Gday...

1768  -             James Cook departs Plymouth on the journey during which he sights the east coast of Australia.

James Cook was not the first to discover Australia, as he was preceded by numerous Portuguese and Dutch explorers. He was, however, the first to sight and map the eastern coastline when he was sent to observe the transit of Venus across the sun from the vantage point of Tahiti. The transit of Venus occurs when the planet Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, and its unlit side can be seen as a small black circle moving across the face of the Sun. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, eight years apart, approximately once every 120 years. Cook's ship, the 'Endeavour', departed England, on 25 August 1768. Cook reached Tahiti in time for his crew and scientists to set up their instrumentation necessary to observe and report on the transit, which occurred on 3 June 1769.

After observing the transit of Venus, Cook went on to search for Terra Australis Incognita, the great continent which some believed to extend round the pole. It was shortly after observing the transit of Venus that Cook came across New Zealand, which had already been discovered by Abel Tasman in 1642. He spent some months there, charting the coastline. Nearly a year later, he set sail west for New Holland, which he was later to name New South Wales.

1828  -             Explorer Allan Cunningham discovers Cunningham's Gap.

Australian explorer Allan Cunningham was born in Wimbledon, England, on 13 July 1791. As a botanist who came to Australia suffering from tuberculosis, he found that Australia's climate helped him regain some of his health, and he was anxious to discover more of the country he came to love. Initially, he explored as part of John Oxley's expeditions to follow the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers in 1817.

In 1827 Allan Cunningham discovered the rich grazing and pastureland of the Darling Downs. The following year, he sailed to Moreton Bay to find a way to connect his discoveries of the Darling Downs and inland rivers with the Brisbane River and the new settlement there. Cunningham set out from Ipswich in August, and after travelling for several days, he climbed Mount Mitchell. It was from here that he sighted Cunningham's Gap and the pastoral country that lay beyond, on 25 August 1828.

The discovery of Cunningham's Gap meant that graziers and farmers of the Darling Downs no longer needed to send their products overland to Sydney and markets. Instead, they could now travel the less arduous way of coastal shipping.

1853  -             Francis Cadell launches Australia's first paddlesteamer, the 'Lady Augusta', from Goolwa.

 In 1828-9, Captain Charles Sturt became the first explorer to follow the course of the Murray River down to its mouth at Lake Alexandrina in South Australia. In doing so, he opened up the possibilities for a new means of transporting goods and passengers through inland NSW to the southern coast.

In 1851, the South Australian Government offered 2,000 pounds reward to the first two steamships to reach the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers. 31-year-old Scottish shipbuilder, Francis Cadell, had the 32m iron paddlesteamer, 'Lady Augusta', built in Sydney with 2x20hp steam engines. He departed Goolwa on 25 August 1853, travelling 2,200km upstream, reaching Swan Hill on September 17. Cadell's competitor, William Randell, built his own 17m paddlesteamer 'Mary Ann' at Gumeracha and Mannum, with a single 8hp engine and a square boiler. Randell reached Swan Hill several hours behind Cadell, after the two had raced neck-and-neck most of the way.

Cadell went on to carry cargo mostly along the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers; the small Murray River town of Cadell in South Australia now bears his name. Randell plied his trade along the Murray-Darling system. The town of Mannum grew up around his boat-yards and docks at his Reedy Creek station.

1909  -             Long Bay Gaol in Sydney is opened.

Long Bay Correctional Centre is located at Malabar, about 12 kilometres south of Sydney, New South Wales. It is Australias only prison to have been planned from the start with separate prisons for men and women. It was also the first prison in New South Wales to focus on rehabilitating inmates, rather than punishing them. The site was chosen in accordance with the tenets of 1770s English prison reformer John Howard, who believed jails should be positioned away from settled areas and preferably on the rise of a hill, where they would be subject to the full force of the wind. The entire plan for the gaol was based on new and different ideals in reform, such as the 'restricted association' advocated by William Frederick Neitenstein, comptroller-general of prisons from 1896 to 1909. 'restricted association' limited contact between different groups of prisoners to avoid long-term prisoners from having a corrupting influence on young or first-time offenders.

Construction on the female reformatory began in 1901, and this was the first section to be opened. The official opening occurred on 25 August 1909. The male penitentiary opened five years later, in 1914. In 1969, the women were transferred to a new facility at Silverwater. The old womens reformatory was initially converted into a training centre, then later used for minimum security inmates.

1944  -             Paris is freed after four years of German occupation.

The liberation of Paris during WWII occurred at the end of the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from 6 June 1944 to 25 August 1944. Twelve Allied nations provided units that participated in the largest sea borne invasion in history. Three million troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy in occupied France. The Allied assault on the coast of Normandy was carried out under the code name of Operation Overlord, and its ultimate aim was the liberation of western Europe and the invasion of Germany.

The battle of Normandy culminated in the liberation of Paris, which occurred after General Dietrich von Choltitz surrendered on 25 August 1944 after many days of fighting between the Resistance and the German occupiers. The French 2nd Armoured Division under General Philippe Leclerc was the first Allied force to enter the city, and was hailed with great cheers by the Parisians.

1989  -             Space probe 'Voyager 2' transmits the first ever pictures of Neptune.

The Voyager programme was originally part of NASA's 'Mariner' programme. It involved sending unmanned space probes to Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 2 having the capability to continue on to Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 was launched on 20 August 1977, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Twelve years later, on 25 August 1989, the spacecraft sent back the first close-up pictures of Neptune and its satellite planets before it left the solar system. It was the first, and so far the only, probe to visit Uranus and Neptune. As of April 2006, Voyager 2 was at 52.51° declination and 19.775 h Right Ascension (the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system), placing it in the constellation Telescopium. The spacecraft is expected to continue transmitting into the 2030s.

Cheers - John