Mackay, born 1870, was a descendant of wealthy pastoralists from Yass in New South Wales. An adventurer who had cycled around Australia and participated in expeditions to Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific, Mackay was interested in mapping unexplored regions of Australia. His interest intensified following the 1929 incident in which Charles Kingsford Smith's 'Southern Cross' was lost in the outback: whilst Kingsford-Smith was located after twelve days, would-be rescuers Bobby Hitch**** and Keith Anderson died in the process.

Following this incident, Mackay decided to finance aerial mapping of unknown regions of Australia's outback. Pilots Frank Neale and H B Hussey were enlisted to fly two aircraft leased from Australian Aerial Services, Melbourne, and the services of four other experts in aerial mapping were also engaged. The expedition was farewelled from Canberra by Australian Prime Minister James Scullin on 23 May 1930.

The initial survey intensively triangulated a region of thousands of square kilometres around Ilbilla Soak near the Ehrenberg Range in central Australia. New discoveries were made, including the fact that Lake Amadeus, which had previously been mapped as being several hundred kilometres in length, was in fact less than 100km long. Another large lake was discovered, 96km wide and 160km long, which the Federal Government named Lake Mackay in honour of Donald Mackay.

Over the ensuing years and up until 1937, Mackay pioneered numerous aerial surveys of the outback. He financed aerial mapping of the central western deserts and northwest Western Australia, the Great Victoria Desert and the Nullarbor Plain, providing vital information on Australia's vast outback.

1934  -             Notorious US robbers, Bonnie and Clyde, are ambushed and killed.

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker, born 1 October 1910, and Clyde "Champion" Chesnut Barrow, born 24 March 1909, both of Texas, were robbers and criminals who targeted small businesses and banks in the central United States during the Great Depression. Whilst it remains uncertain how and when they met, the pair teamed up immediately to become two of the US's most notorious robbers.

Barrow already had a criminal background, cracking safes, robbing stores and stealing cars, before he met Parker. He served two years in prison, where he was subjected to a variety of abuses; there is some conjecture that his aim was not to gain fame and fortune from robbing banks, but to seek revenge against the Texas Prison system for the abuses he suffered whilst incarcerated. However, public sympathy waned when Barrow's gang began murdering both civilians and lawmen.

Bonnie and Clyde and the "Barrow Gang" evaded numerous ambushes intended to secure their capture. However, Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed on 23 May 1934, on a desolate road near their hideout in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. They were shot by a posse of four Texas and two Louisiana officers. The posse was led by former Texas Ranger captain Frank Hamer, who had begun tracking the pair on 10 February 1934, after being specifically hired by the Texas Department of Corrections with orders to put an end to Bonnie and Clyde.

1949  -             West Germany is formed after Germany is split, following World War II.

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.

1960  -             Television finally comes to Tasmania with the launch of TVT-6.

In 1950, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced a gradual introduction of television in Australia, commencing with the launch of an ABC station. Three years later his government amended the 1948 Broadcasting Act to allow for commercial television licences.

Test transmissions commenced in Sydney and Melbourne in July 1956. Australia's first TV broadcast was made on 16 September 1956 by TCN Channel 9 in Sydney. Melbourne was the next city to commence transmissions, which occurred later that year. Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide each launched their own television station in 1959.

Tasmania was the last of the state capitals to begin transmissions. Four years after the first test transmissions in Australia, on 23 May 1960, TVT-6 launched in Hobart, bringing television to Tasmania. TVT stood for TeleVision Tasmania; at first, it transmitted from Mt Wellington, and covered just the southern part of the state.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1686  -             Gabriel Fahrenheit, after whom the Fahrenheit scale of temperature is named, is born.

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was born on 24 May 1686 in the Hanse city Danzig, located in Royal Prussia. His parents died at a relatively young age from consuming poisonous mushrooms, and subsequently Fahrenheit had to take up business training to support his younger siblings. However, his interest in natural sciences caused him to take up studies and experimentation in that field. Fahrenheit's studies took him to Amsterdam, where he gave lectures in chemistry. In 1724 he became a member of the Royal Society.

Fahrenheit developed precise thermometers, and the Fahrenheit scale was widely used in Europe until the switch to the Celsius (or Centigrade) scale. He first filled his thermometers with alcohol before using mercury, which gave better results. He chose 0 as the coldest temperature attainable by man, a mixture of water, salt and ice. He selected 100 degrees as the body temperature of a healthy horse. Fahrenheit died on 16 September 1736.

1738  -             John Wesley, founder of Methodism, is intensely moved when he hears a reading of the preface to Luther's commentary on Romans.

John Wesley was born 17 June 1703, in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England. In 1720 he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, and received his Master of Arts in 1727. However, it was through his readings of Thomas a Kempis and Jeremy Taylor that he began to truly apply his Christianity to his life, seeking holiness of heart and life. Through a seemingly legalistic approach to the teachings of the Bible, he was able to discover how to truly practise and apply his Christian faith.

Wesley spent two years in the American colonies as missionary, but felt that he failed in his mission to convert the Indians and deepen and regulate the religious life of the colonists. In his search for truth and meaning, Wesley did not conform to any established church, and a number of charges were brought against him in his interpretation of Scripture. He returned to Oxford depressed and beaten.

After his return, Wesley found solace in the Moravians, a Protestant denomination founded in Saxony in 1722. It was while attending a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, on 24 May 1738, that John Wesley's conversion moved beyond the purely practical and theoretical to a deeper understanding. Whilst listening to a reading of the preface to Luther's commentary on Romans, Wesley felt his heart "strangely warmed"; shortly after this, he preached several enlightened sermons on salvation by faith, and God's grace "free in all, and free for all." Soon after this, he took to preaching at open-air services, wherever he was invited. After the Moravians developed some practices and policies with which he disagreed, he took his followers and developed his own society, the Methodist Society in England.

A fluent, powerful and effective preacher, Wesley was a logical thinker who also expressed himself clearly, concisely and forcefully in writing. His sermons were characterised by spiritual earnestness and simplicity. Although Wesley died on 2 March 1791, many follow Wesley's teachings today. He continues to be the primary theological interpreter for Methodists the world over; the largest Wesleyan body being The United Methodist Church.

1770  -             Lieutenant James Cook enters and names Bustard Bay, the first point of landing on Queensland soil.

Lieutenant James Cook was not the first to discover Australia, as he was preceded by numerous Portuguese and Dutch explorers. However, he was the first to sight the eastern coast, and commenced charting the coastline in April 1770.

Bustard Bay is located almost 500 km north of Brisbane, Queenslands capital city. Bustard Bay was named by Cook after his crew came ashore on 24 May 1770, and shot a bustard, or what was actually a plains turkey. Cook noted in his log that it was the best bird they had eaten since leaving England. Bustard Bay was the first location after Botany Bay where Cook actually entered the bay and came ashore. The settlement that developed much later at the site of Cooks landing is now known as Town of Seventeen Seventy. Nearby Bustard Head became the site of the first lighthouse to be built in Queensland after the colony separated from New South Wales.

1819  -             Queen Victoria, longest reigning monarch in English history, is born.

England's Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Although christened Alexandrina Victoria, from birth she was formally styled Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria of Kent. Victoria's father died when she was less than a year old. Her grandfather, George III, died less than a week later. Princess Victoria's uncle, the Prince of Wales, inherited the Crown, becoming King George IV. When George IV died in 1830, he left the throne to his brother, the Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, who became King William IV. Victoria was recognised as heiress-presumptive to the British throne, and in 1837, at the age of 18, she succeeded her uncle, William IV, to the throne to become the last monarch of the House of Hanover.

In 1840, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, with whom she had nine children. As well as being queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, she was also the first monarch to use the title Empress of India. Victoria's 64-year reign was marked by enormous growth and expansion of the British empire.

Queen Victoria died on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901, having reigned for sixty-three years, seven months, and two days, more than any British monarch before or since.

1838  -             The first in what was to become a chain of David Jones Department stores opens.

David Jones is a quality retail outlet in Australia, with 35 stores, two warehouse outlets and David Jones Online. It is Australias oldest department store, and the worlds oldest department store still trading under its original name.

The founder of the store, David Jones, was born in 1793, the son of a farmer in Llandeilo, Wales. He immigrated to Australia after entering into partnership with Charles Appleton, a Hobart Town businessman who had opened a store in Sydney in 1825. Jones arrived in Hobart in 1834, then moved to Sydney the following year. When Appletons partnership in the Sydney store with former missionary Robert Bourne expired on 31 December 1835, Jones became the new partner. Under Joness leadership, the business increased its profits considerably. However, when Appleton arrived, he was deeply concerned about what he considered a reckless credit policy. The partnership dissolved by mutual consent.

Jones then moved his business to new premises, on the corner of George St and Barrack Lane in Sydney. The first David Jones store opened on 24 May 1838; its mission was to sell "the best and most exclusive goods" and to carry "stock that embraces the everyday wants of mankind at large."

1890  -             Author Robert Louis Stevenson publishes his famous treatise in defence of Father Damien, missionary in Molokai, Hawaii.

One of the most well-read adventure writers of the eighteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson is best known for novels such as 'Kidnapped', 'Treasure Island' and 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. In 1890, whilst on a visit to Australia, Stevenson felt compelled to answer charges against Belgian missionary, Father Damien De Veuster, who had worked with native lepers in Molokai, Hawaii, and recently died from leprosy himself. Following his death, he was subject to much criticism from the Congregational and Presbyterian churches in Hawaii, who derided Father Damien as a "false shepherd" and openly questioned his morality. Stevenson, with his great interest in fostering harmony with the islander peoples of the Pacific, had visited Molokai and heard only stories of the man's courage, compassion and resourcefulness which contradicted rumours that the priest had contracted leprosy through intimacy with female patients.

The most famous treatise published against Damien was by a Honolulu Presbyterian, Reverend C M Hyde, to a fellow pastor in a letter dated 2 August 1889. It was this letter which Stevenson set out to challenge, writing it in the foyer of the Union Club in Sydney, Australia, on 25 February 1890 and finally publishing it on the front page of 'The Australian Star' on 24 May 1890. Stevenson's letter, entitled "Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr Hyde of Honolulu", took up nearly the entire first page of the paper. In it, he accused Hyde of meanness, cowardice, and jealousy of Father Damien's work.

The letter was originally hand-delivered to the newspaper, the 'Sydney Morning Herald', but the libellous nature of the letter prevented the editor from publishing it, after seeking legal advice. After the letter's appearance in 'The Australian Star', American and British newspapers took up the cause, and Stevenson's Open Letter appeared around the world. Fortunately for Stevenson, Hyde dismissed his letter as that of a "crank" and did not sue for libel. Careful examination of published and unpublished criticisms against the missionary's life and work proved that Father Damien was indeed a selfless hero, and that the criticisms were unjustified.

Even Mahatma Gandhi offered his own defence of Damien's life and work, claiming Damien to have been an inspiration for his own social campaigns in India that led to the freedom of his people and secured aid for those that needed it.

1930  -             Aviatrix Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, becoming the first woman to fly from England to Australia.

Amy Johnson was born on 1 July 1903 in Kingston upon Hull, England. She was introduced to flying as a hobby, gaining a pilot's licence at the London Aeroplane Club in late 1929. In that same year, she became the first British woman to gain a ground engineer's licence.

On 5 May 1930, Johnson left Croydon, England, in her De Havilland Gypsy Moth which she named Jason. She landed in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory on 24 May 1930. She received the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE in recognition of this achievement.

Johnson made several other notable flights. In July 1931 she and her co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first pilots to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the 2,800 km journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for flying from England to Japan. In July 1932, she set a solo record for the flight from London, England to Cape Town, South Africa in a Puss Moth. The record was later broken, but Johnson reclaimed her record in a Percival Gull in May 1936.

Amy Johnson died on 5 January 1941 whilst flying an Airspeed Oxford to RAF Kidlington near Oxford. She went off course in poor weather and bailed out into the Thames estuary, where she drowned after a failed rescue attempt.

1969  -             The last Australian is awarded the original Victoria Cross, prior to the introduction of the Victoria Cross for Australia.

The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for acts of bravery in wartime. It was introduced by Queen Victoria on 29 January 1856 to honour acts of bravery shown by individuals during the Crimean War. The Victoria Cross is presented to the recipient by the reigning British monarch at a special ceremony held at Buckingham Palace.

Since World War II, only four medals have been awarded to members of the Australian Army. The last Australian to receive an original Victoria Cross was Warrant Officer Keith Payne. He received the Victoria Cross for gallantry on 24 May 1969 during the Vietnam War. This was two decades before the introduction of the Victoria Cross for Australia, which was created by letters patent signed by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, in January 1991. The highest award in the Australian Honours System, it superseded the Victoria Cross.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1622  -             The first recorded shipwreck in Australian waters occurs.

Australia has a history of shipwrecks which extends back to before European settlement. Around 8000 wrecks are believed to lie off the coast in Australian waters, although only a quarter of these have been located. The coastline of the great southern continent had not been fully mapped when the earliest ships, trading vessels on their way to the Spice Islands of present-day Indonesia, met their untimely fates, and nothing was known of the rocks and reefs that lurked beneath the waves.

Australias oldest recorded shipwreck is that of the Trial, also spelt Tryall or Tryal. The Trial was a ship of the English East India Company which was sent to the East Indies in 1621 under the command of John Brooke. The Master was following Henderik Brouwer's recently discovered route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, via the Roaring Forties; though a faster route due to the strong winds, it was also more dangerous, taking vessels into uncharted waters. The crew of the ship first sighted Point Cloates, a peninsula on Australias far west coast, early in May the following year but, due to a navigational error, the Trial ran aground on an unknown reef on 25 May 1622. This reef is now known as Ritchies Reef, in which can be found the Trial Rocks. 100 crewmen lost their lives, along with the Companys goods the ship was carrying. The remaining crew spent a week ashore before sailing a longboat to Java.

Whilst the Dutch had, by this time, already discovered the west coast by accident, this was the first time an English crew had sighted any part of the Australian coastline. Records suggest that the ships Master falsified the location of the rocks to hide his error. Consequently, Trial Rocks remained undiscovered for over 314 years, due to the fact that they were not where they were reported to be. The actual wreck site itself was determined only in 1969: however, no evidence has yet been found to identify the site conclusively as being that where the Trial went down.

1830  -             After tracing the Murray River for thousands of kilometres, Sturt's party finally arrives back in 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. In 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. The party reached Wantabadgery Station at the point of starvation, where they recovered until returning to Sydney on 25 May 1830.

Sturt's discoveries were significant, for they allowed for the development of paddle-steamer transportation of goods and passengers along Australia's inland waterways. The exploration also allowed for the opening up of more fertile pasture and grazing land in southern Australia.

1847  -             Little-known Australian explorer Joseph Wild dies after being gored by a bull.

Little-known Australian explorer Joseph Wild is credited with discovering Lake George on 21 August 1820. Wild was an ex-convict, sentenced on 21 August 1793 in Chester for shooting a rabbit on another man's property, and transported in 1797. He received a ticket-of-leave in 1810 and conditional pardon in January 1813. After being appointed first Constable of the Five Islands District, now Illawarra, in 1815, Wild undertook several expeditions into the interior of New South Wales with pastoralist Charles Throsby. At one stage, he teamed with Throsby, James Meehan and Hamilton Hume, the latter being the currency lad who later went on to chart a course from Sydney to Port Phillip Bay. Wild and Throsby were the first Europeans to explore the area that became the Australian Capital Territory.

Joseph Wild died on 25 May 1847 after being gored by a bull at Wingecarribee Swamp. He is buried behind the church in the Bong Bong Cemetery, Moss Vale, New South Wales.

1870  -             Notorious Australian bushranger 'Captain Thunderbolt' is shot dead.

Bushranger Captain Thunderbolt was born Frederick Ward at Wilberforce near Windsor, NSW, in 1836. As an excellent horseman, his specialty was horse stealing. For this, he was sentenced in 1856 to ten years on ****atoo Island in Sydney Harbour. On 1 July 1860, Ward was released on a ticket-of-leave to work on a farm at Mudgee. While he was on ticket-of-leave, he returned to horse-stealing, and was again sentenced to ****atoo Island. Conditions in the gaol were harsh, and he endured solitary confinement a number of times. On the night of 11 September 1863, he and another inmate escaped from the supposedly escape-proof prison by swimming to the mainland.

After his escape, Ward embarked on a life of bushranging, under the name of Captain Thunderbolt. Much of his bushranging was done around the small NSW country town of Uralla. A rock originally known as "Split Rock" became known as "Thunderbolt's Rock". After a six-year reign as a "gentleman bushranger", Thunderbolt was allegedly shot dead by Constable Alexander Walker on 25 May 1870. However, there remains some contention as to whether it was actually Thunderbolt who was killed, or his brother William, also known as 'Harry'.

1904  -             Five men are killed in a gold mining accident near Coolgardie, Western Australia.

The small town of Coolgardie lies about 570km east of Perth, Western Australia. The population of Coolgardie has fluctuated since its foundation, but now maintains a steady population of around 1300. The gold rush began when prospectors Arthur Bayley and William Ford found a rich reef of gold in 1892, which they named "Bayley's Reward", sparking a huge gold rush to Coolgardie. The town subsequently grew rapidly, becoming the third largest town in the state after Perth and Fremantle. However, within a few years, nearby Kalgoorlie was attracting more interest, as the gold deposits were much larger. The town experienced tragedy on 25 May 1904 at the Great Boulder goldmine, East Coolgardie, when five men died in a mining accident. A great cage used in the mining operation fell 121 metres to the bottom of a shaft.

2001  -             Today is Towel Day, in memory of science-fiction author, Douglas Adams.

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 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. Today, 25 May, is unofficially Towel Day, celebrating Adams's life and his work in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was first set two weeks after Adams's death on 11 May 2001. An international hitchhiker should always carry his towel because, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Cheers - John

Hello rockylizard

Re 2001 - Today is Towel Day, in memory of science-fiction author, Douglas Adams

Tongue in cheek

I never knew just how useful the humble towel could be, I have certainly learned something new today

Gday...

1647  -             The first hanging of a witch occurs in America, portending the Salem witch trials several decades later.

On 26 May 1647, the first person was hanged in America for the crime of witchcraft. Alse Young was arrested, tried in Windsor, Connecticut, and hanged at Meeting House Square in Hartford, on what is now the site of the Old State House. Her execution anticipated the Salem witch trials which occurred later that century.

The Salem witch trials involved a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in 1692, not in Salem, Massachusetts but in nearby Salem Village, which is now known as Danvers. Between June and September 1692, twenty people in all were executed for witchcraft, mostly by hanging. Many more were imprisoned until the witch hunt hysteria passed. In retrospect, it is believed that those who were afflicted and charged with being witches may have been victims of poisoning by ergot. Ergot is a poisonous fungus that often grows on cereal grains, especially rye and wheat, which were commonly grown around Salem. Poisoning produces symptoms of convulsive jerking, stupor, delirium, and hallucinations, the very symptoms which created suspicion of the witch hunt victims in the first place. Ergot poisoning has been linked to the European witch trials which occurred in the 1600s where rye was grown. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) is an hallucinogenic drug that is derived from ergot today.

1828  -             A mysterious boy, Kaspar Hauser, first appears on the streets of Nürnberg, Germany.

On 26 May 1828 a sixteen-year-old boy appeared in the streets of Nürnberg, Germany wearing peasant clothing and barely able to talk. The only identification carried by the boy was a letter addressed to the captain of the 4th squadron of the 6th cavalry regiment, in which the author asked the captain to take the boy in or hang him, and a letter proclaiming his birthday as 30 April 1812. He could only walk in toddler's step, could barely use his fingers and was able to eat only water and bread. Though chronologically sixteen years old, he appeared to have the mental development of a 6-year-old.

As he learned to communicate, the boy said that for most of his life he had lived in a dark 2 x 1 x 1.5 metre cell with only a straw bed, and a horse carved out of wood for a toy. Given only bread and water, he was sometimes drugged so that somebody could change his clothes and cut his hair and nails. He never saw his caretaker, who only taught him to say "I want to be a rider like my father", and to write Kaspar Hauser, which was assumed to be his name.

Some people began to connect him with the family of the Grand Duke of Baden, due to some facial resemblance. On 17 October 1829, a hooded man tried to kill Hauser with an axe but managed only to wound his forehead. The apparent assassination attempt further fuelled rumours about his connection to the house of Baden. On 14 December 1833, Hauser was lured to Ansbacher Hofgarten with the promise that he would hear something about his ancestry. Instead, a stranger stabbed him fatally to the chest, puncturing his lung. He struggled back home but died three days later. He never identified the stranger, even though a note found with him at the time indicated that he knew his attacker. He was buried in a country graveyard where his headstone reads "Here lies Kaspar Hauser, riddle of his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious."

1907  -             American film actor John Wayne, who became popular for his roles in Westerns, is born.

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, USA on 26 May 1907. His name became Marion Mitchell Morrison when his parents decided to name their next son Robert, but in later life he often stated that his middle name was Michael. He became known as "The Duke" as a child after neighbours started calling him "Big Duke," because he never went anywhere without his Airedale Terrier dog, who was Little Duke. A star footballer, he won an athletics scholarship to the University of Southern California, but an injury curtailed his football career and lost him his scholarship.

During his time at University, Wayne began working around the local film studios, then moved up to bit parts. He established a long friendship with director John Ford. After two years working as a prop man at the William Fox Studios, his first starring role was in the 1930 movie The Big Trail; it was the director of that movie, Raoul Walsh, who gave him the stage name "John Wayne" after Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. He was tutored by the studio's stuntmen in riding and other western skills, but did not attain "Western star" status until his performance in the 1939 film Stagecoach.

John Wayne went on to make dozens more western movies, including Fort Apache (1948), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Red River (1949), The Alamo (1960), True Grit (1969), for which he won an Academy Award, and The Shootist (1975). John Wayne died of stomach cancer on 11 June 1979.

1940  -             The Dunkirk evacuation begins, in which over 330,000 Allied troops are rescued when surrounded by German troops.

Dunkirk is a harbour city in the northernmost part of France, in the département of Nord, 10 km from the Belgian border. During World War II, a large force of British and French soldiers were cut off in northern France by a German armoured advance to the Channel coast at Calais, and trapped at Dunkirk. On 24 May 1940 German armour stopped its advance on Dunkirk, leaving the operation to the slower infantry and the Luftwaffe. This reprieve was partly due to the influence of Hermann Göring, who promised Adolf Hitler air power alone could destroy the surrounded Allied troops. This stop order for the armour was reversed on May 26 when the evacuation began.

Operation Dynamo was the name given to the mass evacuation during the Battle of Dunkirk conducted from 26 May 1940 to 4 June 1940 under the command of Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay from Dover. Over a period of nine days, 338,226 French and British soldiers were taken from Dunkirk, France and the surrounding beaches by a quickly assembled fleet of about seven hundred vessels. These craft included the Little Ships of Dunkirk, a mixture of merchant marine vessels, fishing boats, pleasure craft and RNLI lifeboats, whose civilian crews were called into service for the emergency.

1982  -             The Royal Bluebell is officially announced as the floral emblem of the Australian Capital Territory.

The Royal Bluebell (Wahlenbergia gloriosa) is a small perennial herb found in sub-alpine areas of southeastern New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. Protected in its native habitat, it has small violet coloured flowers about 3cm in diameter.

The Royal Bluebell was proclaimed the floral emblem of the Australian Capital Territory on 26 May 1982. The announcement was made by the Hon. Michael Hodgman, the Minister for the Capital Territory. Three criteria had to be met for the flower to be selected. It was required to be native to the ACT, have horticultural merit and ease of propagation, and the potential to be adapted for design purposes, such as emblems and insignia.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1815  -             Australian politician and the 'Father of Federation', Sir Henry Parkes, is born.

Henry Parkes was born in Warwickshire, England, on 27 May 1815. A failed business venture prompted him to seek passage with his wife to Australia, and he arrived in Sydney in 1839. Moving up from a position of farmer's labourer, to clerk, to managing his own business, a number of failed ventures indicated that he did not have good business acumen. He was first elected to the New South Wales Parliament in 1854, was Premier of New South Wales several times between 1872 and 1891, and was knighted in 1877.

Parkes was a staunch supporter of the Australian culture and identity. As a politician, he is perhaps best remembered for his famous Tenterfield Oration, delivered on 24 October 1889, at the Tenterfield School of Arts. In this speech, he advocated the Federation of the six Australian colonies. Parkes convened the 1890 Federation Conference and subsequently the 1891 National Australasian Convention. He proposed the name Commonwealth of Australia for the new nation.

Parkes died of natural causes on 27 April 1896, four years before Australia became a Federation, having established the political directions for the new country. His image appears on the Centenary of Federation commemoration Australian $5 note issued in 2001. The suburb of Parkes in Canberra is named after him as well as the town of Parkes in central New South Wales.

1897  -             The mummified bodies of Australian explorers Charles Wells and George Jones are discovered.

Very little of Australia was left unexplored by the late 1800s, but the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia remained un unconquered frontier. In 1896, Albert Calvert, a London-based gold-mining engineer with interests in Western Australia, sponsored an expedition to fill in the unexplored blanks on the map and hopefully, find some likely gold-bearing country into the bargain. The Royal Geographical Society of South Australia was asked to organise the Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition, financed by Calvert. The expedition's leader was surveyor Lawrence Wells, and accompanying him was surveyor Charles Wells, his cousin, an Adelaide mineralogist by the name of George Jones, a cook and a camel driver.

In October 1896, the party camped at a small permanent waterhole south-east of Lake George, which they named Separation Well. Here, on 11 October 1896, Lawrence Wells made the fateful decision to split the party into two groups. Charles Wells and Jones set off on a bearing of 290 degrees to survey lands for 144 kilometres north-west, before turning north-north-east to rejoin the main party at Joanna Spring, located and mapped by explorer Warburton in 1873. When Lawrence Wells's party reached Joanna Spring on 29 October, there was no sign of the other party. Unable to even locate the spring, the leader made for the Fitzroy River, where he raised the alarm regarding the missing explorers via the Fitzroy Crossing Telegraph Station.

Four search parties were dispatched, covering over five thousand kilometres, with no success. At some stage, when Wells and Jones had died, Aborigines plundered the bodies of all clothing and other items. When some of these items were located in the Aborigines' possession, the Aborigines led the searchers to where the bodies lay. On 27 May 1897 the bodies of Wells and Jones were recovered by the white search party, perfectly preserved by the intense heat, just 22km from Joanna Spring. The mummified bodies were sewn in sheets and taken to Derby, where they were shipped to Adelaide and given a State funeral on 18 July 1897.

1937  -             The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is opened to pedestrian traffic.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and a portion of the south-facing Marin County headlands near the bayside city of Sausalito.

The bridge, including the approach, spans 2.7 km long; the main span, or distance between the towers, is 1,280 m, and the clearance below the bridge is 67 m at mean high water. Each of the two towers rises 230m above the water. The diameter of the main suspension cables is 0.91m, just under a metre. The Golden Gate Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in the world when it was built in 1937. Begun in 1933, it was completed on 27 April 1937 and opened to pedestrians on 27 May 1937. The following day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington DC, signalling the start of vehicular traffic over the Bridge.

During the bridge's construction, a safety net was set up beneath it, significantly reducing the expected number of deaths for such a project. 11 men were killed from falls during construction, and approximately 19 men were saved by the safety net. 10 of the deaths occurred near completion, when the net itself failed under the stress of a scaffold fall.

An internationally recognised symbol of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge has been declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

1967  -             An Australian referendum recognises more Aboriginal rights as equal citizens.

Aboriginal people became Australian citizens in 1947, when a separate Australian citizenship was created for the first time. Prior to this, all Australians were "British subjects". Aboriginal people gained the vote in Commonwealth territories in 1965, and earlier in different states, according to various state laws.

The referendum of 27 May 1967 approved two amendments to the Australian constitution relating to Indigenous Australians, removing two sections from the Constitution. The first was a phrase in Section 51 (xxvi) which stated that the Federal Government had the power to make laws with respect to "the people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws." The referendum removed the phrase "other than the Aboriginal race in any State," giving the Commonwealth the power to make laws specifically to benefit Aboriginal people.

The second was Section 127, which stated: "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted." The referendum deleted this section from the Constitution. This was not a reference to the census, as Aboriginal people living in settled areas were counted in Commonwealth censuses before 1967. Rather, the section related to calculating the population of the states and territories for the purpose of allocating seats in Parliament and per capita Commonwealth grants. This prevented Queensland and Western Australia using their large Aboriginal populations to gain extra seats or extra funds.

The referendum was endorsed by over 90% of voters and carried in all six states. Ultimately, the real legislative and political impact of the 1967 referendum was to enable the federal government to take action in the area of Aboriginal Affairs, introducing policies to encourage self-determination and financial security for Aborigines.

1995  -             'Superman' actor Christopher Reeve is paralysed after a riding accident.

Christopher Reeve was born on 25 September 1952 in New York City, USA. Contrary to popular belief, Christopher Reeve is not related to George Reeves, who played Superman on television in the 1950s. Reeve graduated from Princeton Day School in Princeton, New Jersey. He attended Cornell University but left before earning his degree, and began studying at the Juilliard Drama School under John Houseman. While at Juilliard, he became friends with actor Robin Williams. Reeve's first big break as an actor came in 1975 when he co-starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway play A Matter Of Gravity, earning favourable reviews. He won the role of Superman in the 1978 film directed by Richard Donner.

On 27 May 1995, Reeve was riding his horse "Eastern Express" cross country, in the Commonwealth Dressage and Combined Training Association finals at the Commonwealth Park equestrian centre in Culpeper, Virginia. Approaching the third of 18 jumps, a triple-bar just over a metre high, the horse made an abrupt refusal, throwing Reeve to the ground, where he landed on his head. As a result of the accident, he was confined to a wheelchair and unable to breathe, except for short periods, without the assistance of a mechanical respirator for the remainder of his life.

With the staunch support of his wife Dana, Reeve opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Centre, a facility in Short Hills, New Jersey, devoted to teaching paralysed people to live more independently. The couple also chaired the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which funds research on paralysis and works to improve the lives of the disabled. To date, the Foundation has awarded $55 million in research grants and $7.5 million in quality-of-life grants. Reeve died of heart failure at 52 years of age, on 10 October 2004, after suffering cardiac arrest brought on by an infection.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1813  -             Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth reach Mt York, from where they sight rich grazing land on the other side of the mountains.

Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth were Australia's first inland explorers. They were determined to find a way through the impassable Blue Mountains to the rich grasslands they believed lay inland. Setting off on 11 May 1813, they followed the ridges, unlike previous attempts which had all focused on following the rivers, invariably ending up against sheer cliff faces or mazes of impassable gorges. The men faced difficult terrain, and had to use machetes to hack their way through the thick scrub.

On 28 May 1813, the explorers climbed Mount York, at the western end of the Blue Mountains, from which they sighted the rich grasslands on the other side of the mountain barrier. Blaxland wrote in his journal that they "discovered what [they] had supposed to be sandy barren land below the mountain was forest land, covered with good grass". The men explored the forest and grassland for several more days, and culminated their exploration with their ascent of a high hill they named Mount Blaxland. Sections of the Great Western Highway from Sydney still follow parts of the trail the men blazed back in 1813.

1814  -             Governor Macquarie offers a free pardon to absconded Tasmanian convicts, except for murderers.

Unlike in the penal colony of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) remained largely a convict settlement for its first fifty years. Little was done to encourage free settlers to take up land on the island. The colony faced starvation in the first few years of its existence, so Governor of Tasmania, Colonel Collins, was forced to send out the convicts to hunt. Lured by their unexpected freedom and undaunted by their isolation from the mainland, many convicts chose not to return, but undertook a life of bushranging.

Bushranging soon reached epidemic proportions, and in May 1813, Lieutenant Governor Davey demanded all absconded convicts and bushrangers return by December, or face being shot on sight after that date. Concerned by the ramifications of the subsequent outrage, on 28 May 1814 the Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, offered a pardon to all convicts except for those who had been convicted of murder, if they surrendered within six months. Taking the proclamation as a licence to bushrange, many convicts continued their crimes until the last moment. True to his word, Macquarie pardoned them of all previous crimes, whereupon many of them promptly returned to bushranging.

1908  -             Ian Fleming, author of the 'James Bond' spy novels, is born.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born on 28 May 1908 in Mayfair, London. He was educated at Eton College and Sandhurst military academy, from which he subsequently departed prematurely to study languages on the European continent. He unsuccessfully attempted to join the Foreign Office, and instead worked as a sub-editor and journalist for the Reuters news service, including for a time in 1933 in Moscow, Russia and later as a stockbroker with Rowe and Pitman, in Bishopsgate. As World War II loomed in 1939, Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, recruited Fleming as personal assistant. Initially commissioned as a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve lieutenant, he was subsequently promoted to Lieutenant commander, then as Commander. Fleming travelled to Whitby, Ontario to train at Camp X, a top secret training school for Allied forces.

Fleming's background in naval intelligence gave him the background and experience for writing credible spy novels. Besides writing the twelve novels and nine short stories featuring James Bond, secret agent 007, Fleming also is known for writing the children's novel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The James Bond books became very popular even before being filmed, permitting Fleming to retire comfortably to his home in Jamaica, a small cottage he called Goldeneye. Fleming died of a heart attack in Canterbury, Kent, on 12 August 1964.

1934  -             The Dionne quintuplets, first known quintuplets to survive infancy, are born.

The Dionne Quintuplets were born on 28 May 1934 in Ontario, Canada. The first quintuplets known to survive their infancy, they were born two months premature, each weighing no more than 0.9kg. The five identical sisters were named Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne.

The custody of the babies was withdrawn from their parents by the Ontarian government when the girls were barely a year old. They were then put under the guidance of Dr Dafoe, who had delivered them, and who subsequently exploited the girls for his own gain and fame. They were interred in Quintland, a theme park located just across from the parents' home. The sisters could be viewed by visitors through a one-way mirror. Approximately 6,000 people per day visited the park to observe them.

The girls were also used to publicise commercial products such as corn syrup and Quaker Oats. They starred in some Hollywood films, including The Country Doctor (1936), Reunion (1936), Five of a Kind (1938) and Quintupland (1938). After a nine-year court fight between the government and their father, the quintuplets were returned to their family in 1943. Emilie, Marie and Yvonne died in 1954, 1970 and 2001 respectively.

1937  -             Neville Chamberlain Becomes Prime Minister of England.

Chamberlain, commonly known as "pinhead", left a legacy which is largely remembered as being the British Prime Minister who had a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. This included the abandonment of Czechoslovakia to Hitler at Munich in 1938. The Irish Free State Navy Ports were left open to German submarines. Chamberlain resigned the premiership immediately after Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

2000  -             250,000 people walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the People's Walk for Reconciliation during Corroboree 2000.

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of Australia including its nearby islands. The term encompasses the various indigenous peoples known as Aborigines, whose traditional lands extend throughout mainland Australia, Tasmania and offshore islands, and also the Torres Strait Islanders whose lands are centred on the Torres Strait Islands which run between northernmost Australia and the island of New Guinea. Ever since European settlement in 1788, tension has existed between Indigenous peoples and the Europeans, and the path to reconciliation between the various races has been long and slow.

28 May 2000 saw The Peoples Walk for Reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a celebration of reconciliation which had been achieved thus far, and to symbolise the fact that reconciliation involves all Australians. It was held in conjunction with Corroboree 2000, which occurred in Sydney during Reconciliation Week in May 2000 to mark the end of the ten-year official Reconciliation process. The walk began at North Sydney station and finished at Darling Harbour, and involved some 250,000 people walking across Sydney's Harbour Bridge to show their support of the process of Reconciliation between Aboriginal Australians and white Australians.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1453  -             Constantinople, capital of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, finally falls to the Ottoman Empire.

The Byzantine Empire generally refers to the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centred at its capital in Constantinople. Its date of origin is a subject of much debate, but some consider Constantine the Great its founder. Others place its origin during the reign of Theodosius I (379395) and Christendom's victory over Roman religion or, following his death in 395, with the division of the empire into western and eastern halves. Regardless of its origin, it existed for approximately 1000 years, during which it was besieged many times, and captured just once, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

The Byzantines re-established themselves in Constantinople in 1261. In the following two centuries, the much-weakened empire was gradually taken, piece by piece, by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans began their final siege of the city on 2 April 1453, attacking in waves, but being beaten back each time. A lunar eclipse on the night of May 22 seemed to portend the end of the city, as the thin crescent moon displayed was symbolic of the Turkish standard flying over Mehmed's camp. On 26 May, a thick fog descended on Constantinople, and when it lifted at dusk, the citizens were appalled to see the city's buildings glowing an ominous red colour as the city began to burn under the attack of the Ottomans. On 29 May 1453 the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II, finally conquered Constantinople. The city was renamed Istanbul, and it remained capital of the Ottoman Empire until the empire's dissolution in 1922.

1861  -             George Goyder, responsible for the controversial "Goyder Line", becomes Surveyor-General of South Australia.

George Goyder is a significant figure in South Australian history. Born in 1826 in Liverpool, England, he arrived in Sydney, Australia in 1848, later moving to South Australia. He first took up the position of Assistance Surveyor, and became the state's Surveyor-General on 29 May 1861.

Goyder made frequent journeys into the South Australian countryside, assessing and surveying the land for agricultural development, railway construction, forestry and even mining possibilities. He first ventured north on horseback in 1856, reaching Lake Blanche which he reported to be full of freshwater. His report on the apparently lush countryside was premature. It led to a large number of settlers moving north and taking up land, not realising the seasonal nature of freshwater flows to the area, but who later suffered severely in the drought beginning 1863. In subsequent years he surveyed parts of the Flinders Ranges, as well as land discovered by explorers John McDouall Stuart and Peter Warburton.

Goyder is most famous for the "Goyder Line", also known as "Goyder's Line". This was a theoretical line of demarcation between the southern areas of reliable landfall, and where the vast tracts of saltbush began, signalling arid lands. Because of the severe drought and the northern farmers' calls for government assistance, Goyder was sent to assess where such a line should be drawn. Goyder determined a line that ran from the border of Victoria north of Pinnaroo, to the east of Burra, peaking north near Orroroo and Pekina, and again near Melrose and Mt Remarkable; the line then continued southwards near Moonta, on the eastern side of Spencer Gulf, and again south of Cowell, on the western shore of Spencer Gulf, extending towards the north-west, ending just northeast of Ceduna.

The Goyder Line was the boundary marking the northernmost limit of South Australia's wheat growing and pastoral areas, and Goyder advised against settlers taking up agricultural landholdings beyond this point as rainfall would be too unreliable. He believed that using these northern lands for agriculture would result in more desertification of the state. His line was unpopular with farmers prepared to take the risk rather than lose their lands. Even the South Australian government failed to heed the warnings: the need for more farming land in the state resulted in land being sold north of the line, amidst the promise of current good seasons. Most of these farmers were forced to move further south when the seasons settled back to "average" once more.

Goyder's predictions have proven correct, as the government even today considers whether the Goyder Line should be brought further south.

1874  -             Australian explorer Giles finishes his last keg of water on his desperate attempt to reach his base camp.

Ernest Giles was a frontier explorer of Australia who arrived on the continent in 1850 and was employed at various cattle and sheep stations, allowing him to develop good bush skills. Exploring largely for the love of it, Giles made several expeditions through the Australian desert. Humble though he was, he did dare to refer ti himself as the "last of the great Australian explorers".

Alf Gibson was a young stockman who begged to accompany Giles on his expedition which 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 and lack of water. After a two month recovery period at Fort Mueller, Giles set out north towards the Rawlinson Range, from which he again tried to penetrate westwards, but was once more thwarted by Aboriginal attack and insufficient water.

In April 1874, Giles decided to make one last attempt to reach the west, taking Gibson with him. After one day, lack of water caused Giles to send the packhorses back to their camp. A day or two later, Giles's horse died, so the men began their return to the base camp, sharing Gibson's horse. Giles instructed Gibson to return to the camp for help, leaving himself to walk. Giles reached where the men had left water kegs and continued on with a supply of water that lasted him six more days. On the third day of his trek, he saw that the packhorses had veered off their original course east, and headed south, deeper into the desert, and that Gibson had followed the tracks. On 29 May 1874, Giles finished the last keg of water and, throwing away the barrel, continued on. An oasis and a dying wallaby which he devoured alive revived him so he was able to reach his base camp. After resting just one day, Giles took the experienced explorer William Teitkins and attempted to search for Gibson, but no trace of him was ever found. All Giles could do to honour the brave but unfortunate Gibson was to name the waterless country Gibson's Desert, "after this first white victim to its horrors".

1880  -             The Great Hall of Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building is opened to the public for the first time.

The Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens, is one of the world's oldest exhibition pavilions and an excellent example of the magnificent architecture of the time. It has featured strongly in significant Australian historical events. Designed by Joseph Reed, of the firm Reed and Barnes, the building features a round-arched architectural style, the dome of which was influenced by Brunelleschis 15th-century cathedral in Florence, Italy.

The foundation stone for the Royal Exhibition Building was laid by then-governor of Victoria, Sir George Bowen, in February 1879. The Great Hall is a major feature of the Royal Exhibition building. Made of brick, it is set on a bluestone base, and has long central naves, with four triumphal entrance porticoes, one on each side. The Great Hall was opened to the public for the first time on 29 May 1880, several months prior to the first International Exhibition, which opened in October 1880. This exhibition showcased the cultural, industrial and technological achievements of over 30 nations, allowing Australians a first-hand taste of overseas. The Great Hall remains the only surviving Great Hall that once housed a 19th-century international exhibition, and which is still used for exhibitions today. In 1888, the Hall was the site of another major event when it housed the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition, celebrating the centenary of European settlement in Australia.

1914  -             One of shipping's greatest peace-time disasters occurs as the Empress of Ireland collides with a Norwegian freighter, killing over 1000.

The RMS Empress of Ireland was a steamship owned by Canadian Pacific. Launched on 26 January 1906, she was commissioned by Canadian Pacific Line for the northern trans-Atlantic route between Quebec, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The Empress of Ireland set out on her first trans-Atlantic crossing on 29 June 1906, and soon proved herself as a reliable ship and one of the largest and fastest ships on the northern route.

On 28 May 1914, the Empress of Ireland departed Quebec City with 1,477 passengers and crew, bound for Liverpool, England. Around 2:00am on the morning of 29 May 1914, the ship was proceeding down the channel in the Saint Lawrence River near Pointe-au-Père, Quebec in a heavy fog bank when it collided with the Norwegian coal freighter Storstad. The Storstad did not sink, but the Empress of Ireland sustained severe damage to its starboard hull, turned on its side as it rapidly took on water, and sank within 14 minutes, killing 1,012 passengers and crewmen. Only seven lifeboats escaped the rapidly sinking vessel, but the crew of the Storstad pulled scores of survivors out of the icy waters. There were only about 473 survivors.

The actual position of the Empress of Ireland has not been determined. According to testimony, the Captain claimed that he stayed close to shore, encountered the fog, reversed his engines to stop for about 8 minutes, and was rammed by the Storstad, who was executing a hard, 90-degree turn to the starboard. Another theory states that the Empress sailed north-northeast into the centre of the channel, right into the path of the Storstad. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the watertight doors had not been closed, and nor had the portholes on board the ship been closed.

1917  -             Assassinated US President, John F Kennedy, is born.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on 29 May 1917. After completing his schooling, and prior to enrolling in Princeton University, he attended the London School of Economics for a year, where he studied political economy. Illness forced him to leave Princeton, after which he enrolled in Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in international affairs in June 1940, then joined the US Navy, only entering politics after WWII.

After declaring his intent to run for President of the United States, Kennedy was nominated by the Democratic Party on 13 July 1960, as its candidate for president. He beat Vice-President Richard Nixon by a close margin in the general election on 9 November 1960, to become the youngest elected president in US history and the first Roman Catholic.

Kennedy's 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.

1917  -             Tasmania's coat of arms is approved by Royal Warrant from King George V.

Tasmania is a small island state located off the southeast coast of Australia. Originally named Van Diemen's Land by Abel Tasman in 1642, Tasmania is the second oldest state in Australia to have been settled.

Unlike the other states and territories of Australia, Tasmania does not have an official animal emblem, although the Tasmanian devil is the "unofficial" emblem of the state. The extinct Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, also symbolises the state on the Tasmanian coat of arms. The coat of arms features a shield supported by two thylacines. On the shield are wheat, apples, hops and sheep, all symbols of Tasmania's main rural industries. Above the shield is a red lion holding a pick and shovel, which symbolises the rich mining history of the state. The Latin motto underneath is Ubertas et fidelitas, meaning 'Fertility and Faithfulness'.

Tasmania's coat of arms was approved by Royal Warrant from King George V on 29 May 1917, and proclaimed in 1919.

1921  -             Norman Hetherington, creator of the ABC's longest-running television series Mr Squiggle, is born.

Mr Squiggle and Friends was a long-running childrens television series on Australias ABC. It featured a marionette with a large pencil for its nose, who flew to Earth from the Moon on his spaceship named Rocket. In each episode, Mr Squiggle would produce creative and recognisable drawings from squiggles sent in to the programme by children from across Australia.

The concept of Mr Squiggle was created by Norman Hetherington, who manipulated the marionette from overhead. Norman Frederick Hetherington was born on 29 May 1921 in Lilyfield, New South Wales. Hetherington had a full and busy career as a teacher, graphic designer, puppeteer, and cartoonist with Sydneys The Bulletin.

Hetherington was awarded the OAM (Order of Australia Medal) in the 1990 Queen's Honours List for his services to illustration. He died on 6 December 2010, aged 89. In May 2014, Hetherington was posthumously honoured with a Google doodle celebrating his life and work.

1953  -             Sir Edmund Hillary reaches the summit of Mt Everest.

Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, meaning its summit is higher above sea level than that of any other mountain. Its summit ridge marks the border between Nepal and China. The summit of Mount Everest, which currently stands at 8,844.43 m high, is rising at a rate of around 2.5 centimetres per year.

On 8 June 1924, UK climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made an attempt to reach the summit from which they never returned. It is believed that Irvine's body may have been found, though not recovered, by Chinese climbers in 1960 while Mallory's body was only recovered in 1999. In subsequent years, many more attempts were made to summit Mt Everest, but that achievement finally went to mountaineer Edmund Hillary in 1953.

Edmund Hillary was born on 20 July 1919 in Tuakau, south of Auckland, New Zealand. Hillary's interest in climbing was sparked at age 16 during a school trip to Mt Ruapehu. Despite not being an athletic teenager, he found that he was physically strong and had greater endurance than many of his fellow climbers. During World War II he became a RNZAF navigator. He was part of an unsuccessful New Zealand expedition to Everest in 1951 before attempting again in 1953. Hillary became the first explorer to reach the summit of Mt Everest at 11:30am local time on 29 May 1953. He was accompanied by Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, as part of a British expedition led by John Hunt. Hunt and Hillary received knighthoods on their return.

Hillary climbed 10 other peaks in the Himalayas on further visits in 1956, 1960-61 and 1963-65. He also reached the South Pole, as part of the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, on 4 January 1958. He devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust which he founded and to which he gave much of his time and energy. Through his efforts he succeeded in building many schools and hospitals in this remote region of the Himalayas. Hillary lived in quiet retirement at his home in Auckland, New Zealand, appearing for occasional official engagements, until his death on 10 January 2008. Hillary became the only living New Zealander to appear on a banknote.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1431  -             Joan of Arc is burned at the stake.

Whilst the exact date of Joan of Arc's birth is not known, traditionally she is regarded to have been born on 6 January 1412, in Domrémy, France. As a teenager, Joan of Arc received visions urging her to organise French resistance against English domination. In 1429, despite being a woman, she led the charge which attacked the English and forced them to retreat from Orléans. As she led further charges, she helped turn the Hundred Years War unequivocally in France's favour.

In 1430, several months after her victory against the English, Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English. Her claims of receiving visions and divine inspiration resulted in her being accused of heresy and witchcraft. During her trial in March 1431, she retracted her claims of visions and was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, she recanted on her retraction, and as a heretic, was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431 in Rouen.

Twenty five years after her death, King Charles VII ordered a rehabilitation trial that annulled the proceedings of the original trial. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.

1861  -             Wills returns to the Dig tree to see whether a rescue party has arrived.

Burke and Wills, with a huge party of men and supplies, departed Melbourne in August 1860 to cross Australia to the north coast and back. Burke, being impatient and anxious to complete the crossing as quickly as possible, split the expedition at Menindee. He moved on ahead to establish a depot at Cooper Creek, leaving William Wright in command of the Menindee depot. Splitting his party yet again at Cooper Creek, Burke chose to make a dash to the Gulf in the heat of summer with Wills, Gray and King. He left stockman William Brahe in charge with instructions that if the party did not return in three months, Brahe was to return to Menindee. The trek to the Gulf and back took over four months, and during that time Gray died. A full day was spent in burying his body. When Burke returned to Cooper Creek, he discovered lettering freshly blazed on the coolibah tree at the depot, giving instructions to dig for the supplies Brahe had left. Thus the name 'Dig' Tree was spawned.

When Burke left the Dig tree to try to reach the police station at Mt Hopeless, 240km away, he failed to leave further messages emblazoned on the Dig tree indicating that his party had returned and were now making for Mt Hopeless. In May 1861, Brahe and Wright returned to check the depot, but they found no evidence of Burke's return, and saw no need to dig up the cache beneath the tree. Had they done so, they would have found evidence of Burke and Wills' return. On 30 May 1861, Wills returned to the Dig Tree to see whether a rescue party had arrived. Wills buried his journals and a message informing any potential rescue party of his location down the creek, but again failed to leave any message on the Dig Tree. One of Australian exploration's greatest tragedies - the death of Burke and Wills - could have been averted had this simple matter of communication been attended to between the main expedition and rescue parties.

1886  -             The Ly-ee-Moon steamer runs aground off Cape Green lighthouse in southern NSW, Australia, killing 71.

The Ly-ee-Moon was built as a paddle steamer in 1859 by the Thames Shipbuilding Company of Blackall, London, England. Originally designed for use in the opium trade, she was also rigged with three masts and sails, and was the fastest steamer known at that time. In the early 1860s, during the American civil war, Ly-ee-Moon was used as a blockade runner, running in and out of Charleston, South Carolina. Following the civil war, the steamer moved to Hong Kong, where she remained for almost a decade. The steamer was then was sold to the Australasian Steam Navigation Company Ltd in the late 1870s. After catching fire whilst being refitted in Sydney and being scuttled to put out the fire, the ship was refloated and repaired, at a cost of approximately £4,000. The Ly-ee-Moon returned to service in 1878 and ran the Sydney to Melbourne route.

The Ly-ee-Moon departed Melbourne for Sydney on 29 May 1886 with 55 passengers and 41 crew aboard, carrying a varied cargo of staple foods, clothing, grains and alcohol. On the evening of 30 May 1886, the steamer was approaching Gabo Island, just south of the New South Wales/Victoria border, when it was wrecked off a reef near Cape Green lighthouse. The lighthouse keepers attempted to rescue the passengers and crew, but ultimately 71 people died - 41 passengers and 31 crew. The wreckage of the Ly-ee-Moon remains where the ship sank on that fateful night.

1894  -             Explorer David Carnegie finds gold at Niagara Creek, Western Australia.

The Hon. David Wynford Carnegie, born 23 March 1871 in the United Kingdom, arrived in Australia in 1892. He became an explorer and gold prospector in Western Australia after he joined the goldrush to Coolgardie. Following his failure to find any substantial gold, he joined up with another prospector named Gus Luck to explore the Hampton Plains immediately east of Kalgoorlie.

Finding it too dry and arid, they travelled instead to the Queen Victoria Springs, about 250 km east of Kalgoorlie. They then travelled north through unknown country to Mount Shenton, about 100 km north east of the present-day town of Laverton. They continued prospecting around Mount Margaret and Mount Ida. On 30 May 1894, they moved southwest to Niagara Creek, where they found "a big fine reef" of gold. They returned to Coolgardie later in June to file their claims, having travelled about 1350km altogether.

1971  -             Mariner 9, the first artificial satellite of Mars, is launched by the United States.

Mariner 9 was a NASA space probe orbiter and the first artificial satellite of Mars, which helped in the exploration of Mars. It was the ninth in the Mariner program, which was a series of unmanned interplanetary probes designed to investigate Mars, Venus and Mercury.

The United States launched Mariner 9, on 30 May 1971. Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet: it entered orbit around Mars in November 1971 and began photographing the surface and analysing the atmosphere with its infrared and ultraviolet instruments. After waiting several months for dust storms to settle, the satellite sent back over 7000 pictures, revealing a planet very different to what was expected. The images revealed river beds, craters, massive extinct volcanoes such as Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the Solar System, canyons, including the Valles Marineris, a system of canyons over 4,000 kilometres long, evidence of wind and water erosion and deposition, weather fronts and even fogs.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1578  -             The Catacombs of Rome are discovered.

The Catacombs of Rome are a network of ancient subterranean Jewish and Christian burial galleries near San Sebastiano fuori le mura, Rome, Italy. There are forty known subterranean burial chambers in Rome. They were built along Roman roads, like the Via Appia, the Via Ostiense, the Via Labicana, the Via Tiburtina, and the Via Nomentana. Christians built extensive systems of galleries and passages on top of each other. The catacombs lie 7-19 metres below the surface in an area of more than 2.4 km². Passages are about 2.5 x 1 metres. Burial niches 40-60 cm high and and 120-150 cm long were carved into walls. Bodies were placed in chambers in stone sarcophagi in their clothes and bound in linen. The chamber was then sealed with a slab bearing the deceased's name, age and the day of death.

The catacombs date back to around the 3rd century, but sacking of Rome and violation of the catacombs by the Ostrogoths, Vandals and Lombards caused the catacombs to be largely abandoned by the 10th century, with holy relics being transferred to above-ground basilicas. The catacombs were largely forgotten until their rediscovery on 31 May 1578. The discovery occurred when a sepulchral chamber was opened by labourers digging for pozzolana earth. In 1593, eighteen year old Antonio Bosio, colloquially known as "Columbus of the Catacombs", commenced a lifetime of exploring the catcombs, finding extra entrances and links between the passages, and documenting his discoveries.

1813  -             Explorers Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth view the rich Bathurst Plains for the first time.

When the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales in 1788, all efforts concentrated on developing farmland and a food supply to support the convict colony. Free settlers also began to arrive, lured by the promise of a better life in the new, young country. This placed considerable strain on New South Wales's resources, and farmers began to see the need for expansion beyond the Blue Mountains, which had provided an impassable barrier to the west. Many attempts were made to find a path through the Blue Mountains, but their attempts had all focused on following the rivers, which invariably ended up against sheer cliff faces or mazes of impassable gorges.

Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth departed South Creek, Sydney Cove, on 11 May 1813 with four servants, five dogs and four horses. The route they traversed is essentially still the one used by travellers today. Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth successfully crossed the mountain range by following the ridges rather than the river valleys. After an arduous three weeks of exploring through difficult and previously impenetrable terrain, Australia's first explorers reached Mount Blaxland from where they could see the plains to the west, on 31 May 1813. Beyond the mountains the explorers found a great expanse of open country, which they surveyed. Blaxland wrote in his journal that they could see "forest land all around them sufficient to feed the stock of the colony for the next thirty years".

1884  -             Kellogg patents the cornflake.

John Harvey Kellogg was born on 26 February 1852 in Tyrone, New York. He graduated from New York University in 1875 with a medical degree, and became a medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan. Here, he set up a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition (advocating vegetarianism), enemas and exercise. The development of the corn flake came about as Kellogg sought to improve the vegetarian diet of his hospital patients. Whilst boiling wheat to try to produce an easily digestible substitute for bread, Kellogg accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat to stand and become tempered. When it was put through a rolling process, the grains of wheat emerged as large, thin flakes. When the flakes were baked, they became crisp and light, creating the corn flake, which he patented on 31 May 1884.

With his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, he started the Sanitas Food Company to produce their whole grain cereals around 1897. The brothers argued over the addition of sugar to the cereals, so in 1906, Will started his own company called the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which eventually became the Kellogg Company. Meanwhile, John established the Battle Creek Food Company to develop and market soy products, but did not invent the concept of the dry breakfast cereal. That was invented by Dr James Caleb Jackson who created the first dry breakfast cereal in 1863, which he called "Granula". Dr John Kellogg died on 14 December 1943.

1942  -             Japanese midget submarines enter Sydney Harbour in WWII.

When the town of Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in World War II, Australians were forced to accept the reality of how close the war was. Further bombing raids continued along Australia's northwestern coastline, and even Townsville and Mossman in far north Queensland, but the war was truly brought home to Australians living along the more populated east coast on the day that three Japanese submarines entered Sydney Harbour.

On the afternoon of 31 May 1942, three Japanese submarines sat approximately thirteen kilometres out from Sydney Harbour. Each launched a midget submarine, hoping to sink an American heavy cruiser, the USS Chicago, which was anchored in the harbour. One midget was detected by harbour defences at about 8:00pm, but was not precisely located until it became entangled in the net; the two-man crew of the submarine blew up their own vessel to avoid capture. When the second midget was detected after 10:00pm, a general alarm was sounded. The third midget was damaged by depth charges, and the crew also committed suicide to avoid capture. When the second midget was detected after 11:00pm and fired upon, the submarine returned fire, hitting the naval depot ship HMAS Kuttabul, a converted harbour ferry, which served as an accommodation vessel. Nineteen Australian and two British sailors on the Kuttabul died, the only Allied deaths resulting from the attack, and survivors were pulled from the sinking vessel. The submarine presumably returned to its mother ship, known as I-24.

Nine days later, on 8 June 1942, I-24 surfaced off Sydney, about 10 km off Maroubra. For four minutes, the submarine's deck gun was fired at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Every shot landed well short of its target, with at least 10 shells hitting the residential suburbs of Rose Bay, Woollahra and Bellevue Hill. All but one of the shells failed to explode and there were no fatalities or serious injuries.          

Cheers - John

1884........I wonder what John Kellog would think of the newer "crunchy nut cornflake" Rocky   I know what I think.....nice. One thing is for sure though, I don't eat them sitting around with my red jocks on. Well if anyone else is around anyway 

Gday...

I don't eat them sitting around with my red jocks on ! !

Cheers - John

I am horrified to learn at 68 years old that Kellog is not Australian. 

Back in the seventies somewhere between 12 if not 20 loads of corn I delivered to the Kellog plant at Botany.

Never thought any thing of it not being Australian, I am crushed.

Gday...

1829  -             Today is Foundation Day for Western Australia.

The first recorded sighting of Australia's western coastline came in 1611, when Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. As the route became more popular, the Dutch began to refer to the land as "New Holland".

Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh named the Swan River in 1697 because of the black swans he saw in abundance there. 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). However, this is not regarded as Western Australia's Foundation Day.

In 1829, 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.

Western Australia's Foundation Day is considered to be 1 June as, on 1 June 1829, Western Australia's first non-military settlers arrived in the Swan River Colony aboard the Parmelia. The colony of Western Australia was then proclaimed on 18 June 1829, and less than two months later, Perth was also founded.

1850  -             The first convicts arrive in Fremantle, Western Australia, to help populate the waning Swan River colony.

The Swan River colony, established on Australia's western coast in 1829, was begun as a free settlement. Captain Charles Fremantle declared the Swan River Colony for Britain on 2 May 1829. The first ships with free settlers to arrive were the Parmelia on June 1 and HMS Sulphur on June 8. Three merchant ships arrived 4-6 weeks later: the Calista on August 5, the St Leonard on August 6 and the Marquis of Anglesey on August 23. Although the population spread out in search of good land, mainly settling around the southwestern coastline at Bunbury, Augusta and Albany, the two original separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the Western Australian capital city of Perth.

For the first fifteen years, the people of the colony were generally opposed to accepting convicts, although the idea was occasionally debated, especially by those who sought to employ convict labour for building projects. Serious lobbying for Western Australia to become a penal colony began in 1845 when the York Agricultural Society petitioned the Legislative Council to bring convicts out from England on the grounds that the colony's economy was on the brink of collapse due to an extreme shortage of labour. Whilst later examination of the circumstances proves that there was no such shortage of labour in the colony, the petition found its way to the British Colonial Office, which in turn agreed to send out a small number of convicts to Swan River.

The first group of convicts to populate Fremantle arrived on 1 June 1850. Between 1850 and 1868, ultimately 9721 convicts were transported to Western Australia. The last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868.

1962  -             Adolf Eichmann, 'Chief Executioner of the Third Reich', is hanged for his war crimes.

Adolf Eichmann was a member of the Austrian Nazi party in World War II. After his promotion to the Gestapo's Jewish section, he was essentially responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews during the war. He is often referred to as the 'Chief Executioner' of the Third Reich. After the war Eichmann escaped to Argentina in South America, but was located and captured by the Israeli secret service in 1960.

Eichmann's trial in front of an Israeli court in Jerusalem started on 11 April 1961. He faced fifteen criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and war crimes. As part of Israeli criminal procedure, his trial was presided over by three judges instead of a jury, all of which were refugees from the Nazi regime in Germany. Eichmann was protected by a bulletproof glass booth and guarded by two men whose families had not suffered directly at the hands of the Nazis. Eichmann was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death on 15 December 1961. He was hanged a few minutes after midnight on 1 June 1962 at Ramla prison, the only civil execution ever carried out in Israel.

1968  -             Helen Keller, blind and deaf author and lecturer, dies.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on 27 June 1880. She was deprived of her senses of sight and hearing when she contracted scarlet fever before she was two years old. The breakthrough for Helen Keller came when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, persisted with the difficult child to make her understand that touching shapes and letters were her means to communication. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to graduate with a college degree, and ultimately published 14 books. She met every President of the United States from Calvin Coolidge to John F Kennedy, and wrote to eight Presidents of the United States, from Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, receiving letters from all of them. Helen Keller died on 1 June 1968.

2001  -             Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal massacres the Nepali Royal family before committing suicide.

The Kingdom of Nepal is a landlocked Himalayan country in South Asia, bordering the People's Republic of China to the north and India to the south, east and west. The world's only Hindu state, it became a constitutional monarchy in 1990, a situation marked by dissension and unrest through the years.

On 1 June 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra is officially reported to have shot and killed his father, King Birendra, his mother, Queen Aishwarya, his brother, sister, his father's younger brother, Prince Dhirendra and several aunts, before turning the gun on himself. The incident started when Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly had a dispute with his mother over his choice of bride. It is believed that Queen Aishwarya threatened to remove her oldest son from the line of succession, although this would not have been allowed under the country's constitution.

He did not die immediately, but lay in a coma for two days. Although he never regained consciousness before dying, Crown Prince Diprendra was nonetheless the king under the law of Nepalese royal succession. After his death two days later, the late King's surviving brother Gyanendra was proclaimed king.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1841  -             Eyre's expedition across the Nullarbor is saved when he meets Captain Rossiter, of the whaler 'Mississippi'.

Edward John Eyre, born 5 August 1815, was the first white man to cross southern Australia from Adelaide to the west, travelling across the Nullarbor Plain to King George's Sound, now called Albany. Eyre originally intended to cross the continent from south to north, taking with him his overseer, John Baxter, and three Aborigines. He was forced to revise his plans when his way became blocked by the numerous saltpans of South Australia, leading him to believe that a gigantic inland sea in the shape of a horseshoe prevented access to the north.

Following this fruitless attempt, Eyre regrouped at Streaky Bay on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. He then continued west, which had never before been attempted, in a gruelling journey across the Nullarbor, during which his party faced starvation and thirst. Eyre's overseer, Baxter, was killed on the night of 29 April 1841, as he tried to stop two of the expedition's Aborigines from raiding the meagre supplies. After Baxter died, Eyre was left with just one loyal companion, the Aborigine, Wylie. The two continued on, trying to outrun the Aborigines whilst subsisting on very few rations.

The pair faced starvation a number of times during their journey, in between rest stops in places when they found food was abundant. On 2 June 1841, Eyre and Wylie were travelling along the shore near Thistle Cove when they encountered the French whaler 'Mississippi'. Attracting the attention of the ship's crew by way of a fire, they were met at the beach and taken aboard the Mississippi as guests of Captain Rossiter. Here, they were given ample food and water, and their horses even shod by the ship's blacksmith. Loaded with supplies from the ship, Eyre continued his westward journey on 14 June. Eyre named the inlet Rossiter Bay after the ship's captain, though it was later renamed Mississippi Point.

1858  -             Francis Gregory find evidence of Aboriginal cannibalism.

Francis Thomas Gregory was born at Farnsfield, Nottingham, England, on 19 October 1821 and came to Western Australia in 1829. He was the younger brother of Augustus Gregory, who explored areas of northern Australia in the mid 1800s. As a staff surveyor, Francis Gregory explored extensively throughout northwest Australia, discovering good land along the upper Murchison River.

Impressed with Gregory's discoveries, settlers financed an expedition for Gregory to explore around the Gascoyne River, around 180 kilometres further north. Commencing his explorations on mid-April, Gregory discovered a plentiful supply of fresh water between the two rivers, and a variety of flora and fauna. Dry, barren scrub prevented Gregory from penetrating further northeast. Upon his return to Mt Augustus, which he named after his brother, Gregory found evidence of Aboriginal cannibalism, on 2 June 1858. In his journal, he wrote that he noted near a campfire "bones of a full-grown native that had been cooked". The bones even showed evidence of teeth marks along the edges.

Gregory returned with reports of around four hundred thousand hectares of good land. He noted, however, that it was currently a good season, and potential graziers would be advised to wait to determine the land's fertility in a poor season before settling the area.

1874  -             Explorers John and Alexander Forrest discover Weld Springs, an oasis of clear, fresh water in central Western Australia.

John Forrest was born on 22 August 1847 near Bunbury in Western Australia. Between the years of 1869 to 1874, Forrest led three expeditions, two of them with his brother Alexander (born 1849), to explore the uncharted areas of Western Australia. On 1 April 1874, the brothers departed Geraldton with three experienced white men, two aborigines and enough supplies for eight months, in search of a stock route and pasture land to the east. It was on this journey, on 2 June 1874, that the Forrests discovered Weld Springs, which seemed to have an "almost unlimited supply of water." It was named after Frederick Weld, the Governor of Western Australia. Here the party rested for two weeks, living on pigeons, emus and kangaroos.

The explorations of John and Alexander Forrest filled in the missing gaps regarding Australia's interior, but the only good pastureland was very patchy and scattered, and not particularly conducive to settlement.

1953  -             Queen Elizabeth II is crowned, watched by millions in the first televised coronation of a monarch.

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 Queen was crowned in a lavish coronation ceremony attended by over 8,000 guests in Westminster Abbey, London. The ceremony included the Queen being handed the four symbols of authority - the orb, the sceptre, the rod of mercy and the royal ring of sapphire and rubies. The ceremony was completed as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, placed St Edward's Crown on her head.

Whilst approximately three million people lined the streets of London to glimpse the new monarch travelling to and from Buckingham Palace in the golden state coach, millions more around the world watched the first ever televised coronation of a monarch in a broadcast made in 44 languages.

Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

1966  -             The US "Surveyor I" spacecraft successfully lands on the moon.

Surveyor 1 was the first lunar lander in the American Surveyor program that explored the Moon. The program was managed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Launched on 30 May 1966, the US Spacecraft Surveyor I made the first successful soft landing on the moon on 2 June 1966, in the "Ocean of Storms". The spacecraft carried two television cameras: one for approach, which was not used, and one for operations on the lunar surface, which enabled it to take clear pictures of the depth of the depression in the lunar soil made by its footpad when it soft-landed, and of the surrounding lunar terrain and surface materials.

Equipment also included 100 engineering sensors. The spacecraft also acquired data on the radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, bearing strength of the lunar surface, and spacecraft temperatures for use in the analysis of the lunar surface temperatures. Data continued to be transmitted back to Earth from shortly after touchdown until 14 July 1966, although commands were issued for no operation during the lunar night, from 14 June to 7 July 1966.

Cheers - John