Gday...

1834  -     A public meeting is held in Exeter Hall, London, to discuss plans for the new colony of South Australia.

Explorer Matthew Flinders was the first European to investigate the possibilities for settlement on South Australia's coast, doing so in 1802. The exploration of Charles Sturt to chart the Murray River was a further catalyst to the establishment of a colony on the southern coast. Consequently, the British authorities moved to establish an official colony, which would be known as South Australia.

On 30 June 1834, a meeting was held at Exeter Hall at The Strand in London, England, to advise the public of the principles, objects, plan and prospects of the new colony of South Australia. The meeting, organised by the founding members of The South Australian Association, was attended by around 2500 people, including many members of Parliament. One of the speakers was Daniel Wakefield, brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who helped his brother draft the speech. EG Wakefield was a strong advocate for the establishment of a free colony, rather than one based on convict labour, and he lobbied heavily for Parliament to pass the bill to enable the colonisation of the province of South Australia. During his speech, Daniel Wakefield stated:

"It was proposed to make the colony independent, from the first, of the mother country. This the Right Hon. Gentleman declined to do; and the consequence was, that we were obliged to modify the plan to meet his views. Therefore it is that the measure appears before you in its present shape; but it still has my cordial approbation and concurrence, because the Commissioners are to be only temporary, and after a time the government of the new nation is to be confided to the inhabitants themselves (hear, hear!)."

1861  -     Explorer Robert O'Hara Burke dies on the banks of Cooper Creek. 

Robert O'Hara Burke, with William Wills later appointed second-in-command, led the expedition to try to cross Australia from south to north and back again. They set out from Melbourne in August 1860, farewelled by around 15,000 people. The exploration party was very well equipped, and subsequently very large. Because of its size, the exploration party was split at Menindee so that Burke could push ahead to the Gulf of Carpentaria with a smaller party. The smaller group went on ahead to establish the depot at Cooper Creek which would serve to offer the necessary provisions for when the men returned from the Gulf. After several unsuccessful forays into the northern dry country from Cooper Creek, Burke decided to push on ahead to the Gulf in December 1860, regardless of the risks. He took with him Wills, Charles Gray and John King.

The expedition to the Gulf took longer than Burke anticipated: upon his return to Cooper Creek, he found that the relief party had left just seven hours earlier, less than the amount of time it had taken to bury Gray, who had died on the return journey. Through poor judgement, lack of observation and a series of miscommunications, Burke and Wills never met up with the relief party. They perished on the banks of Cooper Creek. Burke died on or around 30 June 1861. King alone survived to lead the rescue party to the remains of Burke and Wills, and the failure of one of the most elaborately planned expeditions in Australia's history.

1861  -     The worst of the Lambing Flat Riots occur, during which Chinese gold miners are massacred.

The present-day town of Young in the central west of New South Wales began as a gold-mining settlement known as Lambing Flat. At the height of its popularity, the rich alluvial gold deposits attracted a population of around 20 000. While most of the diggers were from other parts of Australia, many migrants came from Europe and North America. Around 1000 miners were Chinese, and they soon became the target of violence from the white diggers.

The Chinese were not welcome on the Australian goldfields. They were thorough workers, often picking meticulously through the discarded tailings or abandoned mines of other diggers. They were viewed with suspicion as few spoke English, and they were regarded as idol-worshippers. Chinese mining methods used more water than European methods, and such practices were not appreciated in a country known for its heat and droughts. Furthermore, few of them traded their gold in the towns, preferring to store it up and return to China with their wealth. The colony of Victoria was the first to introduce Anti-Chinese immigration legislation, imposing a poll tax of £10 per head for each Chinese person arriving in Victorian ports in 1855. Within a few years all other colonial governments had enacted similar laws to restrict the number of people from China entering the colonies. This did not stop the Chinese from arriving in droves and spreading out to goldfields in New South Wales and Victoria.

During the first year of the gold rush on the Lambing Flat fields, there were four major clashes between the Chinese and white diggers in the region. Following the first riot in October 1860, a Sub-Commissioner and three troopers were assigned to the goldfield, but this did not prevent a second riot occurring just two months later. After the third riot late in January of 1861, more troopers were sent, and for several months there was relative peace at Lambing Flat. However, the most vicious attack was yet to come.

Tensions came to a head on 30 June 1861. It is estimated that around 3 000 European diggers banded together in a rowdy gang called a roll up and, armed with picks, whips, knives, sticks and anything that could be used as a weapon, converged on the Chinese camp. Chinese tents and equipment were destroyed, gold plundered, and dozens of the men themselves had their pigtails, or queues, cut off - a matter of great dishonour for them - or worse, they were scalped. An unknown number of Chinese were murdered: although the official death toll for Chinese was given as two, eyewitness accounts suggest between 30 and 40 were killed, and several hundred more injured. The flag carried by the diggers, on which was written 'Roll-up Roll-up No Chinese', is now on display in the Lambing Flat Folk Museum.

The Lambing Flat riots continued for several more weeks, settling only after military intervention and the arrest of the main ringleaders among the white diggers. However, public outcry at these arrests caused many of the ringleaders to be released. In the end, only one person was actually convicted and gaoled. The name Lambing Flat was changed to Young after then-Governor of New South Wales, Sir John Young, in an attempt to wipe the atrocities of June 30 from the history of the town. The government responded, ironically, not with legislation to protect other racial groups, but with laws restricting access to goldfields for aliens and to refuse miners' rights to same. The Chinese Immigration Restriction Act was passed at an Intercolonial Conference in 1880 1881. This was, in effect, the beginning of the White Australia Policy, as it led to the adoption of uniform restrictive immigration laws. 

1908  -     The first Australian south to north transcontinental motor car journey begins. 

Australia's love affair with the car as a means of travelling the continent's huge distances began with the first transcontinental motor car trip. Engineer Horace Hooper Murrag Aunger was born on 28 April 1878 at Narridy, near Clare, South Australia. He collaborated with cycle maker Vivian Lewis and Tom O'Grady to build the first petrol-driven motorcar in South Australia. Aunger teamed up with Henry Hampden Dutton to be the first to cross Australia from south to north by motorcar. Their first attempt left Adelaide in Dutton's Talbot car on 25 November 1907, and travelled north through countryside suitable only for a modern 4WD. When the pinion in the Talbot's differential collapsed south of Tennant Creek, the car had to be abandoned as the wet season was approaching. Travelling on horseback, the men met the railhead at Oodnadatta, from where they returned to Adelaide.

Dutton then purchased a larger, more powerful vehicle, again a Talbot. The men made their second attempt to cross the continent from south to north, leaving Adelaide on 30 June 1908. They were joined at Alice Springs by Ern Allchurch. Reaching the abandoned Talbot at Tennant Creek, the car was repaired, and they drove in convoy to Pine Creek, where the original Talbot was freighted by train to Darwin. The men continued in the second Talbot, reaching Darwin on 20 August 1908. The car in which the men completed their journey now sits preserved in the Birdwood museum, South Australia.

1971  -     A Russian space mission ends in tragedy when three cosmonauts are found dead in their space capsule, despite a perfect landing.

Russia initially led the "space race", launching the first man and woman into space, although they did not achieve the first moon landing. The Soyuz space craft was, and is, a series of spacecraft designed by Sergey Korolyov for the Soviet Union's space program. The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft design and were originally built as part of the Luna program. They were later used to carry cosmonauts to and from the Salyut and Mir space stations and are now used for transport to and from the International Space Station.

On 30 June 1971, three Russian cosmonauts were found dead in their space capsule, the Soyuz 11, after it made what appeared to be a perfect landing in Kazakhstan. The cosmonauts, Lieutenant-Colonel Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkoy and Viktor Patsayev, had been conducting scientific experiments and observations after docking with the Soviet space station, Salyut 1. An ensuing inquiry found that the men had suffered a fatal rise in their blood pressure, which occurred when the cabin became depressurised after re-entry. The accident resulted in a complete redesign that led to the 7K-T. It deleted one crew space so that all cosmonauts could wear spacesuits during launch and reentry.  

2010  -     Mildura, Victoria becomes the first Australian city to switch over entirely to digital television.

Digital television is a new innovation of the twenty-first century which involves the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by digital signals. This is different to the previously used analogue television signals which had been in use since the invention of television. The advantage of using digital technology is that it uses less bandwidth than analogue, and unlike analogue, it is not limited to just a few channels available.

Australia began offering digital television from around 2008, with a planned complete switchover of all towns and regions between 2010 and 2013. On 30 June 2010, the rural city of Mildura in Victoria's far northwest became the first Australian city to switch over entirely from analogue to digital television transmission.

Cheers - John