Gday...

1829  -     The colony of Western Australia is proclaimed.

The western coast of Terra Australis Incognito is believed to have first been sighted by Portuguese sailors. However, the first recorded sighting of Australia's western coastline came in 1611, when Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. Further Dutch sightings of Australia followed as the route became more popular: hence the early name of "New Holland".

Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh named the Swan River in 1697 because of the black swans he saw in abundance there. In 1826, Edmund Lockyer was sent to claim the western half of the Australian continent for Britain. He arrived at King George Sound on Christmas Day in 1826, and established a military base which he named Frederick's Town (now Albany).

In 1829, Captain Charles Fremantle was sent to take formal possession of the remainder of New Holland which had not already been claimed for Britain under the territory of New South Wales. On 2 May 1829, Captain Fremantle raised the Union Jack on the south head of the Swan River, thus claiming the territory for Britain. The colony of Western Australia was proclaimed on 8 June 1829, and two months later, Perth was also founded.

1856  -     The first free settlement is established on Norfolk Island.

Norfolk Island lies approximately 1,500 km northeast of Sydney, and along with two neighbouring islands forms one of Australia's external territories. The first European to discover Norfolk was Captain Cook, on 10 October 1774. Cook's reports of tall, straight trees (Norfolk pines) and flax-like plants piqued the interest of Britain, whose Royal Navy was dependent on flax for sails and hemp for ropes from Baltic sea ports. Norfolk Island promised a ready supply of these items, and its tall pines could be utilised as ships' masts. Governor Arthur Phillip, Captain of the First Fleet to New South Wales, was ordered to colonise Norfolk Island before the French could take it.

Following the arrival of the First Fleet in New South Wales, Lieutenant Philip Gidley King led a party of fifteen convicts and seven free men to take control of the island and prepare for its commercial development. They arrived on 6 March 1788. Neither the flax nor the timber industry proved to be viable, and the island developed as a farm, supplying Sydney with grain and vegetables during the early years of the colony's near-starvation. More convicts were sent, and many chose to remain after they had served their sentences. The initial Norfolk Island settlement was abandoned in 1813, but a second penal colony was re-established in 1824, as a place to send the very worst of the convicts. The convicts were treated accordingly and the island gained a reputation as a vicious penal colony. It, too, was abandoned in 1855, after transportation to Australia ceased.

The third settlement was established by descendants of Tahitians and the HMAV Bounty mutineers, resettled from the Pitcairn Islands which had become too small for their growing population. The British government had permitted the transfer of the Pitcairners to Norfolk, which was established as a colony separate from New South Wales but under the administration of that colony's governor. On 8 June 1856, 194 Pitcairn Islanders arrived to form the first free settlement. After the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, Norfolk Island was placed under the authority of the new Commonwealth government to be administered as an external territory. Norfolk Island was granted self-government in 1979.

1861  -     Burke and Wills attempt to collect Nardoo in their quest for survival. 

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 break to cross to the gulf and back, died. Robert O'Hara Burke, William John Wills and Charles Gray all died. John King alone survived, after being taken in and nursed by the Aborigines of the Cooper Creek area.

Whilst awaiting the rescue that never came, on 8 June 1861 Burke and Wills made their way to where they knew Aborigines collected Nardoo. They were disappointed to find no Aborigines at the camp. Nardoo was an important bush food for Aborigines, who knew how to prepare its seedpods (or, strictly speaking, sporocaps) to make flour. The sporocarps contain poisons that must first be removed for them to be eaten safely. Studies of the explorers' journals indicate that they probably died of nardoo poisoning, after failing to follow precautions from the Aborigines of how to prepare it safely.

1951  -     The School of the Air begins broadcasting from the Flying Doctor base in Alice Springs. 

School of the Air provides quality educational services for children in remote areas of Australia. Classes are conducted via shortwave radio with each student having direct contact with a teacher in a major inland town such as Broken Hill or Alice Springs. Where once children relied on mail services to deliver their assignments, now Internet services enable quicker and more reliable delivery.

The concept of the School of the Air was first proposed in 1944 by Adelaide Miethke, a member of the Council of the Flying Doctor service of SA, who suggested using two way radio to give educational talks to children in the Outback. Once the necessary communications equipment was acquired six years later, the trial program began, with teachers from Alice Springs volunteering to present lessons. Initially lessons were conducted as a one way affair, but soon a question and answer time was added to the end of each broadcast. The following year, 8 June 1951, saw the official opening of the School of the Air at the Flying Doctor base. The Alice Springs School of the Air currently caters for about 140 students spread over an area of 1,000,000 square kilometres.

Cheers - John