Gday...

1703  -     John Wesley, founder of Methodism, is born.

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

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

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

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

1867  -     Henry Lawson, one of Australia's best known writers, is born.

Henry Lawson was born on 17 June 1867, on the Grenfell goldfields in New South Wales. He became one of Australia's best-known fiction writers of the colonial period. Most of his works dwelt on the Australian bush, accurately depicting the difficult conditions of life on dry, dusty outback stations and in bush towns. Unlike his contemporary, A.B. "Banjo" Paterson, he did not romanticise life in the bush, and any humour he displayed tended to be dry and sardonic, rather than like Paterson's larrikin wit.

Lawson gained a loyal following when the Bulletin started to publish his stories and poems in 1888. However, he never really recovered from his childhood hardships and rejection from his peers, and in his later years became an alcoholic. He died at home alone on 2 September 1922. Thousands of citizens who had come to relate to his writing also paid their respects at his funeral.

1893  -     Gold is discovered at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Paddy Hannan was born in Quin, Ireland, in 1840 and emigrated to Australia in 1863. He first landed in Melbourne, and then prospected in Terama in New South Wales and Teetulpa in South Australia. The possibility of a goldrush lured him to Southern Cross in Western Australia in 1889. Together with fellow prospectors Tom Flanagan and Daniel Shea, Hannan is credited with discovering gold on 17 June 1893, sparking off the goldrush that initiated the development of the town of Kalgoorlie. The discovery was made quite by accident, when the men were searching for a horse which had strayed. The location was Mount Charlotte, less than 40 kilometres from the Coolgardie Goldfields. Within three days of Hannan registering his claim on the site which is still known as "The Hannan Award", an estimated 700 men were prospecting in the area.

Hannan was granted an annual pension of £100 by the Government of Western Australia in 1904, soon after which he ceased prospecting. He moved to live with two nieces in Brunswick, Melbourne, where he died in 1925. The main street and a railway station in Kalgoorlie both bear Hannan's name and a well known statue of him is erected there. The spot where Hannan found gold was later marked by a pepper tree. Hannan's discovery, in leading to Kalgoorlie becoming a gold-rush town, also opened up the arid west for settlement. In 1903 a pipeline was opened to convey water 560 kilometres from a supply near Perth. Not only did it bring water to the goldfield towns, it also brought irrigation to the wheatbelt towns along its route.

1928  -     Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on 24 July 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, USA. She was the first woman to achieve the feat of flying across the Atlantic. Her first trip across the Atlantic in a Fokker F7 Friendship occurred on 17 June 1928 and took 20 hours and 40 minutes.

Earhart continued to set milestones as a pioneer of flying. She flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932. On 11 January 1935 Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to California. She had departed Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, and after a journey of over 3,800km in 18 hours, she arrived at Oakland Airport in Oakland, California.

In 1937, together with her navigator Fred Noonan, she attempted a round-the-world flight in a Lockheed Electra. Approximately five weeks after she set off, her plane disappeared, last heard about 100 miles off Howland Island in the Pacific. Speculation has been rife over the years regarding what happened to Amelia Earhart. The usual conspiracy theories and alien abduction theories have abounded but no evidence has ever been found to substantiate them, and the circumstances surrounding Earhart's disappearance remain a mystery.  

1972  -     The Watergate scandal begins.

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

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

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

Cheers - John