Gday...

1861  -             Francis Gregory, lesser-known explorer in Western Australia, discovers the De Grey River.

Francis Thomas Gregory was born at Farnsfield, Nottingham, England, on 19 October 1821 and came to Western Australia in 1829. He was the younger brother of Augustus Gregory, who explored areas of northern Australia in the mid 1800s. As a staff surveyor, Francis Gregory explored extensively throughout northwest Australia.

In 1860 Gregory visited London and was put in charge of an expedition to explore the north-west coast, near the site of present-day Dampier. The British government made a grant of £3350 towards the expenses. Gregory departed Fremantle on 23 April 1861. Travelling north, Gregory discovered the Maitland, Fortescue and Hardey Rivers. Towards the end of July, the party moved eastwards, discovering good pastoral country. Gregory continued east, to discover the De Grey River on 27 August 1861, which he named after one of his sponsors, Lord De Grey. It was from the De Grey River that many expeditions later departed to explore further eastwards.

1883  -             Three more volcanic explosions occur on Krakatoa, bringing the death toll to around 36,000.

Krakatoa, or Krakatau, is a volcano near the Indonesian island of Rakata in western Indonesia, in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. After a history of violent explosions, it lay dormant for almost 200 years. Rumblings began in May, 1883. Then on August 26, the first major explosion was heard. On 27 August 1883, three further eruptions followed. It was the fourth explosion which caused the most devastation.

The northern two-thirds of the island was completely decimated by the explosion. This was followed by the collapse of the unsupported volcanic chambers which formed the huge underwater caldera. The explosion, together with the collapse of the volcano, generated gigantic tsunami waves, some reaching 40m in height above sea level. These caused great destruction, wiping out hundreds of villages and towns along the nearby coasts of Java and Sumatra, and killing over 36,000 people. The waves were so huge and powerful that the steamship Berouw was carried 3km inland and deposited 10m above sea level, killing its 28 crew. New islands were formed from the outpouring of ash, rock and lava. Further eruptions at the volcano since 1927 have built a new island, called Anak Krakatau (child of Krakatoa).

1908  -             Australian cricketing legend, Sir Donald Bradman, is born.

Donald George Bradman was born on 27 August 1908 in Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia. One of Australia's most popular sporting heroes, he is often regarded as the greatest batsman of all time. The Bradman Museum and Bradman Oval are located in the New South Wales town of Bowral, where Bradman grew up, spending many an hour practising his cricket using a stump and a golf ball. Bradman developed his legendary split-second speed and accuracy by practising hitting into a water tank on a brick stand behind the Bradman home: when hit into the curved brick stand, the ball would rebound at high speed and varying angles. Bradman's batting average of 99.94 from his 52 Tests was nearly double the average of any other player before or since.

Bradman was drafted in grade cricket in Sydney at the age of 18. Within a year he was representing New South Wales and within three he had made his Test debut. In the English summer of 1930 he scored 974 runs over the course of the five Ashes tests, the highest individual total in any test series. Even at almost forty years of age - most players today are retired by their mid-thirties - Bradman returned to play cricket after World War II. On 12 June 1948, he scored 138 in the First Test Cricket at Trent Bridge. In his farewell 1948 tour of England the team he led, dubbed "The Invincibles", went undefeated throughout the tour, a feat unmatched to date.

Bradman was awarded a knighthood in 1949 and a Companion of the Order of Australia, the country's highest civil honour, in 1979. In 1996, he was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame as one of the ten inaugural members. After his retirement, he remained heavily involved in cricket administration, serving as a selector for the national team for nearly 30 years. Sir Donald Bradman died on 25 February 2001.

1970  -             The Southern hairy-nosed wombat is adopted as the official faunal emblem of South Australia.

Australia is known for its fascinating and unique marsupials, among them the wombat. There are three species of wombats: the Common wombat; the Northern hairy-nosed wombat; and the Southern hairy-nosed wombat, sometimes just called the Hairy-nosed or Plains wombat. Closely related to koalas, wombats have a backward-facing pouch.

Wombats are found in the semi-arid open countryside of South Australia, where they dig burrows up to two metres in length to shelter in. They are found on the Eyre Peninsula, in the Gawler Ranges and the Nullarbor Plain, and some colonies are known to exist in isolated places on the Yorke Peninsula and the west bank of the Murray River. Once common, the Southern hairy-nosed wombat is now listed as endangered. Farmers are a threat to wombats because they regard the animals as pests as they dig under fences and cultivated land, and rabbits will also use their burrows. Dogs and vehicles are also a threat to wombats.

The Southern hairy-nosed wombat was adopted as the faunal emblem of South Australia on 27 August 1970.

[Memo to WA: Watcha doin bout  ya own Wombat, hey?]

1979  -             Lord Louis Mountbatten, uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is killed in a bomb blast in Ireland.

Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was born on 25 June 1900. He was a British admiral and statesman, serving in the navy during both World Wars. On 27 August 1979, whilst enjoying his usual summer holiday in Mullaghmore, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland, he was killed by a bomb planted in his boat in Donegal Bay. Also killed were one of his grandsons, Nicholas, 14, and 15 year old Paul Maxwell, a local boat-boy. The IRA claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The next day, 82-year-old Dowager Lady Brabourne, who had been another passenger on the boat, also died. A few hours later, 18 soldiers were also killed in two explosions near Warrenpoint close to the border with the Irish Republic. Thomas McMahon, 31, who had been detained by police on suspicion of driving a stolen car two hours before the bomb went off, was later convicted of the murders. Lord Mountbatten was buried in a state funeral on 5 September 1979.

2003  -             Mars looms large in the skies of Earth as its orbit brings it closer to Earth than it has been in the last 60,000 years.

On 27 August 2003, Mars closed the distance between itself and Earth as it swung through its elliptical orbit and came within close range of Earth. The Red planet, so called because of its rich Iron ore deposits visible even to the naked eye, was only 34 million miles of Earth. Interestingly, the event passed virtually unnoticed by the public, and there were no repeats of the mayhem caused by HG Wells in his famous Mars invasion script, "The War of the Worlds".

However the Harvard Center for Astrophysics (CfA) offered a week of Mars events (Mars Fever Week), including a viewing of Mars at its Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Mass.

Interestingly, it will only be a short 284 years before Mars next swings this close, but Mars does often swing close to Earth, cosmically speaking. The most recent close pass to this one was in 1924.

Cheers - John