Gday...

1793  -             Marie Antoinette, queen of France and wife of Louis XVI, is beheaded.

Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna on 2 November 1755, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and his wife Empress Maria Theresa. When a new peace treaty was signed between Austria and France, it was hoped that a royal marriage would seal the peace. At age fourteen, Marie Antoinette was chosen to marry the dauphin in France. He became King Louis XVI four years later.

Marie Antoinette embraced the lavish lifestyle with enthusiasm. She had little regard for the poor and struggling peasants, and spent money frivolously. For her attitude, she became the symbol of the people's hatred for the old regime during the French Revolution. When the French Revolution began, Marie Antoinette supported the old regime. When the National Convention established the French Republic in 1792, Marie Antoinette and the king were imprisoned. Antoinette was beheaded on 16 October 1793.

1837  -             The first group of German migrants arrives in the new colony of South Australia.

In the 1800s, under King Friedrich Wilhelm III, German/Prussian Lutherans suffered religious persecution. Friedrich Wilhelm was an autocratic king who believed he had the right to create his own state church from the two main Protestant churches - the Lutheran church and the smaller Reformed church - in a united Prussian state church. This would effectively remove the right of Lutherans to worship in a way of their choosing. Penalties for non-adherance to the state religion were severe. Many Lutherans immigrated to Australia to escape the persecution.

Later groups of German immigrants were fortunate to be sponsored by wealthy Scottish businessman and chairman of the South Australian Company, George Fife Angas. However, the very first group of German immigrants sailed under difficult conditions aboard a ship that was infested with ****roaches. The 'Solway' was a wooden ship built at Monkwearmouth Shore, Sunderland in 1829. It departed from Hamburg, Germany in June 1837 under the command of Captain R Pearson. The journey was particularly rough and at one point, after a bad storm, the passengers retreated below decks for a prayer meeting. It is said that, as the boat rocked violently to and fro, and with the passengers and crew expecting the ship to break apart and sink at any moment, the prayer leader told them to have faith and all would be well. At that point, the storm abated.

The Solway arrived at Kangaroo Island on 16 October 1837. Just two days earlier, one of the passengers, Mrs Kleemann, had died from pneumonia. Her distraught husband begged Captain Pearson to delay burial at sea, and to wait two days to see if land could be sighted, with the proviso that if no land was sighted, the burial would proceed. When the ship berthed at Kingscote on October 16, Mr Kleemann brought ashore his deceased wife for burial on land.

1863  -             Daisy Bates, the Irish-born Australian woman who lived for many years among the Aborigines, is born.

Daisy Bates was born Daisy May O'Dwyer on 16 October 1863, at Caraig Hill, County Tipperary, Ireland. She arrived in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, when she was 21, and shortly after became a governess on Fanning Downs Station. In 1884 she married Edwin Henry Morant, also known as Breaker Morant, but after he was caught pig-stealing, she insisted he leave. (Breaker Morant later enlisted in the Second Contingent of the South Australian Mounted Rifles.) In 1885, Daisy married Australian stockman and drover John Bates, but continued to travel around Australia, and even returned to England for awhile, leaving behind her husband and child.

In England, Bates worked as a journalist, and became concerned about the stories of cruelty being suffered by Western Australian aborigines. She was commissioned by The Times newspaper to return to Australia and investigate the stories of cruelty. She settled in northwest Australia, at the Beagle Bay Mission near Broome, absorbing Aboriginal culture, language and legends. Here, she compiled a dictionary of several Aboriginal dialects, common words and phrases.

In 1910, Bates was appointed a Travelling Protector with a special commission to conduct inquiries into native conditions and problems, such as employment on stations, guardianship and the morality of native and half-caste women in towns and mining camps. She became a true friend and protector of the Aborigines, using her own money to buy them rations, sacrificing her own lifestyle to improve theirs, whilst preserving their culture and traditions. Bates died on 18 April 1951.

1867  -             James Nash sparks off the gold rush in Gympie, Queensland.

James Nash was born in Wiltshire, England in 1834. He migrated to Australia in 1858, and initially worked as a labourer, who spent his spare time prospecting. He moved to Queensland in 1863, and initially tried prospecting in the Nanango and Calliope districts, without success. He sparked off the Gympie gold rush when he found gold in a gully off the Mary River on 16 October 1867. The goldfield was originally called Nashville, but less than a year later, it was renamed Gympie after nearby Gympie Creek.

1978  -             The first non-Italian Pope for more than 400 years, Pope John Paul II, is elected.

Pope John Paul was elected to the papacy on the third ballot of the 1978 Papal Conclave, but the popular man who came to be known as the "Smiling Pope" died after just 33 days in office. Pope John Paul was succeeded on 16 October 1978, by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland, who took the name of Pope John Paul II in deference to his predecessor. He became the first non-Italian Pope to be elected for over 400 years. At just 58 years old, the new Pope also became the youngest pope to be elected in the twentieth century.

In his later years, Pope John Paul II's health began to suffer, particularly after he developed Parkinson's Disease during the 1990s. He died on 2 April 2005. His reign was marked by his untiring ecumenical approach to accommodate other Christian sects as well as to forge a better understanding with the Islamic world, without compromising his own Catholic stance. A major theme of his papacy was also his fight for freedom of religion in the Communist bloc and during his term as Pope, was significant for his contribution to the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

1987  -             18 die as England is hit by destructive hurricane winds, dubbed The Great Storm.

On 16 October 1987, England was hit by a night of destructive storms with hurricane-strength winds. Wind speed reached 151 km per hour in London and 177 km per hour in the Channel Islands. 18 people were killed and hundreds more injured, while damage was estimated at £1 billion. The southern coast was the area worst-hit, with 5 killed in Kent and Dover Harbour, and two firemen killed in Dorset as they responded to an emergency. A Sea Link cross channel ferry was blown ashore at Folkestone, and its crew had to be rescued. Around 15 million trees were felled, and entire forests levelled.

Storms had been predicted earlier in the week when a depression was identified as strengthening over the Atlantic Ocean. It was expected that the weather system would track along the English Channel. However, the Meteorological Office could not predict the nature and ferocity of the Great Storm as it cut inland unexpectedly.

1996  -             It is reported that thieves stole a set of fossilised dinosaur footprints from a sacred Aboriginal site.

On 16 October 1996, it was reported that a set of fossilised dinosaur footprints had been stolen from a sacred Aboriginal site in outback Australia. The footprints came from the best preserved trackway of a stegosaur in the world, and were the world's only known set of fossilised stegosaurus prints. They were also the only evidence that stegosaurs had once populated the Australian continent. The footprints were regarded by Aborigines near Broome, northwestern Australia, to belong to a mythical creature from their "Dream Time". The theft shocked and outraged Aborigines, as it violated an Aboriginal sacred site on the isolated coastline near Broome.

On 30 December 1998, one of the missing footprints was recovered. Police investigations found that the thieves had attempted to sell the prints on the Asian market, but had been unsuccessful, possibly because of their size and weight. Each of the three toes of the large print measured 15 cm. The 30kg block of rock in which the print was embedded measured 60cm by 40 cm and was 13cm deep. Police did not elaborate on how they had come across the missing fossil.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1854  -             In the lead-up to the Eureka Stockade, the Eureka Hotel is burnt to the ground during a riot.

James Scobie was an unassuming gold miner who came to Australia from Scotland to make his fortune on the Ballarat goldfields. After becoming involved in a fight at the Eureka Hotel, also known as Bentley's Hotel, Scobie died on 7 October 1854.

An inquest into his death absolved the hotel owner, Bentley, and his staff of any wrongdoing. The miners, however, felt that justice had been thwarted, and held a meeting outside the hotel on 17 October 1854. Tempers flared, a riot ensued and the hotel was burnt to the ground. As a result of this, more troopers were sent from Melbourne, and miners were subjected to more frequent licence checks, and more frequent clashes between miners and troopers.

Another inquest into Scobie's death was held a month later, on 18 November, during which Bentley and two of his staff were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to three years' hard labour in the road-gangs. The general dissatisfaction generated by these events was a catalyst in the events leading up to the Eureka stockade of December 3.           

1949  -             Work commences on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, considered one of the wonders of the modern engineering world.

The Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation scheme in Australia, covering about 5,124 square kilometres in southern New South Wales. Considered to be one of the wonders of the modern engineering world, it involves sixteen dams, seven power stations, a pumping station, 145 km of underground tunnels and 80 km of aqueducts. The scheme generates enough electricity to meet roughly 10% of the needs of New South Wales.

The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme was first proposed in 1918, driven by the needs of farmers who wanted to be able to divert the waters of the Snowy River inland for irrigation, rather than having it all simply flow out to sea at the river's mouth. In 1946, the Federal government, together with the state governments of Victoria and New South Wales, co-operated to investigate the possibilities of such a Scheme. The Government accepted a proposal in 1949 and the Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Power Act was passed in Federal Parliament in July 1949. Led by prominent New Zealand engineer Sir William Hudson, the Snowy Mountains Authority came into being on 1 August 1949.

Construction on the massive undertaking began on 17 October 1949. On this day, Governor General Sir William McKell, Prime Minister Ben Chifley and the first Commissioner of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, Sir William Hudson, fired the first blast at Adaminaby. The scheme took 25 years to complete and was built at a cost of $1 billion - well under budget. During construction, over 100,000 men and women from over 30 countries worked on the Scheme, whilst Australians made up most of the workforce. These immigrants contributed significantly to the post-war boom.

Apart from the obvious benefits provided by the electricity and the numerous dams, the Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme was significant for raising Australia's profile as a technologically advanced country. In 1967 and 1997, the American Society of Civil Engineers ranked the Scheme as one of the great engineering achievements of the twentieth century.

1961  -             Over 200 Algerians in Paris are massacred by police as they march in support of Algeria's independence from France.

Algeria, in northern Africa, is the second largest nation on the African continent. France invaded the country in 1830 and by the end of the 19th century it was under complete French control. However, during the twentieth century, people of European descent in Algeria had a very tenuous relationship with the Muslim Algerians, who remained outside of French law and control.

In 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched the terrorist-based Algerian War of Independence. Tensions ran high until, in the early 1960s, the Algerian terrorists began setting off bombs in Paris and randomly killing French policemen. Paris police chief Maurice Papon assured his men that they would be protected against any charges of excessive violence in the crackdown that followed. When the Algerians marched in protest against police oppression on 17 October 1961, the Paris police turned their guns on the large protest group. The official death toll released by the police reported 3 dead and 67 wounded. The real figure was over 200.

Papon avoided trial for many years, but in 1998 was found guilty of collaborating in crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

1979  -             Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to lepers, the homeless and the poor in the slums of Calcutta, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on 27 August 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. When she was just 17, she joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Lareto, a Catholic order that did charity work in India. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950, which was a new order devoted to helping the sick, disabled and poor, and continued to tirelessly minister to the world's most needy people. The Missionaries of Charity now operates schools, hospitals, orphanages, and food centres in over 100 cities worldwide.

On 17 October 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She requested that, rather than $6000 being spent on a ceremonial banquet, the funds be redirected to the poverty-stricken in Calcutta. As she received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She replied simply, "Go home and love your family." Upon Mother Teresa's death on 5 September 1997, she was given a full state funeral by the Indian Government, an honour normally given only to presidents and prime ministers.

 Pope Francis canonised her at a ceremony on 4 September 2016 in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.

1989  -             San Francisco, California, is hit by a powerful earthquake which kills 63.

The city of San Francisco, in California, USA, has the fourth-largest population of any city in the state. It is situated near the San Andreas Fault, a major source of earthquake activity in California, and has seen quite a few earthquake disturbances in the last 150 years. One of these occurred on 17 October 1989, when an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck along the fault line near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz mountains, approximately 110km to the south. The quake lasted 15 seconds, and could be felt from as far away as Los Angeles (680km away) and Reno, Nevada (340km away).

63 people were killed: this was a relatively low number, given the extent of damage to infrastructure, with collapsed bridges, freeways and buildings, huge cracks in roads, land slides and fires. Over 3,500 people were injured and 100,000 buildings damaged. The damage to bridges and buildings was unexpected, as they had supposedly been built to withstand the force of an earthquake.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1818  -             Oxley loses a valuable horse crossing Camden Haven, New South Wales.

Following the successful expedition during which Oxley discovered the rich Liverpool Plains, he returned to the coast. He arrived at the mouth of the Hastings River, at the present site of Port Macquarie, and was especially pleased with the excellent countryside he found. Heading south towards Sydney, he came across a large inlet which he named Camden Haven after Lord Camden. On 18 October 1818, after constructing a canoe by which to take across the men and supplies, the party attempted to swim the horses across. Two of the horses appeared to be overcome with cramps whilst swimming: while one of them managed, after a struggle, to reach the opposite shore, but the other sank out of sight. This was a great loss to Oxley's expedition, as the horse had been one of their best and strongest.

1867  -             The United States purchases Alaska for $7.2 million, the equivalent of about 2 cents an acre.

Russia, the original "owners" of Alaska, held the territory from 1741. As British and American settlers encroached upon Alaska's southern border in the mid nineteenth century, increasing the likelihood of territorial disputes, the financially-strapped Russia offered to sell the territory to the United States. The formal transfer of Alaska from the ownership of Russia to the United States of America took place on 18 October 1867. Alaska was sold for $7.2 million in gold, which equated to about 2 cents an acre.

Initially, President Andrew Johnson was derided for the purchase, as Alaska was seen as too remote to be of any real value. However, following the great Klondike gold strike in 1896, Alaska came to be seen as a valuable and strategic addition to American territory.

1909  -             New South Wales agrees to surrender 2400 square kilometres of land for the creation of the Australian Capital Territory.

On 1 January 1901, following federation of the six colonies in Australia, arose the need to build a federal capital. It was decided that the national capital would not be one of the existing state capitals, in order to prevent rivalry between the cities. It would, however, be positioned between Australias two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne.

Numerous sites were evaluated by members of Parliament. The site for the national capital could not be on the coast, as this could cause it to be susceptible to enemy bombardment. The necessity for a naval port was satisfied by the acquisition of federal land at Jervis Bay. The climate needed to be bracing, to ensure clear minds for political decision-making. There could be no established urban development or industry already, and access to sufficient water was a necessity. It needed to be in an elevated position, aesthetically pleasing and preferably surrounded by picturesque mountains.

Locations raised for consideration were Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Bombala, Dalgety, Delegate, Goulburn, Lake George, Lyndhurst, Orange, Queanbeyan, Tumut, Wagga Wagga and Yass. After the initial ballot in the House of Representatives in 1903, Bombala emerged as the favoured site. Following a change of government in 1904, Dalgety was selected as the site of Australias future Federal Capital Territory (later the Australian Capital Territory). When the government changed again in 1905, another ballot was held, and the Yass-Canberra site won by six votes. The territory was defined as a triangle, with Yass in the top corner, the Murrumbidgee River forming the western border and Lake George being in the east.

On 18 October 1909, New South Wales agreed to transfer 2400 square kilometres of land to the Commonwealth for the purpose of establishing the Federal Capital Territory. The deal was signed by Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin and the Premier of New South Wales, Charles Wade. The land was formally transferred from New South Wales in January 1911.

1912  -             The First Balkan War breaks out between the members of the Balkan League and the Ottoman Empire.

The Balkan League was comprised of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro. The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, was an imperial power which existed from the late 1200s through to 1923, with its focus around the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. In March 1912, Serbia arranged a treaty of alliance with Bulgaria. However, Greece settled a military convention with Bulgaria two months later. Tension increased steadily in the Balkan Peninsula following this, especially after August 14, when Bulgaria sent a demand to the Turks that the Turkish province of Macedonia be granted autonomy. The Balkan states began to mobilise their armies in late September, and early in October Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

On 18 October 1912, the Balkan allies entered the war on the side of Montenegro, generating the First Balkan War. Before the year was out, the Balkan League had won several sure victories over the Turkish Empire. The Turks were forced to surrender Albania, Macedonia, and most of their other territories around the Mediterranean.

1928  -             Constable William Murray returns to Alice Springs after massacring Aborigines at Coniston Station.

The Coniston Massacre was the last known massacre of Australian Aborigines. Occurring at Coniston cattle station, Northern Territory, Australia, it was a revenge killing for the death of dingo hunter Frederick Brooks, who was believed to have been killed by Aborigines in August 1928. Constable William Murray, officer in charge at Barrow Creek, investigated and came to the conclusion that the killing had been done by members of the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye people. There were no witnesses, and apparent inconsistencies in Murray's report were never questioned.

Murray took matters into his own hand. Over the next few days, up until 30 August, he shot 17 members of the Aboriginal tribes he believed were responsible, and claimed his actions were made in self-defence and that each tribal member he had killed was in possession of some item belonging to Brooks.

In the ensuing weeks, Murray again encountered several groups of Aborigines while investigating another non-fatal attack on a settler named Nugget Morton at Broadmeadows Station. Together with Morton, one other white man and an aboriginal boy, Murray embarked on a campaign of revenge, during which another 14 Aborigines were killed. He returned to Alice Springs with his report on 18 October 1928.

Murray was never punished for his actions. On the contrary, the Board of Enquiry members were selected to maximise damage-control. It was believed at the time that Murray's actions were appropriate for the circumstances. The Central Land Council organised the seventy-fifth anniversary of the massacre, commemorated near Yuendumu on 24 September 2003.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1833  -             Australian horseman and poet, Adam Lindsay Gordon, is born.

Adam Lindsay Gordon was born on 19 October 1833, at Fayal in the Azores, a group of Portuguese islands in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km from Lisbon, Portugal. Educated in his teenage years in England, he was a wayward youth. After completing his education, his father sent him to South Australia, where he worked variously as a horsebreaker, mounted policeman, poet and even a member of parliament. He had an intense love of horses and riding, but this proved to be his undoing: in July 1868, he suffered a riding accident which caused some brain damage, and plummeted him into depression.

His poetry expressed his love of horses. It also captured the emerging Australian identity and use of Australian idioms. The day after the publication of his poems as "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes" he took himself off to Brighton Beach in Melbourne, where he committed suicide. He was just 36 years old.

1845  -             Leichhardt discovers the Roper River in northern Australia, but loses three of his best horses whilst attempting to cross.

Ludwig Leichhardt was born in Prussia and studied in Germany. He was a passionate botanist who had an interest in exploration, although he lacked necessary bush survival skills. In October 1844, he left from Jimbour, on the Darling Downs, on an expedition to find a new route to Port Essington, near Darwin.

Whilst making his way up the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria a year later, on 19 October 1845, his party came to a freshwater river, estimated to be 460km wide. Leichhardt named it after one of his own men, John Roper, who had seen the river two days earlier on an advance scouting mission to find the best route. As the party began to cross the Roper River, three of the best horses stumbled down steep banks and drowned. With fewer horses remaining to carry the load, Leichhardt regretfully had to destroy most of his botanical specimens which he had been collecting for the past year.

1856  -             A stampede kills 7 during a Sunday evening service led by the great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon. [more]

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, more commonly known as C H Spurgeon, was England's best-known and most-loved preacher for most of the latter half of the nineteenth century. He was born in Kelvedon, Essex, on 19 June 1834 and converted to Christianity when he was fifteen years old. He preached his first sermon a year later: even then, his style, depth of thought and delivery were seen as being far above average. At age 18, Spurgeon was placed in charge of a small congregation at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, and at age 20, went to London as pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in Southwark. Under Spurgeon's leadership, the congregation quickly outgrew its building, moving to Exeter Hall, then to Surrey Music Hall, where there would sometimes be an audience of 10,000.

It was here that Spurgeon experienced his first major setback. During the Sunday evening service on 19 October 1856, someone shouted, "Fire!" The ensuing panic caused a stampede in which seven people were killed, and scores more injured. There was no fire. Spurgeon was just 22 years old and was overcome by this tragedy. For weeks afterward, his distress prevented him from preaching and his whole ministry appeared to be finished. However, his faith sustained him and he grew through the experience to return to preaching, extending his ministry through his published sermons which are still highly regarded today.

1872  -             The largest single piece of reef gold ever discovered in the world is found at Hill End, in New South Wales.

Hill End, originally known as Bald Hill, is a gold-mining ghost town about 66km from Mudgee in the New South Wales central-west. Alluvial gold was discovered at Hill End in 1851 and within a month, there were were 150 miners working the area. The Hill End goldfield was one of the richest gold mining areas in NSW, and the first reef mining area in Australia. The Beyers and Holtermann nugget, the largest single piece of reef gold ever discovered in the world, was found by workers at the Star of Hope Gold Mining Co on Hawkins Hill, on 19 October 1872. It weighed about 286kg, measured

150cm by 66cm, and was worth at least £12,000 at the time.

1987  -             The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 22.6%, the largest one-day decline in recorded stock market history.

19 October 1987, became known as "Black Monday" when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points, or 22.6%, in the largest single-day decline in recorded stock market history. The crash rebounded around the world, as within a fortnight, stock markets in Australia had fallen 41.8%, Hong Kong 45.8%, and the United Kingdom 26.4%. The crash was unexpected, and did not seem to have been precipitated by any major news or events. In retrospect, some theories have pointed to the announcement of a particularly steep trade deficit and news of an American attack against Iran as the cause of the plunge. However, economists have not been able to agree on any reason for the crash.

Cheers - John

Another good read John, so thanks for that

Re 1987 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 22.6%, the largest one-day decline in recorded stock market history.

Around about that year, (before the fall), being an inquisitive little man, and wanting to find out how the stock market actually worked, I done a bit of research
After my research I was of the opinion (so I could have been wrong), that, unless you purchased blue stock shares and were willing to hold onto them for a long period, then buying and selling shares was a type of gambling

I was also (after this research) of the opinion, so once again I could have been wrong, that some financial advisers, were advising their clients to purchase shares, where the financial advisor was getting a commission, as well as the client paying for the advice

Gday...

1632  -             The great English architect, Sir Christopher Wren, is born.

Sir Christopher Wren was a 17th century English architect. He was born on 20 October 1632, in Wiltshire, England. He studied at Oxford, and at age 25 became professor of astronomy at Gresham College. In 1661 he became the Savilian Professor of astronomy at Oxford until his resignation in 1673. During this time, Charles II appointed Wren as assistant to the royal architect and in 1665 he spent six months in Paris studying architecture. He was also one of the founding members of the Royal Society, of which he was president from 1680 to 1682.

As an architect, Wren designed more than 50 London churches following the Great Fire of London in 1666. He is particularly known for his design for St Paul's Cathedral, one of very few cathedrals in England to have been built after the medieval period, and the only Renaissance cathedral in the country. His secular works include the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the garden facade of Hampton Court Palace, Chelsea Hospital, sections of Greenwich Hospital and the buildings of the Temple, London. Wren died in 1723 and was buried in the crypt of St Paul's.

1792  -             John Fawkner, early pioneer and rival to John Batman for the title of Melbourne's founder, is born.

John Pascoe Fawkner was born in London on 20 October 1792. In 1803, when he was eleven years old, he accompanied his convict father and family to a potential new convict settlement. The British Government had instructed Lieutenant-Governor David Collins to establish a settlement on the southern coast. At that stage, the area was still part of New South Wales. The expedition included two ships, 308 convicts, 51 marines, 17 free settlers, 12 civil officers, and a missionary and his wife. In October 1803, Collins and his expedition landed at the site where Sorrento now stands on the Mornington Peninsula, naming it Port King. The settlement was not a success for a variety of reasons and, hearing of better land and timber in Van Diemen's Land, Collins moved most of the settlement across Bass Strait, establishing Hobart.

Fawkner's father was given a conditional pardon, and founded several businesses, gradually achieving success and some prosperity. A series of misadventures by young Fawkner caused him to be convicted for aiding and abetting the escape of 7 prisoners, for which he was sentenced to 500 lashes and three years labour. After being released in 1816, he gradually moved through more misadventures, crime and punishment until, by sheer determination, he rose above the continual obstacles, finally achieving his own prosperity but, with it, a reputation for being troublesome and arrogant.

The possibility of better prospects on the other side of Bass Strait inspired Fawkner to return to the mainland. Temporarily delayed by creditors who refused to allow him to leave Van Diemen's Land on his own boat, Enterprize, Fawkner did manage to sail two months later after his crew, in October 1835. He arrived first at Westernport Bay, then moved on to where John Batman had begun the unofficial settlement of Melbourne. Here he established Melbourne's first hotel, soon followed by Melbourne's first newspaper, The Advertiser.

After the death of Batman in 1839, in the absence of his rival Fawkner took the opportunity to promote himself as the founder of Melbourne. He gained many followers, and made just as many enemies for his arrogance and pomposity. Success bred success, however, and Fawkner gained influence, entering politics. In 1851, he became a member of the first Legislative Council of the Port Phillip District, and five years later was elected to the first Parliament of the self-governing colony of Victoria. Fawkner died on 4 September 1869.

1828  -             H G Spafford, the man who wrote the hymn "It is well with my soul" amidst great personal tragedy, is born.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well with my soul."

The words of the hymn "It is well with my soul" were penned by a man who knew profound tragedy. Horatio Gates Spafford was born on 20 October 1828 in New York state. He and his wife Anna became important figures in Chicago in the 1860s, as Spafford was a prominent figure in legal circles, and they were close friends with the famous evangelist D L Moody.

Spafford and his wife suffered their first tragic loss in 1870 when their young son died from scarlet fever. The following year, he suffered further losses. An astute businessman who had invested heavily in real estate, he lost most of his property along the shores of Lake Michigan in the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871.

In 1873, Spafford organised his wife and four daughters for a European vacation, with the intent of assisting D L Moody who would be travelling around Britain and preaching his message. Due to a business matter at the last moment, Spafford was forced to defer his plans, instead sending off just his family on a voyage across the Atlantic. On 22 November 1873, their steamer collided with an English vessel, sinking quickly and claiming the lives of 226 people, including all of Spafford's daughters. He received from his wife a telegram which read simply, "Saved alone".

Spafford took the next ship from New York to join his grieving wife. Whilst crossing the Atlantic, the Captain pointed out the site of the collision. Spafford returned to his cabin, where he penned the words of the hymn "It is well with my soul". He based the hymn on the words of 2 Kings 4:26 from the Bible, which tell of a woman's peace amidst her grief of losing her only son. The words of this hymn are a lasting legacy of a man who maintained steadfast trust in the Lord.

1911  -             Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen departs the Bay of Whales, Antarctica, on his expedition to the South Pole.

Roald Amundsen was born on 16 July 1872, near Oslo, Norway. At fifteen, he intended to study medicine but, inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888, altered his career intentions to eventually become one of the most successful polar explorers. He planned to be the first to the North Pole, but having been beaten by Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, he then altered his plans to make for the South Pole. He set out for Antarctica in 1910, and reached the Ross Ice Shelf on 14 January 1911 at a point known as the Bay of Whales. From here, on 10 February 1911, Amundsen scouted south to establish depots along the way. During the next two months, he and his party established three depots for storing their extensive provisions. They had their last glimpse of the sun for four months on 22 April 1911.

After maintaining their base at the Bay of Whales during the winter months, on 20 October 1911, Amundsen and four others departed for the South Pole. The remaining three in his expedition party went east to visit King Edward VII Land. The southern party consisted of five men, four sledges, fifty-two dogs and provisions for four months. The expedition reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911, a month before the famed Robert Scott reached it.

1973  -             The Sydney Opera House is formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, sits on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour. Designed by Danish architect Joern Utzon in 1955, it has become one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. Utzon arrived in Sydney to oversee the project in 1957 and work commenced on the opera House in 1959. The building, famous for its geometric roof shells, was completed in 1973, at a cost of $102 million.

The Opera House was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973. The opening was celebrated with fireworks and a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Prior to this, however, Sergei Prokofiev's 'War and Peace' was played at the Opera Theatre on 28 September 1973. The following day, the first public performance was held, with a programme performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Mackerras and with accompanying singer Birgit Nilsson.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1879  -             Thomas Edison successfully demonstrates the first commercially viable electric light bulb.

Thomas Alva Edison was born on 11 February 1847, in Milan, Ohio, USA. Although probably best known for developing the light bulb, Edison was a prolific inventor, registering 1093 patents by the time he died in 1931. On 21 October 1879, Edison demonstrated the first durable and commercially practical incandescent lamp. The bulb lasted 40 hours before burning out.

Edison was not the first to experiment with the idea of electric lighting. Many before him had developed the incandescent bulb, but none was practical enough for everyday use in the home. Edison tested over 6,000 types of vegetable matter, including baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax and bamboo as material to use for the filament. He achieved success when he experimented with a filament of carbonised sewing thread.

1966  -             144 people are killed, including 116 children, as a coal slag tip buries a school in Wales.

Aberfan is a small town near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. At 9:15am on 21 October 1966, a slag heap from the nearby coal mine slid down Merthyr Mountain. It destroyed a farmhouse before burying the Pantglas Junior School and over a dozen other houses nearby. 144 people were killed; 116 of them were children.

At the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Aberfan Disaster, the National Coal Board was found responsible for the disaster, due to "ignorance, ineptitude and a failure of communication". The collapse was caused by a build up of water in the pile, which had slowly turned the coal slag into a liquid slurry. The slag heap had been built up over a stream, and had already slipped several times. Although colliery management and workers at the coal tip knew about the situation, the potential problem was largely ignored. The Colliery was closed in 1989.

2002  -             Two students are killed when a gunman opens fire at Monash University in Melbourne.

Xiang Huan Yun was a 36-year-old student when, on 21 October 2002, armed with several handguns, he walked into a sixth-floor economics tutorial at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and opened fire. Two students were killed and another five injured in the tragedy. Despite being injured himself, econometrics lecturer Lee Gordon-Brown and another student subdued Yun before he could kill more people. The two students killed were Chinese national William Wu and Australian resident Steven Chan. Yun was charged with two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.

2014  -             Australias 21st Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, dies.

Edward Gough Whitlam was born on 11 July 1916 in the Melbourne suburb of Kew. Commonly known as Gough, he was the son of a public servant. His family moved to Sydney when young Gough was 2, and then to Canberra a decade later. This gave Whitlam the distinction of being the only Australian Prime Minister to have grown up in the national capital. However, he undertook his higher education at the University of Sydney, where he studied Arts and Law.

After serving in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) from 1941 to 1945, Whitlam began practising as a barrister in New South Wales. He joined the Australian Labor Party in 1945, and contested the state seat of Sutherland in 1950, but was unsuccessful. His career in politics began when he won the federal seat of Werriwa in a by-election in 1952. He was elected deputy leader of the ALP in Federal Parliament in March 1960 and succeeded Arthur Calwell as leader in February 1967. This placed him in the position of Leader of the Opposition.

On 2 December 1972, Whitlam became the 21st Prime Minister of Australia in the first ALP electoral victory since 1946. His government embarked on a massive legislative social reform program which was forward-thinking and progressive in many ways. In 1974, Whitlam appointed Sir John Kerr, Chief Justice of New South Wales, as the Governor-General of Australia, not realising that Kerr's political views had changed. Whilst initially popular, the fast pace of Whitlam's reforms engendered caution amongst the electorate, and the economy was beset by high inflation combined with economic stagnation. The opposition Liberal-National Country Party coalition held a majority in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament. In an unprecedented move, the Senate deferred voting on bills that appropriated funds for government expenditure, attempting to force the Prime Minister to dissolve the House of Representatives and call an election. The Whitlam government ignored the warnings and sought alternative means of appropriating the funds it needed to repay huge debts. With Whitlam unable to secure the necessary funds, Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Whitlam as Prime Minister on 11 November 1975, and appointed Liberal opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister.

Whitlam resigned as leader of the ALP after the party was defeated in the 1977 general election, and quit parliament in July 1978. In 1983 he became Australian ambassador to UNESCO. Other appointments included being made chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Council, and being part of the bid team which led to Sydney being selected as the venue for the 2000 Olympic Games. He continued to be a political presence, lecturing and commenting on political and constitutional issues. His wife Margaret, whom he had married in 1942, died in 2012. Whitlam himself died two years later, on 21 October 2014, aged 98.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1811  -             Hungarian piano virtuoso and composer, Franz Liszt, is born.

Franz Liszt was a composer of the Romantic Era, the period of European classical music which encompassed the early 1800s to the beginning of the 20th century. He was born Franz Joseph Liszt on 22 October 1811, in Sopron, Hungary. A virtuoso on the piano, his compositions comprised fantastic technical challenges and dramatic expression. He was a generous performer, who freely gave of his time and money to help orphans and victims of disasters. He often taught students for free.

Liszt's piano compositions include his Piano Sonata in B minor, two piano concertos, and numerous piano transcriptions of operas, famous symphonies, and Schubert Lieder (songs). He also originated the concept of the symphonic poem, or tone poem, which was a piece of orchestral music in one single movement (as opposed to the three movements of a standard symphony), in which some extra-musical programme provided a narrative or illustrative element. It was commonly based on a poem, novel, painting or nationalistic ideal. His style served to influence contemporary composers such as Chopin, Berlioz, Bruckner, Mahler, Dvorak and Wagner.

1824  -             Hume and Hovell convert a bullock cart into a boat in order to cross the flooded Murrumbidgee River.

Hamilton Hume was an Australian-born settler with excellent bush skills. He was interested in exploring south of the known Sydney area in order to open up new areas of land, but could not gain Government support for his proposed venture. William Hovell was an English immigrant with little bush experience, a former ship's captain who was keen to assist Hume's expedition financially, and accompany him. The expedition was set up, and Hume and Hovell departed Hume's father's farm at Appin, southwest of Sydney, on 3 October 1824.

When they reached the Murrumbidgee River, it was 36m wide, in full flood, and still rising. After spending several days trying to find a way around the river, on 22 October 1824, they found a unique solution to making the crossing. They converted the body of one of the carts into a boat, sealing it with a tarpaulin, and placing their supplies inside. Hume and an assigned convict swam across the river with a length of fishing line in their teeth, which in turn hauled a rope. Reaching the opposite side, they tied the rope around a tree and used it to guide the boat across. About 9 trips were required to ferry all the supplies across, and the horses and bullocks were swum over without incident. This was a method the men used several times to cross rivers on their journey.

1854  -             Around 10,000 miners converge near Bakery Hill in Victoria to discuss their grievances for more rights on the goldfields.

The Eureka Stockade was the 1854 miners' uprising on the goldfields of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Conditions on the Australian goldfields were harsh. The fields were crowded and unsanitary, and troopers dealt harshly with minor offences. The main source of discontent was the miner's licence, which cost a monthly fee of 30 shillings and permitted the holder to work a 3.6 metre square "claim". Licences had to be paid regardless of whether a digger's claim resulted in the finding of any gold. Frequent licence hunts were conducted, during which the miners were ordered to produce proof of their licences, and this added to the increasing unrest.

On 22 October 1854, approximately 10,000 miners gathered at Bakery Hill directly across the flat from the Government Camp, on the road to the mainly Irish encampment of Eureka. In a non-violent campaign, they attempted to air their grievances, but were met with complete inaction. The lack of interest in the miners' plight was the precursor to the Eureka Stockade which occurred over a month later near Ballarat.

1872  -             The first overseas telegraph messages are received in Adelaide via the newly constructed Overland Telegraph Line.

The Overland Telegraph Line was a major feat of engineering, which connected Australia to the rest of world via a single wire. The motivation for building the Overland Telegraph Line came from the fact that a submarine cable already reached from England to Java, and the British-Australian Telegraph Company was prepared to lay a submarine cable from Java to Darwin. It remained only to connect Darwin to the rest of Australia.

The line was to connect first with Adelaide, as Adelaide was the closest point linking to the major centres of Melbourne and Sydney. Thanks to the influence of Charles Todd, superintendent of telegraphs and government astronomer in South Australia, the South Australian government agreed to build the necessary 3200 kilometre overland telegraph line connecting Darwin with Port Augusta, north of Adelaide. The line closely followed the route charted by explorer John McDouall Stuart on his final expedition in 1862. Scottish bushman John Ross marked out the trail prior to the construction of the line. 36 000 wooden poles were cut and transported, mainly from Wirrabara Forest (formerly Whites Forest) on the eastern slopes and foothills of the southern Flinders Ranges.

Begun on 15 September 1870, the Overland Telegraph Line was completed on 22 August 1872, when the northern and southern sections were joined. The first telegraph messages from overseas were received in Morse code in the GPO building in Adelaide on 22 October 1872.

1990  -             The Royal Geographical Society declaims irrigation as one of the causes of the world's worst ecological disaster around the Aral Sea.

The Aral Sea lies in central Asia, between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south. In 1960 it was the world's fourth-largest lake, with an area of approximately 68,000 km², about the size of the Republic of Ireland. By 1998, it was only eighth-largest, and had shrunk to 28,687 km². During the 1980s, the water level fell so low that the sea split into two bodies of water, the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea. The artificial channel which was dug to connect them had disappeared by 1999, as the two bodies of water continued to shrink.

On 22 October 1990, the Royal Geographical Society claimed the area had suffered the world's worst ecological disaster. The devastation was largely due to the Soviet construction of irrigation channels to divert the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the northeast. The irrigation channels were poorly constructed, allowing water to leak out or evaporate, resulting in wastage of between 30 and 70%. This situation has never been rectified.

Whilst there is some attempt to resurrect the North Aral Sea, the South Aral has continued to shrink, leaving behind vast saltpans which, together with the higher concentration of pesticides in the area, has resulted in severe health problems for the area's four million inhabitants. The fishing industry has been decimated and the climate has changed, with short, dry summers and long, cold winters. The incidence of cancer has increased tenfold, and death from lung disease is among the highest in the world, as the result of salt and toxic chemicals being picked up by winds and dumped as toxic dust on surrounding areas.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1813  -             Australian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, who was first to travel from the eastern coast to Port Essington in the north, is born.

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt was born on 23 October 1813 in Trebatsch, Prussia (now Brandenburg, Germany). His thirst for knowledge led him to study philosophy, languages and natural sciences in Germany. Although he never received a degree, he was a passionate botanist. Leichhardt arrived in Australia in 1842, and immediately expressed an interest in exploration, although he lacked necessary bush survival skills.

Leichhardt made a total of three expeditions. In October 1844, he left from Jimbour, on the Darling Downs, on an expedition to find a new route to Port Essington, near Darwin. The 4800 km overland journey reached its destination on 17 December 1845. His second expedition, from the Darling Downs in Queensland to Perth in Western Australia, commenced in December 1846. However, wet weather and malaria forced the party to return after they had travelled only 800km.

Leichhardt's final expedition began in March 1848, picking up where his second expedition left off. However, somewhere in Australia's vast outback, Leichhardt, together with six other men, eight horses, fifty bullocks and twenty mules, vanished. Many theories have abounded as to what happened, and many claim to have found evidence of the remains of the expedition, but what really happened remains one of Australia's enduring mysteries.

1823  -             Oxley departs Sydney to search north for a site for a new settlement, eventually discovering Moreton Bay.

On 23 October 1823, Surveyor-General John Oxley set sail from Sydney to travel north along the coastline. His aim was to find a suitable settlement for convicts who had not been reformed, but continued to re-offend. Reaching Port Curtis (Gladstone), Oxley rejected the harbour as unsuitable, due to its many shoals and mangrove swamps. Oxley returned south and entered Moreton Bay, where he met up with the lost ticket-of-leave convicts, Parsons, Pamphlett and Finnegan on Bribie Island. These men had been blown off-course from the Illawarra coast and disoriented by a storm many months earlier. Aborigines had helped sustain them, and the men had explored much of the area on foot.

Pamphlett and Finnegan showed Oxley a large river, which Oxley later named the Brisbane River. He traced the river for about 80km, and declared the area suitable for a penal settlement. Thus, although Oxley has long been credited with the discovery of the Brisbane River, he was not the first white man to see the future site of Brisbane.

1861  -             South Australian John McKinlay's relief expedition to locate Burke and Wills finds the burial site of party member Charles Gray.

The Burke and Wills expedition was supposed to mark the state of Victoria's greatest triumph: Victoria hoped to be the first state to mount an expedition to cross the continent from south to north. Instead, due to mismanagement and lack of clear communication, three of the four members of the party who finally made the attempt to cross to the gulf and back, never made it back. Charles Gray died on the return journey from the Gulf, his companions spending a day digging a shallow grave for him in the desert, and subsequently missing their own relief party from Melbourne by seven hours. Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills died some weeks after returning to their depot at Cooper Creek, where they found the supplies left by the relief party but failed to leave a message informing future relief parties they had been there. Thus they were believed to have not even returned from the Gulf. John King alone survived, after being taken in and nursed by the Aborigines of the Cooper Creek area.

Although the expedition had been financed by Victoria, South Australia mounted its own rescue mission for Burke and Wills. John McKinlay, born at Sandbank on the Clyde in 1819, first came to New South Wales in 1836. He joined his uncle, a wealthy grazier, under whose guidance he soon gained practical bush skills, and then took up several runs in South Australia. McKinlay was chosen to head up the relief expedition for Burke and Wills, setting out from Adelaide on 16 August 1861. During the course of his search, McKinlay's journals show that he crossed the continent from south to north, then east and back again, possibly making McKinlay the uncredited first explorer to cross the continent and survive.

In October 1861, with the help of a native guide, McKinlay discovered evidence that horses, camels and white men had camped near a waterhole. In a letter dated 23 October 1861, he wrote:
"Hair, apparently belonging to Mr. Wills, Charles Gray, Mr. Burke, or King, was picked up from the surface of a grave dug by a spade, and from the skull of a European buried by the natives. Other less important traces -- such as a pannikin, oil-can, saddle-stuffing, etc., have been found. Beware of the natives, on whom we have had to fire. We do not intend to return to Adelaide, but proceed to west of north. From information, all Burke's party were killed and eaten."

McKinlay had, in fact, located the burial site of Charles Gray who, despite the party's painstaking efforts to bury him, had apparently been dug up and eaten by Aborigines. An Aboriginal elder with whom McKinlay was able to communicate indicated that Gray had actually been killed in a skirmish between the whites and natives, not from exhaustion and illness as had been previously thought. The remains of Burke and Wills were eventually located by the Victorian relief expedition.

1965  -             Canberra, capital city of Australia, begins operation of its first two sets of traffic lights.

 The world's first traffic light was operating in London, England, even before the advent of the automobile. Installed at a London intersection in 1868, it was a revolving gas-lit lantern with red and green signals. However, on 2 January 1869, the light exploded, injuring the policeman who was operating it. It was not until the early 1900s that Garrett Morgan, an African-American living in Cleveland, Ohio, developed the electric automatic traffic light. Originally based on a semaphore-system, traffic lights gradually evolved through the years to become the red-amber-green lights they are today.

Canberra's first two sets of traffic lights were brought into operation on 23 October 1965, some thirty years after Sydney received its first traffic lights, in 1933. The Canberra lights were located at the junction of Northbourne Avenue and London Circuit, and Northbourne Avenue and Cooyong Street.

1976  -             Much of southern Australia experiences a total solar eclipse.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, casting its shadow over the Earth. On 23 October 1976, Australia was right in the path of a total solar eclipse, which tracked across the southern half of the continent. The track passed very close to the capital cities of Adelaide, and Sydney. It is rare for a solar eclipse to pass over a populous city, but Melbourne, second-largest city in Australia, was directly in the totality path.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1889  -             Sir Henry Parkes, 'Father of Australian Federation', makes his famous Tenterfield Oration.

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, and was Premier of New South Wales several times between 1872 and 1891.

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. Tenterfield was selected as the place to make his stand as it was part of New South Wales but a far distance from Sydney. This meant that the town was disadvantaged by the steep tariffs imposed on the transport of goods across the border to Queensland and the closer trade centre of Brisbane. His promotion of Federation was based on the fact that it would enable free trade across the borders.

1945  -             The United Nations is founded.

The term "United Nations" was first used officially during World War II, on 1 January 1942, when 26 states joined in the Declaration by the "United Nations", pledging themselves to continue their joint war effort and not to seek peace as separate entities. During the course of the war, it was recognised that there was a need for a new organisation to replace the largely ineffectual League of Nations. This was stated in the Moscow Declaration, issued by China, Great Britain, the United States, and the USSR in 1943.

As the war drew to an end, USA President Franklin D Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin initiated a conference to take place in April 1945. Its purpose was to plan the charter of an organisation to promote peace, security, and economic development. Nations which had agreed to the original 1942 declaration, declaring war on Germany or Japan by 1 March 1945, were called to the founding conference held in San Francisco, to draft the UN charter. The conference was attended by representatives of fifty nations. The UN charter was signed on June 26 and ratified by the required number of states on 24 October 1945.

1960  -             In the world's worst space-related disaster, 126 people are killed when a rocket explodes on a Russian launch pad.

The Soviet space programme was initiated by the Soviet Union, or USSR, in the 1930s. In the ensuing years, it was responsible for pioneering major milestones in space exploration, such as the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first man to orbit the Earth and the first moon impact.

Unfortunately, it was also within the Soviet space programme that the world's biggest apce-related disaster to date occurred. On 24 October 1960, 126 people were killed in an explosion on the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome. During work on a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system, a rocket exploded, burning or completely vaporising a number of people, while others died of noxious fumes or burn-related injuries later. The accident was apparently caused when the testing crew accidentally initiated the second stage of the rocket, thus igniting the first stage.

Under Nikita Kruschev's orders, total silence was imposed over the tragedy, with relatives being informed the victims had been killed in a plane crash. Information on the accident only became available after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.

2003  -             Supersonic aircraft, the Concorde, completes its last commercial passenger flight.

The Concorde was a form of specially designed supersonic air transport. The concept of supersonic aircraft was conceived in the 1950s. During the 1960s, Britain's Bristol Aeroplane Company and France's Sud Aviation were simultaneously working on designs, but the anticipated costs of the project were too great to be developed by an individual company: hence, France and Britain decided to work cooperatively. An international treaty between Britain and France was negotiated for the development of the project. The first test flight took place from Toulouse, France, on 2 March 1969, and the first supersonic flight occurred on October 1 of that year.

In July 2000, a Concorde jet on its way from France to New York crashed just a couple of minutes after a left-hand engine caught fire during take-off. All 109 people on board were killed, and another 4 on the ground. Followng the accident, all Concorde aircraft were taken out of service until the cause of the crash could be determined. The report from France's Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) found that a 40cm piece of metal had been lost by another plane that took off minutes earlier, puncturing one of the Concorde's tyres. Debris was subsequently flung into the fuel tank, starting the fire that downed the aircraft. The Concorde aircraft underwent improvements and modifications, but after the accident continued to be dogged by problems.

Due to continuing problems and the loss of profitability, all Concorde aircraft were decommissioned by October 2003. The final transatlantic flight of the supersonic aircraft landed at London's Heathrow airport, at 1605 BST on 24 October 2003. A huge auction of Concorde memorabilia was held in Paris in November 2003.

Cheers - John

Hello John

A good read as always, so thanks for that

Re 1960 - In the world's worst space-related disaster, 126 people are killed when a rocket explodes on a Russian launch pad.

I read somewhere (from memory so do not quote me word for word), and RIP to the people who died

That the head man, or Government Minister, had gone along to give them the hurry up
The hurry up consisted of a few minor shortcuts
The rest they say is history

Gday...

1616  -             Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog becomes the first European to set foot on Australia's western coast, and leaves his inscription at Cape Inscription, Western Australia.

Over 150 years before English explorer James Cook (then Lieutenant Cook) ever sighted eastern Australia, the Dutch landed in the far north and on the Western coast. In 1616, Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog sailed too far whilst trying out Henderik Brouwer's recently discovered route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, via the Roaring Forties. Reaching the western coast of Australia, he landed on what is now known as Dirk Hartog Island, at Cape Inscription, on 25 October 1616. Here he left a pewter plate with an inscription recording his landing. The translation of the inscription reads: '1616. On 25th October there arrived here the ship Eendraght of Amsterdam. Supercargo Gilles Miebais of Liege; skipper Dirck Hatichs of Amsterdam. On 27th do. she set sail again for Bantam. Subcargo Jan Stins; upper steersman Pieter Doores of Bil. In the year 1616.'

In 1697, Dutch sailor Willem de Vlamingh reached "New Holland", as it was then called, and removed Hartog's pewter plate, replacing it with another plate. The original was returned to Holland where it still is kept in the Rijksmuseum. The original inscription was copied onto a new plate, and Vlamingh added new information which listed the sailors on his own voyage and read: 'Our fleet set sail from here to continue exploring the Southern Land, on the way to Batavia.'

1881  -             Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is born.

Pablo Picasso was born Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso on 25 October 1881 in Málaga, Spain. When he was born, he was thought to be still born. Stories abound about who saved the child, including his nurse, uncle and doctor. The doctor is said to have given the baby artificial respiration from his own cigar-smoke filled lungs, while his uncle is said to have revived him by blowing smoke into his face.

Regardless of whoever revived him, he became one of the recognised masters of 20th century art, and famous as the founder of Cubism, along with Georges Braque. At his death in 1973, his works included over 11000 drawings, 1800 paintings, 1355 sculptures, 2880 ceramics and 27000 other miscellaneous works.

1888  -             The mutiny of the Navy ship The Gayundah takes place on the Brisbane River, Queensland.

From the time of the first European discoveries of the Australian continent, several countries remained curious enough to chart the coastline of the Great South Land. French and Dutch interests were offset by British colonisation, but by the 1880s, there were increased concerns about the presence of Russian activity in the Pacific. The British had begun to withdraw their military presence in preceding decades, so each colonial government became responsible for its own defence force. In Queensland, Fort Lytton was constructed at the mouth of the Brisbane River in 1881. Three years later, the Queensland Maritime Defence Force acquired a torpedo boat, the HMQS Mosquito, and two British gunboats, the HMQS Gayundah and the Paluma, named for aboriginal words meaning lightning and thunder respectively.

The HMQS Gayundah departed Newcastle-On-Tyne in November 1884 and arrived in Brisbane in March 1885, under the command of ex-Royal Navy Captain Henry Townley Wright. Within a few months, it became evident that the Russian threat was minimal, so the ship entered the Brisbane River and anchored near Kangaroo Point, opposite the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens. During the ensuing years, Captain Wrights conduct deteriorated as he criticised the colonial navy and began appropriating government stores and alcohol for himself. In 1887, attempts by the government to remove Wright were unsuccessful, and he was retained for another year under the proviso that he did not have authority to order stores to be brought on board.

In September 1888, Wright applied for leave of absence, requesting that he be paid the remainder of his salary until the conclusion of his commission as a lump sum. Whilst leave was granted, Wright was still to be paid only monthly, which created problems as he had racked up considerable debts. On 25 October 1888, Wright refused orders to turn over command to First Lieutenant Francis Taylor, had his crew arrest Taylor for mutiny, and indicated his intentions to take the ship to Sydney. Queensland police, led by Police Commissioner David Thompson Seymour, boarded the vessel to take control by force, if necessary. Wright then asked his gunner where the Gayundah's aft 6-inch gun should be aimed in order to hit the Queensland Parliament building. Wright was escorted to shore by the police.

The Gayundah became part of the Commonwealth Naval Forces in 1901 and, two years later, transmitted the first wireless message received from a ship at sea to an Australian wireless station. Upon formation of the Royal Australian Navy in 1911, the Gayundah was redesignated HMAS Gayundah, and was put into service patrolling Australia's water borders along the north-west coast of the continent. The vessel was decommissioned in 1921, becoming a gravel carrier for private company Brisbane Gravel Pty Ltd. In the 1950s, she was sold for scrap, although her hull was later sold to Redcliffe Town Council. In 1958, the Gayundah was beached as a breakwater near the cliffs at Woody Point, Redcliffe, where she remains as a rusty skeleton.

1984  -             Famine in Ethiopia becomes critical, prompting the EEC to donate £1.8 million for emergency aid.

Ethiopia is a country situated in Eastern Africa, and bordered by Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti. The economy of Ethiopia is based on agriculture, yet it is often subject to droughts, the effects of which are exacerbated by overpopulation, and insecurity around the Eritrean border, which has prevented relief supplies from reaching their intended targets.

In 1984 the country was hit by intense famine, affecting eight million people, and causing the death of about one million. On 25 October 1984, the European Economic Community donated £1.8 million to alleviate the famine. Although it ordered the immediate shipment of 5,000 tons of food, with more to follow, 1,000 tons of food a day from other aid agencies were already being handled. Initially confined to the north, by 1986 the famine had spread to parts of the southern highlands, with an estimated 5.8 million people dependent on relief food. Locust plagues in 1986 also exacerbated the food shortage. Many Ethiopians today continue to rely on food aid from overseas.

Cheers - John

Hello John, another good read as always

Re 1888 - The mutiny of the Navy ship The Gayundah takes place on the Brisbane River, Queensland.

Perhaps the captain had been born in the wrong era
Back in the day, long before his time, the captain of a ship use to be a law onto himself

Gday...

1825  -             The Erie Canal, linking the Great Lakes of North America with the Atlantic Ocean, is opened.

The Erie Canal runs from the Hudson River in New York State to Lake Erie, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. First proposed in 1699, it was another hundred years before construction commenced. The first section of canal was completed in 1819, and the entire canal was opened on 26 October 1825. The opening of the Canal brought a massive population surge to western New York, and opened areas further west for settlement, as it cut costs of transportation to remote areas by 90%. The canal was 584km long, 12m wide and 1.2m deep.

In 1918 the Erie Canal was replaced by the larger New York State Barge Canal, replacing much of the original route, and incorporating more rivers such as the Mohawk, Seneca and Clyde Rivers, and Oneida Lake. Today, the Erie Canal Corridor covers 843km.

1948  -             20 die as air pollution descends on Donora, Pennsylvania, USA.

In 1948, Donora was a small city of 14,000 people, lying in a valley. Much of the town's economy centred around its heavy industry, including a sulphuric acid plant, a steel mill, and a zinc production plant. On 26 October 1948, an air inversion descended on the valley, trapping effluent from the various industries and producing a suffocating mixture of fog and pollution. In the three days that the inversion layer remained, twenty people died. Six-thousand more suffered illnesses ranging from sore throats to nausea, and many had permanently damaged lungs and hearts. A decade later, the mortality rate in Donora remained substantially higher than in nearby towns.

1985  -             The Australian Government returns ownership of Uluru to the traditional owners

Uluru, in central Australia, is an inselberg, often referred to as the second largest monolith in the world, second only to Mt Augustus which is also in Australia. Also known as Ayers Rock, it was named after the former Premier of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers by William Gosse, of the South Australian Survey Department, who became the first European explorer to see Ayers Rock. Gosse sighted Ayers Rock on 18 July 1873, recording that, "This rock is certainly the most wonderful natural feature I have ever seen".

The indigenous people of central Australia have known about the feature for many thousands of years. Uluru, which is believed to mean either 'Great pebble' or 'Meeting place', is sacred to the Aborigines. On 26 October 1985, ownership of Uluru was returned to the local Pitjantjatjara Aborigines. One of the conditions was that the Anangu would lease it back to the National Parks and Wildlife for 99 years and that it would be jointly managed.

1994  -             Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty, ending 46 years of war.

Israel and Jordan had long maintained good relations in secret, despite the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Jerusalem in the 1967 6-day war. Israel's overtures of peace towards her neighbours matched Jordan's pro-Western policies. However, the two nations were theoretically in a state of war until such time as a peace treaty would come into being.

As soon as it appeared that elements of the peace process were proceeding with the Palestinians, Jordan and Israel were able to quickly conclude a formal treaty. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein formally made peace at a ceremony in Wadi Araba on the Israeli-Jordanian border, on 26 October 1994. The treaty, involving only minor changes in the borders, was overseen by US President Bill Clinton. However, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not invited. Most Israelis welcomed the agreement, but Palestinians, who made up approximately 60% of Jordan's population, were angered by a deal which they felt did not address their many grievances. Nonetheless, the peace treaty still lives on effectively today.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1466  -             Erasmus, translator of the first Greek New Testament, is born.

For centuries, the Bible was out of reach of most Christians. The only copies that existed were in Latin, which most people could not read or understand, and it was left to the clergy who were educated in the Latin language to mete out their own explanations - a practice which tended to be subjective, rather than objective.

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a Dutch scholar who went by the by the name of Erasmus was born Gerrit Gerritszoon in Rotterdam on 27 October, in either 1466 or 1469. A contemporary of Martin Luther, and an ordained monk as well, Erasmus saw how the Bible was being withheld from the common people. Like Luther, Erasmus was critical of some Roman Catholic beliefs, abuses and practices. He became a scholar of Latin and Greek, carefully studied the original Greek texts and put together the first copy of the Greek translation of the Bible, in 1516.

This action had further repercussions, giving Luther the foundation, and motivation, to translate the entire New Testament into German. This in turn made the Bible accessible to all people, which was what Luther wanted: to make the Gospel of Salvation available to everyone.

1728  -             Captain James Cook, who charted Australia's eastern coastline, is born.

James Cook was born at Marton in North Yorkshire, on 27 October 1728. He was the son of a farm labourer, and held no great ambitions, being apprenticed in a grocer/haberdashery when he was 16. Lack of aptitude in the trade led his employer to introduce Cook to local shipowners, who took him on as a merchant navy apprentice. Here he was educated in algebra, trigonometry, navigation, and astronomy, which later set Cook up to command his own ship.

After working his way up to positions of greater responsibility and experience, Cook was hired in 1766 by the Royal Society to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. Following this, Cook's next orders were to search the south Pacific for Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent that many believed must extend around the southern pole. He came across New Zealand, which Abel Tasman had discovered in 1642, and spent some months there, charting the coastline. Nearly a year later, Cook set sail west for New Holland, which was later to become Australia.

1841  -             One of the last ships with religious refugees from Germany arrives in South Australia.

In the 1800s, under King Friedrich Wilhelm III, German/Prussian Lutherans suffered religious persecution. Friedrich Wilhelm was an autocratic king who believed he had the right to create his own state church from the two main Protestant churches - the Lutheran church and the smaller Reformed church - in a united Prussian state church. This would effectively remove the right of Lutherans to worship in a way of their choosing. Penalties for non-adherence to the state religion were severe. Many Lutherans immigrated to Australia to escape the persecution.

Thanks to wealthy Scottish businessman and chairman of the South Australian Company, George Fife Angas, a deal was struck by Pastor August Kavel to start a new Lutheran settlement in South Australia. The first group of 21 Lutherans arrived on the ship 'Bengalee' on 18 November 1838, followed two days later by the main group on the 'Prince George'. They first settled at the town of Klemzig. Many more ships followed over the next three years.

One of the last ships to arrive in South Australia with religious refugees was the Skjold on 27 October 1841. Captain Hans Christian Claussen commanded the Skjold which brought over two hundred Lutheran immigrants. Several of these Lutheran migrants were among the first to start the South Australian settlements of Lobethal and Bethany. Lobethal was started by about thirty families who, between them, acquired about two hundred acres, and paved the way for the German settlement of the region.

1904  -             The first underground line of the New York subway opens.

The New York City Subway was the world's first underground and underwater rail system. Elevated train lines around the city were not enough to facilitate the easy flow of increasing traffic, and it was seen that there was a need for another method to clear street congestion and spread city development into the outlying areas. Chief engineer William Barclay Parsons oversaw almost 8000 men constructing the 33.6km route. The subway officially began operating on 27 October 1904. Today, the New York City Subway has the world's largest fleet of subway cars, at over 6,400 cars as of 2002.

1939  -             British actor and comedian John "Fawlty Towers" Cleese is born.

John Cleese was born John Marwood Cleese on 27 October 1939, in Somerset, England. He showed his talent for comedy early in his life, although it was not always appreciated. He was expelled from Clifton College in Bristol, for painting footsteps to suggest that the school's statue of Field Marshal Douglas Haig had got down from his plinth and gone to the toilet.

It was whilst studying law that he joined Cambridge Footlights Revue, where he met his future writing partner Graham Chapman. Soon he began writing for BBC radio, working on the Dick Emery Show. Further work led to his association with British comedians such as future Goodies Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor, Frank Muir, Jo Kendall, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh and future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Cleese developed the popular Monty Python series for many years, and continued to write British comedy, including episodes of Doctor in the House. After leaving the Monty Python Show, Cleese went on to star in one of his best known roles, the awful hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with Connie Booth. Cleese based Basil Fawlty on a real character, Donald Sinclare, whom he encountered when the Monty Python team was staying at the Gleneagles hotel in Torquay whilst filming Monty Python's Flying Circus. During the Pythons' stay, Sinclare threw Eric Idle's briefcase out of the hotel "in case it contained a bomb", complained about Terry Gilliam's "American" table manners, and threw a bus timetable at another guest after they dared to ask the time of the next bus to town.

Cheers - John

Gday...

1886  -             The first ticker-tape parade is held as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.

The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island, formerly Bedloe's Island, in New York Harbor. Its full title is "Liberty Enlightening the World". Gustave Eiffel was the Structural Engineer of the Statue of Liberty and its Sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. The Statue was completed in Paris in June 1884, presented to America by the people of France on 4 July 1884, then dismantled and shipped to US in 1885 as 350 individual pieces in 214 crates. In response, the American community in Paris gave a return gift to the French of a bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty, standing about 11 metres high, and sculpted to a quarter-size scale.

The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on 28 October 1886. Over a million people lined the streets for the dedication. The New York Times reported that as the parade passed by, the office boys " from a hundred windows began to unreel the spools of tape that record the fateful messages of the 'ticker.' In a moment the air was white with curling streamers." This began the tradition that came to be known as the ticker-tape parade.

1916  -             Australia's first referendum on conscription fails.

William Morris 'Billy' Hughes was Australia's seventh Prime Minister. Born in London on 25 September 1862, he migrated to Australia in 1884. After many years of wandering from job to job, he established a mixed business which sold, among other things, political pamphlets. As a result, his shop came popular with young reformers, and listening to their discussions piqued Hughes's interest in politics. In 1894, he won pre-selection for the seat of Lang, allowing his debut into state parliament.

Although initially opposed to Federation, Hughes saw the advantages Federation offered for his particular areas of interest, those being defence, immigration and industrial relations. He won the federal seat of West Sydney in 1901, and held it until 1916, being an eloquent speaker and shrewd tactician. During the opening years of World War I, Hughes, as attorney-general, was active in his ministry. When Prime Minister Andrew Fisher resigned due to ill health in 1915, Hughes was chosen to succeed him.

One of the most controversial of Hughes's policies was conscription, an issue which not only created a rift in the Labor Party, but divided the young nation as well. On 28 October 1916, the first referendum to introduce compulsory military enlistment was voted on, and narrowly defeated.

Two weeks later, on 13 November, the Labor Party expelled Hughes over his support for conscription. However, just a few days earlier Hughes had formed the Nationalist Party which incorporated both expelled Labor Party members and members of the opposition. Hughes formed a new cabinet and remained as Prime Minister, a position he retained until 1923.

1919  -             The Volstead Act is passed, resulting in the Prohibition in the USA.

Prohibition generally refers to the time between 1920 and 1933, during which the Eighteenth Amendment was in place. The Eighteenth Amendment, forbidding the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes," was passed by Congress and ratified on 16 January 1919. The ensuing Volstead Act, which made provisions for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, was passed on 28 October 1919.

Advocates of Prohibition were disturbed by the other vices, such as gambling and prostitution, which many saloonkeepers introduced in an attempt to increase their profits. The strength of the movement grew after the formation of the Anti-Saloon League in 1893. Prohibition began on 16 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect.

1962  -             The Cuban Missile Crisis ends, after bringing the world to the brink of nuclear warfare.

Cuba is an island between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 150 km south of Florida, in the USA. In 1962, it was controlled by a socialist government under Fidel Castro. Castro had already sought support from the Soviet Union after the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s, during which the country had adopted Marxist ideals. This had put the country in direct conflict with the USA, and Cuba needed a powerful ally.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was seen as the point in the Cold War when the USA and USSR were closest to engaging in nuclear warfare. Reconnaissance photographs taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane on 14 October 1962 revealed that Soviet missiles were under construction in Cuba. A tense standoff ensued for two weeks, during which the USA placed a naval quarantine around Cuba to prevent further weapons being conveyed to the island.

It was not until 28 October 1962 that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the installations and return the missiles to the Soviet Union, and remove Soviet light bombers from Cuba. This occurred on the condition that the United States would not invade Cuba.

2005  -             A Dutch-Mauritian research team discovers an intact layer of dodo bones, allowing for the first modern research into the extinct dodo.

The dodo was a flightless bird believed to be endemic to the island of Mauritius. Standing about a metre tall and weighing around 20kg, the dodo had only small, rudimentary wings which were useless for flight.

The dodo was first sighted by Dutch travellers, who originally referred to it by the name of "Walghvogel". This translated to "wallow bird" or "loathsome bird" because the early travellers who killed it for food found the meat to be tough, as they cooked it for too long. The dodo's existence was first recorded by vice-admiral Wybrand van Warwijck in 1598 and, eight years later, was described in more detail by Cornelis Matelief de Jonge.

Once the island of Mauritius was settled, dodo habitat was cleared, while new species were introduced, including dogs and pigs which killed the dodos, cats and rats which were a threat to the chicks, and Crab-eating Macaques, which ate the eggs of the dodo. Controversy surrounds the date the last dodo was sighted, but it was believed to have been between 1662 and 1690.

On 28 October 2005, a research team consisting of Dutch and Mauritian scientists uncovered the first known intact layer of dodo bones, along with botanical matter at a Mauritian sugar cane plantation. The find included the bones of adult birds and chicks, along with part of a beak. It also included the bones of other extinct bird species and some tortoise bones, all together in a mass grave which may possibly have been due to a natural disaster. The discovery opened the way for the first modern research into the dodo bird.

Cheers - John

Thanks Rocky,  as spectacular as ticker tape parades are I often wonder how long it must take them to clean up the mess.

Gday...

1880  -             Bushranger Ned Kelly is sentenced to hang.

Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous bushranger, was born in December 1854 in Victoria, Australia. Kelly was twelve when his father died, and he was subsequently required to leave school to take on the new position as head of the family. Shortly after this, the Kellys moved to Glenrowan. As a teenager, Ned became involved in petty crimes, regularly targeting the wealthy landowners. He gradually progressed to crimes of increasing seriousness and violence, including bank robbery and murder, soon becoming a hunted man.

Many of Ned Kelly's peers held him in high regard for his stand of usually only ambushing wealthy landowners, and helped to keep his whereabouts from the police, despite the high reward posted for his capture. However, he was betrayed to the police whilst holding dozens of people hostage in the Glenrowan Inn in June, 1880. Wearing their famous armour, the Kelly brothers held a shootout with police. The Kelly brothers were killed, but Ned was shot twenty-eight times in the legs, being unprotected by the armour. He survived to stand trial, and was sentenced to death by hanging, by Judge Redmond Barry on 29 October 1880. Ned Kelly was hanged in Melbourne on 11 November 1880.

1929  -             The stock market on Wall Street plunges dramatically, sparking off the Great Depression.

During the 1920s, the stock market boomed in the US. General optimism was high as businessmen and economists believed that the new Federal Reserve would stabilise the economy, and that the pace of technological progress guaranteed rapidly rising living standards and expanding markets. By 1928 and 1929 the Federal Reserve, in an attempt to curb the unnaturally high growth of the stock market, raised interest rates to make borrowing money for stock speculation difficult and costly.

An initial recession ensued and stock prices began to fluctuate. The unrealistic stock market began to catch up with the economy: stock prices were out of proportion to actual profits, and sales of goods and the construction of factories were falling rapidly while stock values continued to climb. Then, on October 24, 1929, people began dumping their stocks quickly. Following the weekend, a new wave of selling began. 29 October 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, saw the stock market on Wall Street collapse as prices plunged and wiped out all the financial gains of the previous year. By mid-November, 30 billion dollars had disappeared, which was the same amount of money spent during World War I. The Depression lasted from 1929 to 1941, when the USA entered WWII.

1947  -             American actor Richard Dreyfuss is born.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss was born on 29 October 1947. After spending his early childhood in Brooklyn, his family moved to Los Angeles. He landed various smaller roles on TV shows such as Peyton Place and The Big Valley, then earned small parts in films such as American Graffiti, The Graduate and Dillinger. He then starred in hits such as Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After starring in The Goodbye Girl, he became the youngest actor at the time to win the Best Actor Award.

Following this success, a relatively nondescript acting career was revived when he threw off his cocaine addiction following a serious car accident, and landed a major role in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. During the 1990s he held starring in roles in movies such as Postcards From the edge, What About Bob, The American President and Mr Holland's Opus. He has continued to be regarded as one of Hollywood's most versatile and talented actors, in films, television and on the stage.

1982  -             Lindy Chamberlain is convicted of the murder of her baby daughter after the child's disappearance at Ayers Rock.

Uluru, formerly Ayers Rock, is a huge monolith in central Australia. It has long been a popular tourist destination, but gained a new notoriety on the night of 17 August 1980, when two-month-old Azaria Chamberlain went missing from the nearby camping ground. When baby Azaria disappeared, her mother Lindy claimed that a dingo had stolen her baby. No trace of the child was ever found, although her bloodstained clothes were found a week later by another tourist. At the first inquest into her death, commencing in February 1981, it was found that the likely cause of Azaria's disappearance was a dingo attack.

Police and prosecutors, unhappy with this judgement, moved for a second inquest which began on 13 September 1981. This time, the new finding was made that Azaria had been killed with a pair of scissors and held by a small adult hand until she stopped bleeding. Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murder on 29 October 1982, and her husband Michael was found guilty of being an accessory.

Lindy Chamberlain's acquittal came four years later when a matinee jacket worn by Azaria was found partially buried in a dingo's lair at Ayers Rock. New evidence was presented showing that earlier methods of testing evidence had been unreliable, and no conviction could be made on those grounds. Both Chamberlains were officially pardoned, Lindy was released, and eventually awarded AU$1.3 million in compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

1999  -             Over 10,000 are killed and about 1.5 million left homeless after a super-cyclone hits India.

The cyclone which hit India on 29 October 1999 came to be classified as a super-cyclone due to the combination of very high winds and a powerful tidal surge. The cyclone, with winds of over 250kph, was the second to hit the state of Orissa in two weeks. A powerful tidal wave also swept across low-lying plains along the coast, wiping out entire villages, with flooding reaching inland as far as 16km. Whilst true figures will never be known, it is estimated that over 10,000 people were killed, and 1.5 million left homeless.

Two years later, Orissa's worst monsoon floods in 50 years killed nearly 100 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses. Many of those affected were still living in temporary shelter after the 1999 cyclone.

Cheers - John

Hello John a good read as always, so thanks to that

Re 1929 - The stock market on Wall Street plunges dramatically, sparking off the Great Depression.

As a young man in the 1960's in Kalgoorlie, I was fortunate to have come into contact, with many of the old timers of that era, who lived before, through, and after the Great Depression
They had nothing, they wanted nothing, and they were happy with their lot, as they had survived

After listening to their stories of the depression, I can only be thankful that it was a period, before my time

Looking back at my era, compared to what the Great Depression era went through, I can safely say that I have nothing to complain about

Gday...

1451  -             Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the Americas, is born.

Christopher Columbus is believed to have been 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.

1890  -             Oodnadatta, in far north South Australia, is surveyed and declared a township, ahead of becoming a significant railway terminus.

Oodnadatta is a tiny town in the remote region of far north South Australia. With a 2006 population of just 277, it lies approximately 1,011 km from Adelaide. Close to the edge of the Simpson Desert, its name is derived from the Arrernte word "utnadata", meaning "blossom of the mulga".

The first explorer to arrive in the region was John McDouall Stuart, who explored and mapped the area in 1859. The Overland Telegraph line followed in the wake of Stuart's exploration. Soon after, the railway line from Adelaide was also constructed, with its terminus at Warrina. Oodnadatta was surveyed on 30 October 1890, and on that day it was also declared a Government township. Less than three months later, the railway line was opened from Warrina to Oodnadatta, and Oodnadatta became the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, later The Ghan.

With the development of the railway, Oodnadatta became a busy town in South Australia's far north, being a government service centre and supply depot for the surrounding pastoral properties. A post office was established in 1891, and an Anglican Sunday School a year later. A General store and Butcher also followed, among other businesses. Until the railway was extended to Alice Springs in 1929, the town was largely supplied from Alice Springs by Afghan camel trains. Oodnadatta's importance continued through to World War II, when the Australian Defence Forces established facilities to service troop trains and fighter aircraft en route to Darwin.

In 1981, the railway line was moved to the west, and the town became a residential freehold town for indigenous Australians.

1938  -             Actor Orson Welles creates panic as his radio broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' is taken as live action.

Orson Welles was an actor and director of unusual talent. Born in 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA, by 1934 he was acting and directing on American radio. In 1938, Welles and the Mercury Theatre began weekly broadcasts of short radio plays based on classic or popular literary works.

The night of 30 October 1938 began as any other peaceful Sunday evening. Then, at 8:15 pm, there was a report on the radio that Martians had landed in New Jersey. Almost instantly, people listening responded to the shocking news, with reports of panic coming in from across the country. Unknown to the people, Welles and the Mercury Theatre were performing an adaptation of the science fiction novel by H G Wells, "War of the Worlds", in which Martians invade the Earth. The adaptation involved performing the play so that it sounded like a news broadcast about an invasion from Mars, a technique which heightened the dramatic effect. The program created such panic among some listeners who found it completely convincing, that they failed to hear the short explanations, every forty minutes, assuring the audience it was just a radio play.

The broadcasters of the program, upon hearing of the furore created, quickly reassured the public that the technique used in the program would not be repeated. Orson Welles also expressed his regrets.

1944  -             WWII Holocaust diarist, Anne Frank, is deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Anne Frank was born on 12 June 1929. As persecution of the Jews escalated in WWII, she was forced to go into hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands. She, her family and four other people spent two years in an annex of rooms above her fathers office in Amsterdam. After two years of living in this way, they were betrayed to the Nazis and deported to concentration camps. On 30 October 1944, Anne was deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Bergen-Belsen was in Lower Saxony, southwest of the town of Bergen, near Celle.

At the age of 15, Anne Frank died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen. The date was March, 1945, just two months before the end of the war. Anne Frank's legacy is her diary. It was given to her as a simple autograph/notebook for her thirteenth birthday. In it she recorded not only the personal details of her life, but also her observations of living under Nazi occupation, until the final entry of 1 August 1944.

1948  -             Australian actor and comedian, Garry McDonald aka Norman Gunston, is born.

Garry McDonald was born on 30 October 1948. One of the most famous characters he created was Norman Gunston, nicknamed "the little Aussie bleeder", as he always wore patches of tissue paper on his face from where he had supposedly nicked himself shaving. As the satirical TV reporter's persona he took on, he interviewed a variety of celebrities and media personalities, most of them unsuspecting of his direct and confrontational reporting technique. Norman Gunston was undaunted by the outright rudeness of some personalities: his interview with Keith Moon of 'The Who' was famous for his naively direct manner, and refusal to be fazed by Moon's arrogance.

McDonald also created the character of long-suffering Arthur Beare in the ABC series 'Mother and Son', in which Beare's stubborn and strong-willed mother, Maggie, regularly subjects her son to her selective dementia.

Cheers - John

Thanks rocky, I still remember when Norman Gunston first started back in the 70s as the TV reporter from Wollongong in The Aunty Jack Show. I don't know if people remember but Keith Moon from the Rolling Stones tipped a glass of vodka over his head and stormed out telling him to "p..off you Australian slag" - sometimes poms just have no sense of humour. I reckon in later years Borat has probably come the closest to copying that Gunston style of interview.

The Belmont Bear wrote:

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Thanks rocky, I still remember when Norman Gunston first started back in the 70s as the TV reporter from Wollongong in The Aunty Jack Show. I don't know if people remember but Keith Moon from the Rolling Stones Who tipped a glass of vodka champagne over his head and stormed out telling him to "p..off you Australian slag" - sometimes poms just have no sense of humour. I reckon in later years Borat has probably come the closest to copying that Gunston style of interview.

Transcript of that interview - http://www.thewho.net/australia/Gunston.html

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Gday...

1517  -             Christian Protestant Reformation leader, Martin Luther, posts his 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg Castle Church.

Martin Luther was a German theologian and Augustinian monk whose teachings inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines of the Protestant churches in general, and the Lutheran church in particular. Luther openly questioned the teachings of the Roman Catholic church, in particular, the nature of penance, the authority of the pope and the usefulness of indulgences. The Reformation of the church began on 31 October 1517, with Luther's act of posting his Ninety-Five Theses, more fully known as the "Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences", on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The document contained an attack on papal abuses and the sale of indulgences by church officials.

Controversy raged over the posting of the 95 Theses. Luther was excommunicated several years later from the Roman Catholic church for his attacks on the wealth and corruption of the papacy, and his belief that salvation would be granted on the basis of faith alone rather than by works. In 1521, the same year in which he was excommunicated, Luther was summoned before the Diet of Worms. The Diet was a general assembly of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that occurred in Worms, Germany, from January to May in 1521. When an edict of the Diet called for Luther's seizure, his friends took him for safekeeping to Wartburg, the castle of Elector Frederick III of Saxony. Here, Luther continued to write his prolific theological works, which greatly influenced the direction of the Protestant Reformation movement.

1818  -             Oxley's expedition party is attacked by Aborigines as they camp near Port Stephens.

After discovering the rich, fertile country of the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales, Oxley continued east, heading back towards Sydney. On the way, he crossed the Great Diving Range and came upon the Hastings River, which he followed to its mouth, traversing what Oxley described as "excellent and rich country". Early in October 1818, Oxley reached the seashore at an excellent harbour and river estuary, naming the region Port Macquarie. He then continued south towards Sydney, making camp along the way in the Port Stephens area.

On 30 October 1818, a large group of Aborigines, who seemed to be from the Newcastle region, approached Oxley and his party. As they seemed to come in peace, they were also greeted in peace, with Oxley's party showering trinkets and gifts on the tribe. However, the next morning, October 31, four of the Aborigines from the group returned armed with spears, one of which was thrown, narrowly missing one of Oxley's men who had finished his morning's bathing and was attempting to get dressed. After disappearing briefly, more natives returned with spears and began attacking Oxley's entire party, which was forced to pack up and move on quickly.

1894  -             Fourteen people are killed in one of Australia's earliest train accidents.

 Opening on 26 September 1855, the New South Wales railway, Australia, was the first government-owned railway in the British Empire. The first line ran the 22km from Sydney to Parramatta. By 1862, the western line had reached Penrith. The railway continued to expand, reaching Albury in 1881, Glen Innes in 1884 and far west New South Wales at Bourke in 1886.

On 31 October 1894, a country train bound for Goulburn, New South Wales, was hit at Redfern, Sydney, by a suburban train heading from Strathfield to the city. Two engine crew and twelve passengers from the suburban train were killed, and twenty-seven people were injured. The accident was caused by an incorrectly set signal. Among those killed were Edward Lloyd Jones, Chairman of David Jones & Co and son of the founder of the David Jones department store chain. Also killed was Father Callaghan McCarthy, Dean of St Mary's Cathedral.

1913  -             The first automobile road right across the United States, the Lincoln Highway, is dedicated.

The Lincoln Highway is a major highway in the United States extending from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The highway originally ran through thirteen states - New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California, although the "Colorado Loop" is no longer included, and a change of route now sees the highway passing through the far north of West Virginia.

The idea of a cross-America highway was first conceived in 1912. Dedicated on 31 October 1913, the Lincoln Highway was the USA's first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln. The initial length was 5,454 km, or 3,389 miles, although improvements and realignments over the years have seen it shortened to 5,057 km, or 3,142 miles. Nicknamed "The Main Street Across America", the building of the highway gave an economic boost to small towns and cities across its length, and its construction inspired the building of many other national roads.

1923  -             A record 160-day heatwave begins in Marble Bar, Western Australia.

Marble Bar is a tiny town in the Pilbara region of north-western Western Australia. The discovery of gold in 1890 by Francis Jenkins led to the establishment of a town, which was officially gazetted in 1893. The town derives its name from a nearby jasper formation which was mistaken by early settlers for a bar of marble. This rock formation is also known as the Marble Bar, and the nearby Marble Bar Pool is a popular picnic and swimming area for both tourists and the people of the township. During the goldrushes, Marble Bar had over 5000 residents, but its population now is closer to 400. It is still a productive area, being mined for gold, tin, silver, lead, zinc, copper and jade deposits.

Known for its excessive temperatures, Marble Bar achieved a new heat record in 1923-24. Beginning on 31 October 1923, the town experienced a heatwave which continued for 160 consecutive days, where the maximum temperature was 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher. The last day of the heatwave was 7 April 1924.

Cheers - John

Sorry Rocky - of course Keith Moon was the drummer from the Who that was just a slip of my mind - sometimes I type faster than I think which is a worry because I can only type 10 words a minute.  As far as whether it was vodka or champagne the transcript says it was champagne and the Wikepedia account says it was vodka. Doesn't really matter Keith Moon tipped a glass of something over his head - where do you find all this great info ?