Gday...

1861  -             South Australian John McKinlay departs Adelaide to search for the missing Burke and Wills expedition.

The Burke and Wills expedition was supposed to mark the state of Victoria's greatest triumph: Victoria hoped to be the first state to mount an expedition to cross the continent from south to north. Instead, due to mismanagement and lack of clear communication, three of the four members of the party who finally made the attempt to cross to the gulf and back, never made it back. Robert O'Hara Burke, William John Wills and Charles Gray all died. John King alone survived, after being taken in and nursed by the Aborigines of the Cooper Creek area.

Although the expedition had been financed by the colony of Victoria, several other states mounted their own rescue missions for Burke and Wills, who were long overdue to return. John McKinlay, born at Sandbank on the Clyde in 1819, first came to New South Wales in 1836. He joined his uncle, a wealthy grazier, under whose guidance he soon gained practical bush skills, and then took up several runs in South Australia. McKinlay was chosen to head up the South Australian relief expedition for Burke and Wills, setting out from Adelaide on 16 August 1861. During the course of his search, McKinlay's journals show that he crossed the continent from south to north, then east and back again, possibly making McKinlay the uncredited first explorer to cross the continent and survive. The remains of Burke and Wills were eventually located by the Victorian relief expedition.

1896  -             Gold is found in Alaska, sparking the Klondike goldrush.

Klondike is a region of the Yukon Territory in Northwest Canada, just east of the Alaskan border. On 16 August 1896, rich gold deposits were found in Bonanza (Rabbit) Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. This sparked the Klondike goldrush of 189798. News of the discovery reached the United States in July, 1897, and within a month thousands of people were leaving their homes and jobs and pouring into the north. Over the next six months, approximately 100,000 gold-seekers set off for the Yukon: only 30,000 completed the trip.  

1898  -             Edwin Prescott patents the roller coaster.

The roller coaster was designed and patented by Edwin Prescott of Arlington, Massachusetts on 16 August 1898. It was named by the U.S. patent office as "the pleasure railway." The first design was a simple one which included just a single circular loop. The design caused an uncomfortable shock to passengers as the car entered the loop, so was hardly a pleasure to ride. Subsequently, in 1901 a loop-the-loop centrifugal railway was patented by Prescott. The new roller coaster was more comfortable to ride as it replaced the rough approach to the loop with a gentler curve, and had other modifications to improve the overall ride.

1977  -             Elvis Presley, king of rock 'n' roll, dies.

Elvis Aaron Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, on 8 January 1935. He began learning the guitar at age 11, and often busked around the Lauderdale Courts public housing development, where he lived during his teen years. At age 20, he signed with RCA records, and began to make the music charts regularly. During the course of his career, he had 146 Hot 100 hits, 112 top 40 hits, 72 top 20 hits and 40 top 10 hits. A strong television exposure followed, with appearances on shows such as the Ed Sullivan Show. His next step was movies: between 1956 and 1969, Elvis Presley starred in 31 films.

Elvis died at the age of 42 on 16 August 1977. He was found on the floor of his bedroom's bathroom ensuite, and was rushed to the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. However, he was pronounced dead on arrival. His post mortem stated that he had died of cardiac arrhythmia - a form of heart attack. His autopsy results will not be made public until 50 years after his death. Presley was originally buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis next to his mother, but after an attempted theft of his body, his and his mother's remains were moved to Graceland.  

1995  -             Microsoft launches the first version of Microsoft Internet Explorer

The first version of the now ubiquitous Internet Explorer browser, was launched on 16 August 1995. A revised version of the Spyglass Mosaic browser which had been licensed from Spyglass Inc. integrated with the Windows 95 platform and, coming after the original Mosaic browser, it offered a seamless Web browsing experience for the novice and experienced user alike.

Cheers - John