Gday...

1827  -     Explorer Allan Cunningham discovers the Darling Downs.

Allan Cunningham was born on 13 July 1791 in Wimbledon, England. As a botanist who came to Australia suffering from tuberculosis, he found that Australia's climate helped him regain some of his health, and he was anxious to discover more of the country he came to love. Initially, he explored as part of John Oxley's expeditions to follow the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers in 1817.

By the 1820s, the pastoral industry in the young colony of New South Wales was growing, and there was greater need for more grazing land. In April 1823, Cunningham departed from Bathurst to find an easier route north between the settlements around Bathurst and the Liverpool Plains which Oxley had discovered five years earlier. On this expedition, Cunningham discovered Pandora's Pass, the only point where sheep and cattle could easily cross the mountain barriers, at the junction of the Warrumbungle and Liverpool Ranges. In 1827, Governor Darling sent Cunningham to determine what lay north of the Liverpool Plains and west of Brisbane. On 6 June 1827, Cunningham found a vast area of excellent pastoral land which he named the Darling Downs, in honour of the Governor. A year later, Cunningham discovered an easier route to the Darling Downs, travelling through the Great Dividing Range from Brisbane; thus was found Cunningham's Gap.

1835  -     John Batman, the native-born founder of Melbourne, signs a treaty with Aborigines entitling him to 250,000 hectares of land in Port Phillip Bay.

John Batman was born in Parramatta, Sydney, in 1801. As a native born Australian, Batman was interested in opening up new pastureland and promoting the growth of the colonies. He applied for land in the Westernport Bay area of southern Australia, now Victoria, but was not granted any. In May 1835, he led a syndicate calling themselves the 'Port Phillip Association' to explore Port Phillip Bay, looking for suitable sites for a settlement. On 6 June 1835, he signed a 'treaty' with the Aborigines, giving him free access to almost 250,000 hectares of land. In August that year, Governor Bourke declared Batman's treaties invalid, and issued a proclamation warning off him and his syndicate as trespassers on crown land. Despite the attempts at government intervention, the foundling settlement of Melbourne remained, and flourished.

Batman's place in Australian history is unique for several reasons. He was the only 19th century white to acknowledge that Aborigines owned land. He set out to undertake an annual rental for what was then a reasonable amount of food and goods, rather than buy it from them for a pittance. Further, he is the only native-born Australian to have founded a state capital city.

1859  -     Today is Queensland Day, marking the day that Queensland separated from the colony of New South Wales.

The colony of the Moreton Bay District was founded in 1824 when explorer John Oxley arrived at Redcliffe with a crew and 29 convicts. The settlement was established at Humpybong, but abandoned less than a year later when the main settlement was moved 30km away, to the Brisbane River. Another convict settlement was established under the command of Captain Patrick Logan. On 10 September 1825, the settlement was given the name of Brisbane, but it was still part of the New South Wales territory.

In 1859, Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent, which declared that Queensland was now a separate colony from New South Wales. On 6 June 1859, the former Moreton Bay District was granted separation from New South Wales, and given the name of Queensland, with Brisbane as its capital city. June 6th is celebrated every year as Queensland Day, the day which marks the birth of Queensland as a self-governing colony. On 1 January 1901, Queensland became one of the six founding States of the Commonwealth of Australia. 

1888  -     The British Crown annexes Christmas Island.

The Territory of Christmas Island is a small, non self-governing Territory of Australia located in the Indian Ocean, 2,360 km northwest of Perth in Western Australia and 500 km south of Jakarta, Indonesia. It was named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary, when he arrived on Christmas Day, 25 December 1643. Over the years it was visited by explorers until the discovery of nearly pure phosphate of lime led to annexation of the island by the British Crown on 6 June 1888.

Soon afterwards, a small settlement was established in Flying Fish Cove by G Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands, and phosphate mining began in the 1890s using indentured workers from Singapore, China, and Malaysia. The island was administered jointly by the British Phosphate Commissioners and District Officers from the UK Colonial Office through the Straits Colony, and later the Colony of Singapore. Japan invaded and occupied the island in 1942, and interned the residents until the end of World War II in 1945.

After the war, the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty to Australia. In 1957, the Australian government paid the government of Singapore 2.9 million pounds in compensation, the estimated value of the phosphate foregone by Singapore. The first Australian Official Representative arrived in 1958 and was replaced by an Administrator in 1968. Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands together are called Australia's Indian Ocean Territories (IOTs) and since 1997 share a single Administrator resident on Christmas Island. As of July 2005, there are approximately 1600 Christmas Islanders. The ethnic composition is 70% Chinese, 20% European and 10% Malay. English is the official language, but Chinese and Malay are also spoken.

1944  -     Allied forces land on the coast of Normandy as D-Day commences

General Dwight 'Ike' Eisenhower, born 14 October 1890, served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. In this position, he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy under the code name Operation Overlord, with the ultimate aim of the liberation of western Europe and the invasion of Germany.

In the early hours of 6 June 1944, Allied forces began their assault against Hitler's "Fortress Europe", marking the beginning of D-Day in the largest amphibious assault ever launched. By the end of the day 155,000 Allied troops, including some 18,000 paratroopers and glider-borne troops, were in Normandy. The initial assault involved about 1,300 RAF planes, followed by 1,000 American bombers dropping bombs on targets in northern France.

The United States and Britain each lost about 1,000 troops whilst Canada lost 355 in the initial stages of D-day. The invasion cracked Nazi Germany's grip on Western Europe and marked the beginning of the advance that eventually ended the war with Germany.

Cheers - John