Gday...

1870  -             Tower Subway, the first tube railway in the world, is opened under the Thames River in London.

The London Underground is a public electric railway system that runs underground in central London and emerges above ground in the city's suburbs. It was the world's first underground network. Prior to its construction, London trains terminated a long way from the central city, as building them closer would necessitate damaging historic buildings. Buses were still required to bring commuters into the city, and London soon became gridlocked. In 1854, a short underground railway was implemented between Paddington and Farringdon, but was constructed using a simple cut-and-cover method of digging a trench and recovering it with a roof, using supporting beams.

Shortly after this, deep-level tunnels, or "tube lines" were developed. They ran about 20 metres below the surface, and the tunnels were reinforced with cast-iron rings. On 2 August 1870, the Tower Subway became the first tube railway to be opened, and it ran beneath the River Thames in central London, close to the Tower of London, entering at Tower Hill and exiting at Vine Lane. It was designed and built by James Henry Greathead in 1869-1870 using a cylindrical wrought-iron tunnelling shield he designed with Peter W. Barlow. Initially, a steam engine powered a 12-seat carriage shuttled from end to end by wire rope, in a 70 second journey. However, it was not popular or cost-effective and was closed down after three months.

1922  -             Scottish inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, dies.

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 3 March 1847. It was whilst living in Canada, from 1870, that Bell pursued his interest in telephony and communications. He moved to the US shortly afterwards to continue developing his inventions. On 7 March 1876, he was granted US Patent Number 174,465 for "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound", i.e. the telephone. Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877.

Bell also collaborated with other inventors to produce such items as the phonograph, photophone (a device enabling the transmission of sound over a beam of light), metal detector and hydrofoil. Bell died on 2 August 1922, and two days later, his death was marked by a minute's silence from the ringing of telephones all over his adopted country.

1990  -             Iraq invades Kuwait, initiating the Gulf War.

In the early hours of 2 August 1990, 100,000 Iraqi troops backed by 300 tanks invaded Kuwait, in the Persian Gulf. US economic aid to Iraq had inadvertently allowed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to amass weaponry which was then deployed for the invasion. Hussein's motivation for the invasion was that it was a response to overproduction of oil in Kuwait, which had cost Iraq an estimated $14 billion a year when oil prices fell.

The United Nations acted immediately to implement economic sanctions against Iraq. Iraq, however, would not retreat. In January of the following year, a coalition force of armies from 34 nations, led by the United States, set out to free Kuwait. The Gulf War lasted around 6 weeks, and resulted in a decisive victory for the coalition forces.

1997  -             After three days, skiing instructor Stuart Diver is pulled alive from the rubble of the collapsed Thredbo resorts.

For three days after the collapse of the Alpine Way in Australia's high country in 1997 (see July 30), Stuart Diver, 27, lay trapped between two concrete slabs, under mud, rubble and snow. The rescue operation was made all the more dangerous by the instability of the debris and the land. Heavy rain, melting snow and landfill had resulted in 2000 square metres of liquefied soil rushing down the mountainside. 1350 volunteers and specialists in rescue operations worked in shifts around the clock to clear the rubble and find survivors. The focus changed for the rescue workers when Stuart Diver was found alive.

Michael Featherstone, 52, was the paramedic who stayed beside Diver through the twelve hour rescue ordeal. Diver had been buried for 66 hours, and was suffering severe hypothermia and poor circulation. Internal injuries had caused his body to release toxins into his bloodstream, and workers had to ensure that each step of the rescue was taken slowly and carefully: even moving Diver from a prone to vertical position was delicate and life-threatening as it could have caused a toxic shock. When Diver was finally lifted from his concrete and rubble prison on 2 August 1997, a resounding cheer rang across the mountainside, and probably also from the tens of thousands of Australian viewers who had been watching the rescue on television.

Cheers - John