Gday...

1836  -     Australian explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell discovers the Loddon River in Victoria.

Major Thomas Mitchell was born in Craigend, Scotland, in 1792. He came to Australia after serving in the Army during the Napoleonic Wars, and took up the position of Surveyor-General of New South Wales. He was a talented poet, artist, geologist and botanist who meticulously charted each of his four journeys into the NSW interior.

In 1836, Mitchell set out to disprove Sturt's theory that the Darling River flowed into the Murray - an obsession that had dominated his second expedition a year earlier. On this, his third journey, Mitchell confirmed the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers, and set out to explore upstream along the Darling but was forced by drought to return to the Murray. After returning downstream, Mitchell discovered the Loddon River on 1 July 1836 whilst exploring south of the Murray. He originally referred to the Loddon by its Aboriginal name, "Yarrayne". This expedition eventually led to the opening up of "Australia Felix", the rich pasture land of western Victoria.

1851  -     Victoria separates from New South Wales.

When James Cook became the first European to sight and map the eastern coastline of Australia, he claimed the eastern half of the continent for England under the name of New South Wales. After the arrival of the First Fleet, England sought to secure its claim on New South Wales be establishing further settlements south, and eventually north and west.

In 1803, the British Government instructed Lieutenant-Governor David Collins to establish a settlement on the southern coast. This settlement was not a success and the site was abandoned, but expeditions continued to be mounted to explore the land between Sydney and Port Phillip. Thanks to the initiative of John Batman, Melbourne was settled in 1835, and despite being regarded as an "illegal" settlement, the foundling colony thrived. Governor Bourke formally named Melbourne in 1837.

The Port Phillip Colony encompassed Melbourne and "Australia Felix", which was the fertile western district discovered by Major Thomas Mitchell. The first petition for formal separation of the colony from New South Wales was presented to Governor Gipps in 1840, but rejected. It was another ten years before the British Act of Parliament separating Victoria from New South Wales was signed by Queen Victoria. The New South Wales Legislative Council subsequently passed legislation formalising Victoria's separation on 1 July 1851.

1937  -     England implements the world's first telephone emergency system.

The world's first telephone emergency system began in England as a response to an emergency situation in which five people were killed. Phone calls were delayed when people attempted to report a fire. It was decided that a single-number system was necessary to enable emergencies to be reported quickly and efficiently. The British emergency system was implemented on 1 July 1937. The first actual call on the British 9-9-9 emergency number occurred 7 days later, on 8 July 1937, when a woman reported a burglar outside her home. The burglar was duly apprehended.

1942  -     Australia's worst maritime disaster occurs when the Montevideo Maru is torpedoed by American submarine USS Sturgeon.

The war in the Pacific was initiated when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Thus began the Japanese conquest of the Pacific region. Having taken out a large portion of the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese then set their sights on expanding their empire from the Indian/Burmese border, south through Malaya, across the islands of Indonesia to New Guinea, northwest to the Gilbert Islands and north to the Kuril Islands off the Japanese coast. In January 1942, Japanese forces landed in Rabaul on the island of New Britain, now part of Papua New Guinea. There, they established a defence base, launching offensives against Australian troops.

Prior to the invasion, there were an estimated 1400 troops in the region. Of these, around 400 managed to escape. The remaining 1000 were taken as prisoners of war (POWs), along with more than 200 civilians. One group consisting of almost 80 Australian officers and Army nurses was successfully moved from the base to Japanese territory. The next group, made up of the remaining POWs and civilians, was transferred to the Japanese transport ship Montevideo Maru to be taken to Hainan, off the southern coast of China.. The carrier left Rabaul on 22 June.

The Montevideo Maru was not marked as a POW carrier. On 1 July 1942, the ship was torpedoed by the submarine USS Sturgeon. It sank off the coast of the Philippines, near Luzon. All 845 POWs and 209 civilians were killed, locked in the ships hold as it went down.

The Australian public was unaware of the tragedy until after the war. The last news that families and friends had of the POWs was their internment at Rabaul. When Australian troops arrived at Rabaul to liberate them, there was no trace of the military and civilian prisoners who had been there three years earlier. Several civilian survivors shed light on the mystery, telling of the departure of the Montevideo Maru with the prisoners on board. The story was only fully uncovered after Australian officer Major H S Williams investigated, travelling first to Manila, then to Japan.

On 1 July 2012, seventy years after the tragedy, a memorial was unveiled in Canberra to honour the 1054 Australian prisoners who died aboard the Montevideo Maru. The event remains Australias worst maritime disaster.

1959  -     "Mr Squiggle" first airs on ABC TV in Australia. 

 Mr Squiggle and Friends was a long-running childrens television series on Australias ABC. It featured a marionette with a large pencil for its nose. Mr Squiggle regularly flew to Earth from his residence at 93 Crater Crescent, The Moon on his spaceship named Rocket. In each episode, Mr Squiggle would create imaginative and creative drawings from squiggles sent in to the programme by children from across Australia, accompanied by their letters.

The concept of Mr Squiggle was created by puppeteer, cartoonist and illustrator Norman Hetherington. Mr Squiggle first appeared on the Children's TV Club on ABC TV, but developed into a regular series of short, five minute slots, with occasional longer special programmes. Hetherington manipulated the marionette from overhead: drawings were usually completed upside-down, so would remain largely unrecognisable until Mr Squiggle called out "Upside down! Upside down!" and the sketch was turned around. Scripts were largely written by Hetherington's wife Margaret. A female helper assisted Mr Squiggle each time, variously Miss Gina, Miss Pat, Miss Jane, Roxanne and Rebecca. Other characters included the grouchy Blackboard; Bill the Steam Shovel; and Gus the Snail, who sported a TV for a shell, then a flower pot.

The first Mr Squiggle episode appeared on 1 July 1959, and the show continued to run for forty years. The final episode, which was produced in 1996, was aired on 9 July 1999.

1997  -     After more than 150 years of British administration, Hong Kong is returned to Chinese control.

Britain invaded China in 1839, during the First Opium War. After Britain occupied Hong Kong, China ceded the island to the British under the Convention of Chuenpi (Chuanbi) signed on 20 January 1841. Hong Kong Island then became a Crown Colony on 29 August 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking. Following the Second Opium War (1856-1860), China was forced to cede the Kowloon Peninsula, adjacent to Hong Kong Island, along with other area islands. In 1898, the UK commenced a 99-year lease of Hong Kong and surrounding islands and territories, increasing the size of the Hong Kong colony. The lease would expire at midnight on 30 June 1997.

Negotiations on the future of Hong Kong were initiated between Britain and China in 1982. On 19 December 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang signed the Joint Sino-British Declaration approving the 1997 turnover of the colony. The Declaration allowed for the formulation of a "one country, two systems" policy by China's communist government, permitting Hong Kong to have a capitalist economy and enjoy existing rights and freedoms. Democratic elections for the new Legislative Council were held in 1995. On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong's Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa, was sworn in as the new leader.

2000  -     Australian PM John Howard introduces the GST.

The GST (Goods and Services Tax) is a value added tax of 10% on most goods and services sold in Australia. Introduced by the Howard Government on 1 July 2000, it replaced the previous wholesale sales tax system and various minor taxes such as stamp duty and bank account debits tax. The idea for a broad-based value-added tax was first proposed in Australia by Treasurer Paul Keating in the mid-80s but was rejected by Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke who believed it to be unpopular with the Australian public. The idea was refloated in 1991 by Dr John Hewson, leader of the opposition as the nation approached the 1993 election. Initially starting with a seemingly invincible lead over the Labor government, the Liberal-National Coalition lost its lead when Hewson seemed unable to clearly explain how GST would be incurred on the cost of everyday items, in a television lead.

John Howard, re-elected leader of the Liberal party in 1995, led the Liberal-National Coalition to a large victory in the 1996 elections. In the lead-up to the 1998 election, Howard campaigned on the GST and narrowly won. However, the government lacked a senate majority, and with Labor adamantly opposed to the introduction of the GST, Howard turned to the minor parties for support. The Democrats had opposed the GST during the 1998 election campaign, but their leader, Meg Lees, was amenable to the notion of amending the government's GST legislation to make the tax fairer. Lees wanted exemptions to be made for food, education and other goods and services. After months of negotiations the government relented, and the legislation was passed on 28 June 1999, and the GST introduced on 1 July 2000. The issue split the Democrats, and to date, the party has yet to recover from their loss of support.

Cheers - John