Gday...

1933  -             The township of Stuart in the Northern Territory is renamed Alice Springs.

The city of Alice Springs is located 1524 km from Darwin and 293 km north of the South Australian border. It is the second largest city in the Northern Territory, with a population of over 25 000.

In 1862, explorer John McDougall Stuart's fifth expedition succeeded in finding a route through the Centre of Australia to the north coast and back, navigating and mapping the country for white settlement. The construction of the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin was completed in 1872, making it viable for pastoralists to take up leases in the Red Centre. The springs after which the town was named were discovered on 11 March 1871 by the team building the Overland Telegraph Line. They lie to the north-east of the town and were named after the wife of Charles Todd, the man instrumental in securing the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line for South Australia. Surveyors William Whitfield Mills and John Ross both claim credit for the discovery of the springs.

Alice Springs was the name given to the telegraph repeater station which operated from 1872 to 1932. The actual town, originally surveyed in 1888, was 3km south of the telegraph station. Until the early 1930s, the official name of the town was Stuart. However, this created confusion for administrators in Adelaide, so on 31 August 1933 the township of Stuart was officially gazetted Alice Springs.

1939  -             Germany prepares to invade Poland.

As tensions escalated in the lead-up to WWII, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refused to bow to pressure from Britain and France. At midday on 31 August, 1939, Hitler signed an order to attack Poland, and German forces move to the frontier. They staged an attack by Poland, dressing Nazi S.S. troops in Polish uniforms and leaving behind dead German prisoners in Polish uniforms as evidence of the 'Polish attack'. Using this as propaganda served to pave the way for Germany to invade Poland the next day. Within a few days, Britain declared war on Germany.

1997  -             Diana, Princess of Wales, is killed in a car crash in Paris.

On 31 August 1997, Britain lost a much-loved public figure when Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris. Diana Spencer came from an aristocratic family with royal Stuart ancestry. Born on 1 July 1961, she was a descendant of King Charles II of England through two of his illegitimate sons: Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton, son by Barbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland and Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond and Lennox, son by Louise de Kérouaille, 1st Duchess of Portsmouth. Diana married heir to the throne, Prince Charles, on 29 July 1981, and produced two sons, William and Harry.

Diana was actively involved in a variety of charity work. Among her most notable achievements were her assistance in the campaign against landmines, a cause which won the Nobel Prize in 1997 in tribute, and helping to decrease discrimination against victims of AIDS.

Diana divorced Prince Charles, on 28 August 1996. She and her male companion, Dodi Al Fayed, son of Harrods owner, Mohammed Al Fayed, had just departed the Ritz Hotel in Paris. It appeared that Diana's car was being pursued at high speed by photographers on motorbikes when it hit a pillar and smashed into a wall in a tunnel under the Place de l'Alma in the centre of the city.

While Dodi Al Fayed and the chauffeur were killed immediately, the princess and her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, were cut from the wreckage and taken to hospital. The Princess died at 0300 BST, after surgeons worked for several hours to try to save her life. Mr Rees-Jones, the only one wearing his seatbelt, was the sole survivor. Blood tests on the driver, Henri Paul, showed that he had a large amount of drugs and alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

Diana's funeral was held on 6 September 1997. She was buried with a set of rosary beads, a gift she received from Mother Teresa, who died the week after Diana. Her grave is on an island in the grounds of Althorp Park, her family home.

Cheers - John