Gday...

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

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

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

1884  -     Kellogg patents the cornflake.

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

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

1942  -     Japanese midget submarines enter Sydney Harbour in WWII.

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

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

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

Cheers - John