Gday...

1790  -             Early Australian explorer, William Charles Wentworth, is born on a convict ship travelling to Australia.

William Charles Wentworth was born on 26 July 1790 on the 'Surprize', a ship transporting convicts to Australia. The exact date of his birth is unknown. Wentworth was a "Currency Lad", one of the first children born into the colony of New South Wales. He enjoyed his status as different from the "English ascendancy," and was an outspoken nationalist, determined to gain civil rights for those who, like himself, were very much in the minority. He was an advocate of Australia becoming self-governing.

Wentworth, along with William Lawson and Gregory Blaxland, was the first European to cross the Blue Mountains which, for twenty-five years, had prevented the expansion of the colony at Sydney Cove. Many others had tried to find a way through, but been turned back by dead-end ravines and vast expanses of impassable rocky cliffs. Discovering a way through the Blue Mountains opened up the huge interior of Australia for settlement and further exploration.

Wentworth was the only one of the three explorers to make a significant name for himself in the new colony. He commenced 'The Australian' newspaper in 1824 and founded the University of Sydney in 1852.

1858  -             Sydney and Melbourne are linked by telegraph.

The Melbourne to Adelaide telegraph line was the first inter-colonial line to be completed within Australia. A few days later, on 26 July 1858, the link between Melbourne and Sydney, the two largest cities in Australia, was also completed.

Canadian-born Samuel Walker McGowan is credited with bringing the telegraph technology to Australia. Lured by the opportunities opened up by the discovery of gold in Victoria, McGowan came to Melbourne, Australia, in 1853. Although isolated from telegraph technology in America, and limited by lack of equipment and suitable component manufacturing firms in Australia, McGowan succeeded in opening up the first telegraph line in Australia on 3 March 1854. It ran from Melbourne to Williamstown. The network of telegraph lines quickly spread throughout Victoria, and then to Adelaide, South Australia.

1908  -             The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) commences operations.

The FBI is the main investigative branch of the United States Department of Justice. It originated from a force of Special Agents created on 26 July 1908. During Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte ordered a force of Special Agents to take on investigative assignments in areas such as antitrust, peonage, and land fraud. The first force consisted of ten former Secret Service employees and a number of Department of Justice peonage (i.e., compulsory servitude) investigators. On 26 July 1908, Bonaparte ordered them to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch. This action is considered to be the beginning of the FBI. At this stage, the FBI did not have a name nor an official leader, apart from the Attorney General. Its first designation was the Bureau of Investigation (BOI); it became the FBI in 1935.

1978  -             The World Health Organisation announces that smallpox has been eradicated worldwide.

Smallpox is the only known major human disease to have been eradicated. It was a highly contagious viral disease unique to humans, caused by two virus variants called Variola major and Variola minor. V. major was the more deadly form, with a typical mortality of 20-40 percent of those infected. The other type, V. minor, only killed 1% of its victims. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths in the 20th century. Survivors were left blind in one or both eyes from corneal ulcerations, and left with persistent skin scarring, or pockmarks.

On 1 January 1967, the World Health Organisation (WHO), a specialised agency of the United Nations acting as a coordinating authority on international public health, announced the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Programme, involving the extensive distribution of the vaccine. On 26 July 1978, WHO announced the eradication of the smallpox strain Variola Minor. The last natural case of the more deadly strain, Variola Major, had occurred several years earlier, in 1975.

Cheers - John