Gday...

1054  -     Chinese astronomers observe the supernova explosion which created the Crab Nebula. 

According to the observations of Chinese astronomers, on 4 July 1054 a "guest star" suddenly appeared where one had never been seen before, and was bright enough to be visible in daylight. Its brightness gradually faded over a period of two years, but its position was recorded and mapped. Petroglyphs of the North American Indians indicate that they, too observed and recorded the phenomenon. In 1758 a French amateur astronomer, Charles Messier, discovered a nebulous patch similar in appearance to the claw of a crab near the star Zeta Taurui on the border of Taurus and Auriga where the bright star had been seen. Thus, the phenomenon came to be known as the Crab Nebula.

1776  -     Today is Independence Day in the United States, celebrating the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. 

The American Declaration of Independence is the document which declared the American colonies' independence from England. On 11 June 1776 the "Committee of Five", consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, was formed to draft a suitable declaration. The declaration was essentially the work of Jefferson, who showed it to other committee members, who made several minor corrections. Jefferson then produced another copy incorporating these changes. The final draft was submitted to the US Congress on 28 June 1776.

In early July 1776, representatives of the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. All the colonies voted in favour of the resolution, and the Declaration was ratified on 4 July 1776, a day which came to be celebrated as Independence Day. John Han****, the president of the Second Continental Congress, was the first to sign the Declaration. Whilst some regions of the United States began to set aside July 4 as a day of celebration soon after adopting the Declaration, it was only in 1783, when the war of independence against the British ended, that the day was declared a holiday in some areas.

1854  -     Controversial Australian political figure, King O'Malley, is born.

King O'Malley was born on 4 July 1854 at Stanford Farm on the Canadian American border, although the exact date and place of his birth is not completely certain. He immigrated to Australia in 1889 where he worked as an itinerant insurance salesman, also preaching evangelical Christianity and temperance. In 1895 he settled in Gawler, South Australia, and in 1896 he was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly as a radical democrat, opposed to the wealthy landowners who then dominated colonial politics.

O'Malley became a controversial figure and prominent in Australian politics. He became Minister for Home Affairs and played a prominent role in selecting the site of the future capital of Australia. O'Malley drove in the first survey peg marking the beginning of the development of the city of Canberra on 20 February 1913. A teetotaller, he was responsible for the highly unpopular ban on alcohol in the Australian Capital Territory. He was instrumental in beginning the building of the Transcontinental Railway from Melbourne to Perth, and pushed for the establishment of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, a state-owned savings and investment bank. He was also the one who advocated the spelling of "Labor" in the Australian Labor Party as being more modern than "Labour".

O'Malley died on 20 December 1953. His role in helping to develop the national capital is remembered in Canberra with the suburb of O'Malley being named after him.

1884  -     France presents the Statue of Liberty as a gift to the people of America.

The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island, formerly Bedloe's Island, in New York Harbor. Its full title is "Liberty Enlightening the World". Gustave Eiffel was the Structural Engineer of the Statue of Liberty and its Sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. The Statue was completed in Paris in June 1884, presented to America by the people of France on 4 July 1884, then dismantled and shipped to US in 1885 as 350 individual pieces in 214 crates. In response, the American community in Paris gave a return gift to the French of a bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty, standing about 11 metres high, and sculpted to a quarter-size scale. This statue now stands approximately one and a half kilometres downstream from the Eiffel Tower on Ile des Cygnes, an island in the Seine River.

1991  -     Prominent and highly respected heart surgeon, Victor Chang, is gunned down in Sydney.

Victor Peter Chang (Yam Him) was born in Shanghai, China, on 21 November 1936. The death of his mother from cancer when he was twelve years old was a deciding factor in his choice to become a doctor. He came to Australia to complete his secondary schooling in 1953, then studied medicine at the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Medical Science with first class honours in 1960, and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1962. After further study in England, and becoming a Fellow of both the Royal College of Surgeons and American College of Surgeons, he joined the cardiothoracic team at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in 1972.

The era of successful heart transplants in Australia can be attributed largely to the influence of Dr Victor Chang. He was instrumental in raising funds to establish a heart transplant programme at St Vincent's. The first successful transplant under the programme was performed on a 39 year old shearer from Armidale in February 1984, who survived several months longer than he would have otherwise. Arguably, Chang's best-known success was when he operated on Fiona Coote, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, on 7-8 April 1984. Over the next six years, the unit at St Vincent's performed over 197 heart transplants and 14 heart-lung transplants, achieving a 90% success rate for recipients in the first year. To compensate for the lack of heart donors, Chang developed an artificial heart valve and also worked on designing an artificial heart.

Victor Chang was murdered in the suburb of Mosman on 4 July 1991, after two Malaysian men rammed Chang's car, forced him to stop, and demanded money. When Chang refused, the men killed him. The murder was related to transplant waiting lists. Within less than two weeks, Chiew Seng Liew was charged with the murder, and Jimmy Tan was charged as an accessory. The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, to enable research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart muscle diseases, was launched in honour of Victor Chang on 15 February 1994.

Cheers - John