Gday...

64  -         The Great Fire of Rome is started, ultimately destroying two-thirds of the city.

The Great Fire of Rome broke out on 18 July AD 64 in the merchant district of the city, near the Circus Maximus, Rome's huge chariot stadium. Because of the strong summer winds, the fire quickly spread. It burned for six days and seven nights, then reignited and burned for another three days. In that time, the fire destroyed two-thirds of the city, including the 800-year-old Temple of Jupiter Stator and the Atrium Vestae, the hearth of the Vestal Virgins.

The Emperor Nero was blamed for his inaction, and there were even suggestions that he may have started it himself in order to bypass the senate and rebuild Rome to his liking. Evidence to support this theory includes the fact that the Domus Aurea, Nero's majestic series of villas and pavilions set upon a landscaped park and a man-made lake, was built in the wake of the fire. To deflect attention away from himself, Nero used the Christians as scapegoats. Thus began the earliest persecutions of Christians in Rome, action which included feeding them to the lions. The city was rebuilt after the fire, greater and more spectacular than before.

1873  -     Explorer William Gosse sights and names Ayers Rock in an accidental discovery after being forced to take a more southerly route due to lack of water.

Uluru/Ayers Rock, in central Australia, is the second largest monolith in the world, second only to Mt Augustus which is also in Australia. Located in Kata Tjuta National Park 450 km southwest of Alice Springs, Ayers Rock was given its European name to commemorate the former Premier of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers. With a circumference of just over 9km, and rising 349 metres above the surrounding plain, Uluru/Ayers Rock is a striking landform.

Explorer William Gosse, of the South Australian Survey Department, became the first European explorer to see Ayers Rock. His expedition into the central interior departed Alice Springs on 23 April 1873, heading in a northwesterly direction. Gosse discovered the rock (now known by its native name of Uluru) by accident during an expedition through Australia's interior. The need to find water for his camels forced him to take a more southerly course than he had originally planned. It was on 18 July 1873 that he sighted Ayers Rock, recording that, "This rock is certainly the most wonderful natural feature I have ever seen".

1878  -     The foundation stone for South Australia's grand Vice-Regal Summer Residence, Marble Hill, is laid.

Marble Hill was the grand summer residence of the Governor of South Australia. Situated in the bushland of the Adelaide Hills, it was an ideal location to catch any summer breezes, whilst it also held commanding views of the surrounding countryside.

The 1870s was a time of economic boom for South Australia. When William Jervois became Governor in 1877, he commissioned the construction of a grander residence than the country retreat of Government Farm at Belair. Jervois supervised the architecture and selected the site. The first stone for the Marble Hill residence was laid on 18 July 1878, and the building was completed by late 1879. The Vice-Regal Summer Residence, as it was known, was designed in Victorian Gothic Revival style and adapted for Australian conditions with the addition of spacious verandahs on three sides which shielded the interior from the intense northern sun. Constructed from locally quarried sandstone, its 26 rooms included a drawing room, a morning room, a dining room and a grand staircase of kauri pine and blackwood. Because the building was a summer residence only, it did not feature the ballroom and grand dining room typical of the Governor's official residence.

Between 1880 and 1955, Marble Hill was used by each of the Governors, as well as other dignitaries such as King George V and Queen Mary (as Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York) who were guests in 1901. The grand building was destroyed by what came to be known as the Black Sunday bushfire of 2 January 1955.

1897  -     The final victims of Australia's exploration era, Charles Wells and George Jones, are laid to rest in Adelaide.

Very little of Australia was left unexplored by the late 1800s, but the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia remained an unconquered frontier. In 1896, Albert Calvert, a London-based gold-mining engineer with interests in Western Australia, sponsored an expedition to fill in the unexplored blanks on the map and hopefully find some likely gold-bearing country into the bargain. The Royal Geographical Society of South Australia was asked to organise the Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition, financed by Calvert. The expedition's leader was surveyor Lawrence Wells, and accompanying him was surveyor Charles Wells, his cousin, an Adelaide mineralogist by the name of George Jones, a cook and a camel driver.

In October 1896, the party camped at a small permanent waterhole south-east of Lake George, Western Australia, which they named Separation Well. Here, on 11 October 1896, Lawrence Wells made the fateful decision to split the party into two groups. Charles Wells and Jones set off on a bearing of 290 degrees to survey lands for 144 kilometres north-west, before turning north-north-east to rejoin the main party at Joanna Spring, located and mapped by explorer Warburton in 1873. When Lawrence Wells's party reached Joanna Spring on 29 October, there was no sign of the other party. Unable to even locate the spring, the leader made for the Fitzroy River, where he raised the alarm regarding the missing explorers via the Fitzroy Crossing Telegraph Station.

Four search parties were dispatched, covering over five thousand kilometres, with no success. Aborigines had found the missing explorers and plundered the bodies of all clothing and other items: when some of these items were located in the Aborigines' possession, the Aborigines led the searchers to where the bodies lay. On 27 May 1897 the bodies of Wells and Jones were recovered by the white search party, perfectly preserved by the intense heat, just 22km from Joanna Spring. The mummified bodies were sewn in sheets and taken to Derby, where they were shipped to Adelaide and given a State funeral on 18 July 1897.

1918  -     Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid campaigner and the first democratically-elected President of South Africa, is born.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on 18 July 1918. Rolihlahla Mandela was seven years old when he became the first member of his family to attend school: it was there that he was given the English name "Nelson" by a Methodist teacher.

In his university days, Mandela became a political activist against the white minority government's denial of political, social, and economic rights to South Africa's black majority. He became a prominent anti-apartheid activist of the country, and was involved in underground resistance activities. Although interred in jail from 1962 to 1990 for his resistance activities, including sabotage, Mandela continued to fight for the rights of the South African blacks. He was eventually freed, thanks to sustained campaigning by the African National Congress, and subsequent international pressure. He and State President F.W. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mandela was elected to the Presidency of South Africa in 1994 and retired in 1999.

1936  -     The first Wienermobile, a giant hotdog on wheels, rolls out of the General Body Company in Chicago.

The Wienermobile is essentially an all-metal 4m long hotdog on wheels. The first Wienermobile was built for $5000. Carl G. Mayer, nephew of the lunchmeat tycoon Oscar Mayer, created the Wienermobile to transport the company's first spokesperson, "Little Oscar", through the streets of Chicago, Illinois, promoting Oscar Meyer's "German Style Wieners" and handing out "Wienerwhistle" toys to children.

By 1988, ten new Wienermobiles joined the fleet. These new vehicles were fibreglass and 7m in length. Manufactured by the Stevens Automotive Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they were built on converted 1988 Chevrolet van chassis powered by V-6 engines. The Wienermobile continues to be upgraded and developed each year.

1969  -     Senator Edward Kennedy, brother to assassinated President John F Kennedy, crashes his car off the bridge at Chappaquiddick Island, killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.

Edward Kennedy was born on 22 February 1922, the youngest of the nine Kennedy children. He was being considered as a likely candidate for presidency in the 1972 elections, until the accident that took the life of Mary Jo Kopechne.

Kopechne was a former campaign worker for Kennedy's brother, Robert F Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 whilst campaigning for the Presidency. On 18 July 1969, Robert Kennedy and Kopechne had been attending a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, which was intended to be a reunion of those who had worked on his brother Robert's 1968 presidential campaign. After the two left the party together, the Senator drove his car off the Dike Bridge into tide-swept Poucha Pond. The car overturned and Kopechne drowned. Because Kennedy did not report the accident until the following day, there were allegations of attempted coverup. Kennedy later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. The accident caused a scandal that damaged his reputation, but had a limited effect on his political career.

Cheers - John