Today in History

Australian History

Saturday, November 22, 1952. : Lang Hancock claims to have discovered the iron ore deposits which change Australia from being an importer of iron ore to an exporter.

Langley George Hancock, or "Lang" Hancock, was born on 10 June 1909 in Perth, Western Australia. A member of one of Western Australia's oldest landowning families, he became a politician and iron ore magnate.

The story goes that, on 22 November 1952, Hancock was piloting a light aircraft that was forced by bad weather to fly at a very low altitude over the Turner River gorges in Western Australia. Hancock noticed the large bands of deep ochre rock within the gorge and realised they might be iron ore. The discovery led to the development of Western Australia's major iron ore industry in the Pilbara region, and changed Australia from being an importer of iron ore to an exporter. Following this discovery, Hancock initiated and perfected a technique which led to the further discovery in the Pilbara of more than 500 other deposits of iron ore, and which earned him the nickname of "The Flying Prospector".

However, the veracity of this story has been questioned. There is evidence to suggest that a 25 year old Englishman by the name of Harry Page Woodward, who had come to South Australia in 1883 to take up the post of assistant state geologist, was the one who discovered the Pilbara's iron ore deposits. Woodward relocated to Western Australia as the new government geologist, and undertook extensive ground surveys of the state, mapping some 175,000 square kilometres of the state. Woodward recognised the iron-bearing potential of the northwest of the state, and recorded that "There is enough to supply the whole world should the present sources be worked out." The iron ore fields of the Pilbara were already mapped by Western Australia's Mining Department in the 1920s.

Thursday, November 22, 1956. : The opening ceremony for the Melbourne Olympics is held.

Melbourne was announced as the host city for the Games of the XVI Olympiad on 28 April 1949, beating bids from Buenos Aires, Mexico City and six other American cities by a single vote. The Olympic Games commenced with an opening ceremony on 22 November 1956. Because Melbourne is located in the southern hemisphere, the Olympics were held later in the year than those held in the northern hemisphere. Strict quarantine laws prevented Melbourne from hosting the equestrian events, and they were instead held in Stockholm on June 10, five months before the rest of the Olympic games began.

Despite boycotts by several countries over international events unrelated to Australia, the games proceeded well, and earned the nickname of "The Friendly Games". It was at the first Australian-held Olympics that the tradition began of the athletes mingling with one another, rather than marching in teams, for their final appearance around the stadium.
 

World History

Tuesday, November 22, 1718. : Notorious pirate Blackbeard is killed.

The notorious English pirate, Blackbeard, was born either Edward Teach or Edward Thatch sometime in 1680. Little is known about his early life. He first went to sea at a young age, serving on a British ship in the War of the Spanish Succession. Following Britain's withdrawal from the war in 1713, with little other recourse for a career, he became Blackbeard the pirate.

Blackbeard was notorious for boarding merchant ships, plundering them of valuables, food, liquor, and weapons. He earned a reputation for being a vicious torturer, but no actual records exist of him having killed anyone. It is possible he gained his reputation through mere rumour alone. However, he became famous following his blockade of Charleston, South Carolina, in May-June 1718. With a fleet of five vessels, he plundered freighters, took a number of hostages, and prevented other ships from entering the harbour. The hostages were eventually released in exchange for crates of medicines.

After grounding two of his own vessels at Topsail Inlet, now known as Beaufort Inlet, Blackbeard took the treasure for himself, marooned his own crew, and went to Bath in North Carolina, where he was given a pardon under the royal Act of Grace. He did not renounce his piracy, and was targetted by Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia, despite being outside Spotswood's jurisdiction. Spotswood commissioned Lieutenant Robert Maynard to hunt down Blackbeard and eliminate him. Maynard found the pirates anchored in a North Carolina inlet on the inner side of Ocracoke Island, on the evening of 21 November 1718. Following a pursuit, Blackbeard was hunted down and killed on 22 November 1718, ending Blackbeard's infamous reign.


Friday, November 22, 1963. : US President, John F Kennedy, is assassinated.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was nominated by the Democratic Party on 13 July 1960, as its candidate for president. He beat Vice-President Richard Nixon by a close margin in the general election on 9 November 1960, to become the youngest elected president in US history and the first Roman Catholic. He was sworn in as the 35th President of the United States on 20 January 1961.

Kennedy's presidential term was cut tragically short when he was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade within Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, 22 November 1963. Three shots were fired at his open-topped car, hitting him in the head and throat. He was taken to Parkland Hospital, but died thirty-five minutes after being shot. Kennedy was the fourth US President to be assassinated, and the eighth to die while in office.

Within an hour of the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and later charged with the assassination of President Kennedy. Oswald never went to trial as, two days later, he was shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Both shootings have spawned conspiracy theories about who really shot JFK, and whether Oswald was merely the scapegoat in the assassination.

Born on this day

Tuesday, November 22, 1898. : Wiley Post, who was the first pilot to fly solo around the world, is born.

Wiley Hardeman Post was born on 22 November 1898, in Van Zandt County, Texas. Always keen to fly, Post became a parachutist for the flying circus "Burrell Tibbs and His Texas Topnotch Fliers" when he was 26 years old. Undaunted by an oil field accident which cost him his left eye in 1926, Post became the personal pilot of wealthy Oklahoma oilmen Powell Briscoe and F C Hall. In 1930, Hall bought a single-engine Lockheed Vega and nicknamed it Winnie Mae, after his daughter. Post's first claim to fame was flying the Winnie Mae to win the National Air Race Derby, from Los Angeles to Chicago.

On 23 June 1931, Post and navigator Harold Gatty left Long Island, New York in the Winnie Mae to fly around the world. They made fourteen stops along the way, including Newfoundland, England, Germany, the Soviet Union, Alaska, Alberta, Canada and Cleveland, Ohio before returning to Roosevelt Field on Long Island. They arrived back on July 1 after travelling nearly 25,000 kilometres in the record time of 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes.
 
Nov 22nd
1927
Carl Eliason of Sayner,Wisconsin was granted 1st patent for snowmobile
1957
Simon&Garfunkel appeared on "American Bandstand' as 'Tom&Jerry'. They sang 'Hey Schoolgirl"
1995
The 1st feature film created by using computer generated imagery was released.
"Toy Story' with voices of Tom Hanks'Woody",Tim Allen'Buzz Lightyear',Don Rickles'Mr Potato Head',its opening weekend made $ 110 million, worldwide $373 million It was directed by John Lasseter who would win special Academy Award for this animated milestone,produced by Pixar Studio.
2005
Angela Merkel becomes 1st female chancellor of Germany
 

22nd November

1764 History credits James Hargreaves with inventing the first Spinning Jenny, but it had been designed and built years before by an obscure artisan from Leigh called Thomas Highs.

1869 The clipper Cutty Sark was launched In Dumbarton, Scotland. She was one of the last clippers ever built, and is the only one still surviving today. She is preserved as a museum ship, located near the centre of Greenwich, in south-east London.

1906 The Great Gorbals Whisky Flood. The Loch Katrine (Adelphi) Distillery was situated in Muirhead Street in the Gorbals district of Glasgow. Early in the morning of 21st November 1906, one of the distillery’s massive washback vats collapsed, releasing over 150,000 gallons of red hot whisky. In the street outside, a number of farm servants with carts were waiting to pick up the draff for cattle feed. The tidal wave of hot liquor smashed into them, throwing men and horses across the street.

The only fatality was James Ballantyne, a farm servant from Hyndland Farm, Busby. He suffered severe internal injuries and died shortly after admission to the infirmary.
 
Australian History

Friday, November 23, 1923. : Australia's first public wireless broadcast begins.

The development of the wireless telegraphy system, which came to be known as "radio" is attributed to Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi first demonstrated the transmission and reception of Morse Code based radio signals over a distance of 2 or more kilometres in England in 1896, and from this point began the development and expansion of radio technology around the world.

At 8:00pm on 23 November 1923, Radio 2SB in Sydney went to air for the first time from a studio located in the Smith's Weekly building in Phillip Street. 2SB, Sydney Broadcasters Ltd, had been in competition with Farmer and Company, 2FC, since it had announced its intention to begin transmission in August of that year. 2SB originally set its first transmission date as November 15, but setbacks caused the broadcast to be postponed until the 23rd of the month. The broadcast was a performance of 'Le Cygne', from 'Carnaval des Animaux' by Camille Saint-Saens.

2FC first aired two weeks later, on 5 December 1923, and the similarities of the stations' names confused listeners. 2SB was changed to 2BL, for Broadcasters Limited, three months after its inaugural broadcast.

Wednesday, November 23, 1955. : The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are transferred to Australian control.

The Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands is located in the Indian Ocean, approximately halfway between Australia and Sri Lanka. The territory lies about 2750 kilometres northwest of Perth, Western Australia. It comprises two atolls and 27 coral islands totalling around 14 km². With a coastline of 26 kilometres and its highest elevation at 5m above sea level, its sole cash crop is coconuts. The population of around 630 is split between the ethnic Europeans on West Island and the ethnic Malays on Home Island.

The islands were discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling, but remained uninhabited until 1826, when the first settlement was established on the main atoll by English settler Alexander Hare. Scottish seaman John Clunies-Ross established a second settlement soon afterwards for the purpose of exploiting the coconut palm crop.

On 23 November 1955, the islands were transferred to Australian control under the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act 1955. Together with nearby Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are called Australia's Indian Ocean Territories (IOTs) and since 1997 share a single Administrator resident on Christmas Island.

Thursday, November 23, 1961. : Sturt's Desert pea is adopted as the floral emblem of South Australia.

Sturt's Desert Pea is a hardy plant of the Australian desert. It is characterised by deep red pea-shaped flowers contrasting sharply with grey-green foliage. The indigenous Koori people call it the "flower of blood", and tell a story of a young woman who avoided marriage to an older man of the tribe by eloping with her younger lover. The old man and his friends tracked the couple down, killing them both, along with the people with whom they had sheltered. Months later, the old man returned to where the lovers had been slain and found the ground covered with the scarlet flowers now known as the Sturt's Desert pea.

Sturt's Desert Pea was first discovered by English pirate and explorer William Dampier when he anchored off the northwestern coast of Australia in 1688 and again in 1699. Explorer Charles Sturt noted it growing in abundance in the arid areas between Adelaide and Central Australia during his forays into the desert in 1844, and commented on its exceptional beauty when in flower. It was then formally named after Charles Sturt in honour of his explorations of inland Australia, although it bears several Latin names: Swainsona formosa and Willdampia formosa (after William Dampier).

Sturt's Desert Pea is a protected species in South Australia. It was adopted as the floral emblem of South Australia on 23 November 1961, under its then-Latin name Clianthus formosus.

Monday, November 23, 2009. : Lucky, the world's oldest sheep on record, dies.

The average life-expectancy of sheep ranges between ten and twenty years. Not so for Lucky, the world's oldest sheep, who died at the age of 23.

Lucky was a hand-reared sheep who lived on a farm at Lake Bolac, west of Ballarat, Victoria. She had been abandoned by her mother at birth, and rescued by farmer Delrae Westgarth who found her out in the paddock. Westgarth and her husband Frank cared for the lamb, feeding her in their house and then moving her to the shed until she was old enough to join the flock. Lucky produced 35 lambs of her own in the following decades.

In late Spring of 2009, exceptionally hot weather weakened her and caused her health to deteriorate. Although her owners brought her back to the shed, cooling her down with air conditioners, she died on Monday 23 November 2009, aged 23 years, six months and 28 days. This was a Guinness-certified world record age for a sheep. Lucky was buried under her favourite nectarine tree.
 
World History

Saturday, November 23, 1963. : TV series 'Doctor Who' first airs on BBC television.

'Doctor Who' is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC about a time-travelling adventurer known only as "The Doctor". It aired for the first time on 23 November 1963, on British television. The initial broadcast was interrupted by the breaking news of the November 22 assassination of US President John F Kennedy. The show has developed a cult following amongst science-fiction fans, and is well known for its innovative use of low-budget special effects.

Declining ratings and a less prominent transmission slot saw 'Doctor Who' suspended as an ongoing series in 1989 by Jonathan Powell, Controller of BBC One. A Doctor Who movie was broadcast on the Fox Network in 1996, co-produced between Fox, Universal Pictures, the BBC, and BBC Worldwide. While it was relatively successful in Britain, its lack of popularity in the United States meant that a new series was not pursued. However, a new series was planned nonetheless, and eventually aired on BBC One on 26 March 2005, and in Australia on 21 May 2005. The USA has not taken up the new series.

Saturday, November 23, 1996. : 125 people die as a hijacked airliner runs out of fuel and crashes into the sea.

On 23 November 1996, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi was hijacked by three men who demanded the pilot fly to Australia. Four hours later, it ran out of fuel and pitched into the Indian Ocean, 500 metres from a holiday beach on the Comoro Islands. The impact caused the plane to break up, and killed 125 of the 175 people aboard. Within minutes, locals and tourists, including a group of about twenty French doctors, reached the plane, managing to rescue about fifty people. The hijackers were later identified as Ethiopians who were seeking political asylum in Australia.
 
23rd November

1499...Perkin Warbeck is hanged at Tyburn after attempting to escape from the Tower of London. The pretender to the throne had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be Richard Duke of York, the younger of the two Princes in the Tower.

1835 Henry Burden invented the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. Henry Burden was a prolific inventor, but it was his horseshoe machine that made a mark in history as a key factor in the Union’s victory during the Civil War. He then made most of the horseshoes for the Union Cavalry in the Civil War.
 
Nov 23
1897
JL love receives patent for the pencil sharpener
1909
Orville&Wilbur Wright form a million dollar corporation to manufacture airplanes
1936
the 1st edition of "Life Magazine' is published created by Henry Luce,publisher of Time Magazine.It cost 10 cents.The magazine ceased publication in 1972,then came back in 1978 as a monthly,shut down for good in 2000
 
Australian History

Monday, November 24, 1642. : Dutch explorer Abel Tasman discovers Tasmania, naming it Van Diemen's Land.

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer and explorer born in 1603 in the village of Lutjegast, Netherlands. In 1634 Tasman joined the Dutch East India Company and, after gaining further experience and promotions, was ordered to explore the south-east waters in order to find a new sea trade route to Chile in South America.

On 24 November 1642, Tasman discovered a previously unknown island on his voyage past the Great South Land, or New Holland, as the Dutch called Australia. In his ships' log, he recorded: "In the afternoon, about 4 o'clock...we saw...the first land we have met with in the South Sea...very high...and not known to any European nation". Tasman named this land Antony Van Diemen's Land in honour of the High Magistrate, or Governor-General of Batavia. Although he saw none of the indiegnous people, he noted the presence of smoke in several locations, while his crew heard human voices.

It is believed that this first sighting was made at what is now Cape Sorell, on the western coast of Tasmania. The island's name was changed to Tasmania in 1855, over sixty years after British colonists settled the Australian continent.
 
World History

Thursday, November 24, 1859. : Charles Darwin publishes his controversial "Origin of the Species".

British naturalist Charles Robert Darwin was born on 12 February 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Darwin's claim to fame is his publication of "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". The book put forth Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection, which expounded that survival or extinction of populations of organisms is determined by the process of natural selection, achieved through that population's ability to adapt to its environment. Ultimately, by following Darwin's theory of evolution to its conclusion, the book suggested that man evolved from apes. "The Origin of the Species" was first published on 24 November 1859.

Although Darwin is given the credit for the theory of evolution, he developed the theory out of the writings of his grandfather Erasmus. Large sections from Erasmus’s major work, ‘Zoonomia or the Laws of Organic Life’ are repeated in Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’. There is evidence to suggest that many of the other ideas Charles proposed, such as the concept of modern biological evolution, including natural selection, were borrowed from ideas that had already been published by other scientists. Charles De Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755), Benoit de Maillet (1656–1738), Pierre-Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759), Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and George Louis Buffon are just some whose ideas are believed by historians to have been plagiarised by Darwin, without due credit.

Born on this day

Friday, November 24, 1815. : Grace Darling, the English lighthouse keeper's daughter who rescued survivors from a shipwreck, is born.

Grace Darling was born on 24 November 1815, in Bamburgh, Northumberland, and grew up in the various lighthouses of which her father was keeper. Grace gained heroine status early in the morning of 7 September 1838, when the steamship Forfarshire ran ashore and broke in two on the rocks by the lighthouse situated in the North Sea. Grace urged her father to row out with her in difficult, stormy conditions to the stricken steamship: her actions saved the lives of nine people - four crew and five passengers. Tragically, forty other people died in the accident.

Grace Darling never married. She died of tuberculosis in 1842, and a memorial in her honour can be seen in the parish church at Bamburgh.

Friday, November 24, 1876. : Walter Burley Griffin, the architect who designed Canberra, Australia's capital city, is born.

Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, had been rivals since before the goldrush days. It was therefore decided that the nation's capital should be situated between the two cities. A location was chosen which was 248km from Sydney and 483km from Melbourne, and the name selected was a derivation of the Aboriginal word for 'meeting place'. It was then necessary to select someone who could design a truly unique capital city. The competition to design Australia's new capital city, Canberra, was won in 1911 by Walter Burley Griffin.

Walter Burley Griffin was born on 24 November 1876, in Chicago, USA. After obtaining his degree in architecture in 1899, Griffin worked for Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park, Illinois, designing many houses in the Chicago area. After winning the competition to design Australia's national capital, he and his wife moved to Australia, where Griffin was appointed as the Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction. Difficulties with Federal government bureaucrats forced Griffin's resignation from the project in 1920 when a conflict of interest threatened Griffin's work. Griffin remained in Australia, later designing the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag and the Melbourne suburb of Eaglemont. Griffin also helped design the New South Wales towns of Leeton, Griffith and Culburra Beach.
 
24th November

1831 Michael Faraday read his first series of papers at the Royal Society in London on 'Experimental Research into Electricity'.

1971 One of only eight 1933 pennies minted was auctioned at Sotherbys for £7,000.

1991 Freddie Mercury, English rock singer, died at the age of 45.

1993 The last 14 bottles of Scotch whisky salvaged from the SS Politician, wrecked in 1941 and the inspiration of the book and film, Whisky Galore, were sold at auction for £11,462.
 
Australian History

Wednesday, November 25, 1789. : Bennelong, the Aborigine, is captured, to be used as an intermediary between the Aboriginal and white cultures.

The Aborigine Bennelong was a senior man of the Eora, a Koori, people of the Port Jackson area, when the First Fleet arrived in Australia, in 1788. He was captured on 25 November 1789, for the purpose of being used as a mediary between the white and Aboriginal cultures. The Governor of New South Wales, Captain Arthur Phillip, wished to learn about the language and customs of the indigenous people. Bennelong willingly liaised between the cultures, and adopted European dress and other ways. His intervention was crucial when Phillip was speared by local Aborigines as, by persuading the Governor that the attack was caused by a misunderstanding, further violence was avoided.

While Governor Phillip's intentions were honourable, the Aborigines were not people to be captured and used for white purposes. Bennelong travelled with Phillip to England in 1792, and returned to Australia in 1795. Ultimately, he suffered ostracism from the Aborigines when he found it too difficult to integrate into the European culture, and sought to return to his own people. He died on 3 January 1813.

Born on this day
Thursday, November 25, 1880. : Reverend John Flynn, founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, is born.

Australia's Flying Doctor Service began with the vision of Reverend John Flynn. John Flynn was born on 25 November 1880, in the gold rush town of Moliagul, about 202 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, Victoria. Flynn's first posting as a Presbyterian minister was to Beltana, a tiny, remote settlement 500 kilometres north of Adelaide. After writing a report for his church superiors on the difficulties of ministering to such a widely scattered population, he was appointed as the first Superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission, the ‘bush department’ of the Presbyterian Church, in 1912. Flynn served in the AIM at a time when only two doctors served an area of 300,000 sq kms in Western Australia and 1,500,000 sq kms in the Northern Territory. Realising the need for better medical care for the people of the outback, he established numerous bush hospitals and hostels.

Flynn's attention was caught by the story of a young stockman, Jim Darcy, who had been seriously injured while mustering stock on a cattle station near Halls Creek, in the remote north of Western Australia. Darcy had been operated on by the Halls Creek Postmaster who had to follow instructions given via telegraph by a Perth doctor. Although the postmaster's crude operation was successful, Darcy had died almost two months later of complications, before a doctor could attend. The story gave urgency to Flynn's vision of delivering essential medical services to remote areas.

Following this tragedy, Flynn envisaged that new technology such as radio and the aeroplane could assist in providing a more effective medical service. His speculations attracted the attention of an Australian pilot serving in World War I, Clifford Peel, who wrote to Flynn, outlining the capabilities and costs of then-available planes. Flynn turned his considerable fund-raising talents to the task of establishing a flying medical service. On 15 May 1928, the Aerial Medical Service was established at Cloncurry, in western Queensland.

In order to facilitate communication with such a service, Flynn collaborated with Alfred Traeger, who developed the pedal radio, a lighter, more compact radio for communication, readily available to more residents of the outback for its size and cost. The pedal radio eliminated the need for electricity, which was available in very few areas of the outback in the 1920s. In this way, Flynn married the advantages of both radio and aeroplanes to provide a "Mantle of Safety" for the outback. Initially conceived as a one-year experiment, Flynn's vision has continued successfully through the years, providing a valuable medical service to people in remote areas.
 
World History

Sunday, November 25, 1973. : US President Nixon calls for a Sunday ban on gasoline sales.

In October of 1973, an oil crisis sparked a number of legislation changes in the US. The crisis occurred when, in response to US support of Israel in the Yom Kippur war, Arab oil producers cut back supply of oil to the US, and increased oil prices fourfold overnight. Practical legislation to help improve fuel economy was enacted: this included imposing a highway speed limit of 55mph, and allowing motorists to turn right on a red light to minimise unnecessary idling. On 25 November 1973, Nixon also called for a ban on gasoline sales on Sundays, a ban which lasted until the crisis was resolved in March 1974.

Born on this day

Monday, November 25, 1844. : Karl Benz, German engineer and inventor of the petrol-driven automobile, is born.

Karl Friedrich Benz was born on 25 November 1844, in Baden Muehlburg, Germany, now part of Karlsruhe. The son of an engine driver, Benz went to school at the Karlsruhe grammar school and Karlsruhe Polytechnic. Benz started Benz & Company in 1883 in Mannheim to produce industrial engines. It was there that he invented and patented the two-stroke engine. He was later influenced by Gottlieb Daimler, who inspired Benz to develop a four-stroke engine suitable for powering a four-wheeled horseless carriage. He demonstrated the first gasoline car powered by an internal-combustion engine in Mannheim, Germany, on 3 July 1886 after patenting it on 29 January 1886. The vehicle had three wheels, an electric ignition, differential gears and was water-cooled. It reached a top speed of 10 kilometres per hour.

By 1900, Benz & Company, the company started by Benz, was the world's largest manufacturer of automobiles. In 1926, the Benz and Daimler firms merged to form Daimler-Benz, which produces the Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Benz died in 1929.
 
25th November

1703 The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, reached its intensity which it maintained through to 27th November. Winds gusted up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people died.

1835 The birth of Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born US industrialist and philanthropist who rose from telegraph boy to iron and steel multimillionaire. He devoted his vast wealth to libraries and universities including the Carnegie Hall in New York which opened in 1891.

1940 World War II: The first flight of the deHavilland Mosquito aircraft. The Mosquito was one of the few operational front-line aircraft to be constructed almost entirely of wood and, as such, was nicknamed 'The Wooden Wonder' or Mossie to its crews. When it entered production in 1941 it was one of the fastest operational aircraft in the world.
 
Australian History

Monday, November 26, 1838. : A second trial finds some of the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre of Aborigines guilty.

After numerous clashes between European settlers and Aboriginals people in late 1837 in northwest New South Wales, tensions were high. On 10 June 1838, a gang of stockmen, heavily armed, rounded up between 40 and 50 Aboriginal women, children and elderly men at Henry Dangar's Myall Creek Station, not far from Inverell in New South Wales. 28 Aborigines were murdered. These were the relatives of the Aboriginal men who were working with the station manager, William Hobbs. It was believed that the massacre was payback for the killing of several colonists in the area, yet most of those massacred were women and children.

At a trial held on November 15 that year, twelve Europeans were charged with murder but acquitted. Following uproar from some colonists at the aquittal of the men, another trial was held on 26 November 1838. Following the retrial, 7 men were charged with murder and sentenced to be hung in December, under the authority of Governor George Gipps.

Monday, November 26, 1855. : The colony of Van Diemen's Land becomes known as Tasmania.

On 24 November 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman discovered a previously unknown island on his voyage past the "Great South Land", or "New Holland", as the Dutch called Australia. He named it Van Diemen's Land after the governor of Batavia. The Dutch, however, did not settle New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, and had little interest in the continent. The First Fleet, which arrived in Port Jackson, New South Wales, in 1788 comprised eleven British ships carrying officers and convicts from England.

Fears that the French would colonise Van Diemen's Land caused the British to establish a small settlement on the Derwent River in 1803. Thirty-three of the 49 people in the group were convicts, and the settlement continued to receive convicts re-shipped from New South Wales or Norfolk Island up until 1812. Regular shipments of convicts directly from Britain began in 1818. A second penal colony was established at Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Van Diemen's Land in 1822, and three years later, the British Government separated administration of Van Dieman's Land from that of New South Wales. Macquarie Harbour was eventually closed down, to be replaced by Port Arthur.

The Bishopric of Tasmania was proclaimed in 1842, and the name "Tasmania" began to be used in unofficial communications. The push for transportation of convicts to Van Diemen's Land to end gained momentum, and transportation finally ceased in 1853. Many of the colony's inhabitants sought to give Van Diemen's Land a new name in order to remove the stigma of the island being associated with terrible punishment. A parliamentary petition for the colony's name to be changed was presented to Queen Victoria, who agreed to both the name change and the new constitution in 1855.

On 26 November 1855, the colony's first governor, Lieutenant-Governor Henry Fox-Young, signed the name change Order, which was then published in the 'Hobart Gazette' on the following day, 27 November. Although the name change took effect locally, the colony only officially became known as Tasmania on 1 January 1856. The colony became self-governing, and elections for parliament were held that same year.


Monday, November 26, 1917. : A raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office is carried out, under the orders of Prime Minister Billy Hughes.

Conscription, or compulsory military service, has always been a highly controversial issue in Australia. At the outbreak of World War I, Australians were keen to go to war. Many sought to serve their newly federated country as patriotic Australians, while others hoped to serve on behalf of "Mother England".

Prime Minister William 'Billy' Hughes was Australia's second wartime Prime Minister, being appointed after the resignation of Andrew Fisher in October 1915. Hughes sought to introduce conscription during World War I via a referendum. The 1916 referendum failed when 51% voted against the introduction of conscription. Although Hughes won a clear majority at the Federal election in 1917, he did not bring in legislation for compulsory overseas service, but sought a second referendum in December 1917. To that end, he tried to direct public opinion in favour of conscription, and this included the removal of dissenting material which might sway public opinion against the introduction of conscription.

On 26 November 1917, Hughes ordered Jeremiah Joseph Stable, an officer with the Australian Field Artillery, to conduct a raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office. Stable, along with Federal Police, was instructed to enter the printing office and seize all copies of no. 37 Queensland Parliamentary Debates, as they contained an anti-conscription speech by Premier T J Ryan. Stable had already previously censored parts of the speech from the press, but the printing office held the original copies of the parliamentary debates, and Hughes feared the speech might be circulated.
 
World History

Monday, November 26, 1703. : Over 8,000 people die in Britain's worst storm on record.

The United Kingdom is the World’s most hurricane-prone nation. Friday, 26 November 1703, saw England's worst storm on record rip across East Anglia. Gales of up to 80mph were reported, with windmill blades spinning so ferociously that the friction caused them to catch fire, while 4,000 grand oak trees in the New Forest were felled. Hundreds of vessels of the British fleet were lost, including four Royal Navy men-of-war, and an estimated 8,000 sailors lost their lives. It was reported that a ship at Whitstable in Kent was lifted from the sea and dropped over 200 metres inland. Civilian casualties on land were in the hundreds, but no accurate records exist to give true number of the lives lost that day.


Born on this day

Sunday, November 26, 1922. : The creator of Snoopy and the 'Peanuts' comic strip, Charles M Schulz, is born.

Charles Monroe Schulz was born in St Paul, Minnesota, on 26 November 1922. As a teenager he was shy and introverted, and when he created his comic strip 'Peanuts', he based the character of Charlie Brown on himself. Charlie Brown first appeared in the comic strip "Li'l Folks", published in 1947 by the St Paul Pioneer Press. In 1950, Schulz approached the United Features Syndicate with his best strips from "Li'l Folks", and "Peanuts" made its debut on 2 October 1950.

"Peanuts" ran for nearly 50 years, appearing in over 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. In 1999, Schulz had a stroke, and it was then discovered that he had colon cancer. Two months after announcing his retirement from drawing "Peanuts", he died, on 13 February 2000. After his death, comic strips all over the world paid tribute to Schulz and Peanuts within their own formats. The Charles M Schulz Museum was opened on 17 August 2002, for the purpose of preserving, displaying, and interpreting the art of Charles M Schulz.
 
26th November

26th November

1836 The death of John Loudon McAdam. He invented a new process, "mcadamisation". for building roads with a smooth hard surface, using controlled materials. Modern road constructions still refelcts McAdam's influence.

1867 Mrs Lily Maxwell of Manchester became the first ever woman to vote in a British elections, due to a mistake in the electoral register. She had to be escorted to the polling station by a bodyguard to protect her from those opposed to women's suffrage.

1908 The birth of Lord Forte (Charles Forte), British business magnate and Chairman of Trusthouse Forte, one of the largest hotel and restaurant groups in the world.

1987 Drawings of English bank notes by US artist James Boggs were declared works of art and not illegal replicas of UK currency by an Old Bailey jury.
 
World History

Wednesday, November 27, 1895. : Alfred Nobel draws up his last will and testament, pledging his enormous wealth toward the betterment of humanity.

Alfred Bernhard Nobel, born in Stockholm in 21 October 1833, was a Swedish chemist, engineer armaments manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite. Although a dramatist and poet, he became famous for his advances in chemistry and physics, and by the time he died on 10 December 1896, he held over 350 patents and controlled factories and laboratories in 20 countries.

On 13 April 1888, Nobel opened the newspaper to discover an obituary to himself. Although it was his brother Ludwig who had actually died, the obituary described Alfred Nobel's own achievements, believing it was he who had died. The obituary condemned Nobel for inventing dynamite, an explosive which caused the deaths of so many. It is said that this experience led Nobel to choose to leave a better legacy to the world after his death. On 27 November 1895 at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his enormously wealthy estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. Nobel died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 10 December 1896.
The Nobel Prize is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the world and includes a cash prize of nearly one million dollars. The fields for which the awards can be given are physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and toward the promotion of international peace. In 1968 the prize field was extended to include economic science.

Monday, November 27, 1978. : Mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone, is assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White.

George Richard Moscone, born on 24 November 1929, was the mayor of San Francisco, California, from January 1976 until he was assassinated on 27 November 1978. His assassin, Dan White, was the former city supervisor of San Francisco; White also assassinated new Supervisor Harvey Milk.

White's motive remains unknown, but shortly before the assassinations, he resigned the office of city supervisor following the defeat of California's Briggs Initiative, which would have required schools to fire teachers that were homosexual. White strongly opposed the Bill, and it is conjectured that he saw Mayor Moscone and the openly-gay activist Milk as the ones responsible for heading up the historic gay rights ordinance. He had also sought to be reinstated following his resignation, and was reportedly angry about Moscone's decision not to reappoint him to the city board.


Friday, November 27, 1998. : United States nuclear weapons begin being tested for possible year 2000 problems.

As the world neared the end of its second recorded millennium, there was a growing awareness of the possibility that computers could strike a problem. The year 2000 problem, or millennium bug, was a flaw in computer program design that caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after January 1, 2000. Due to lack of foresight by computer programmers in the preceding decades, many commands depending on date were written with a two-digit year (eg 98 for 1998) instead of a four-digit year. It was conceived as a possibility that computers might interpret 00 as 1900 instead of 2000. It was feared that critical industries such as electricity, for example, and government functions would stop working at 12:00am on 1 January 2000.

On 27 November 1998, officials from the Pentagon in the USA stated that US nuclear weapons were being tested for potential Year 2000 problems, after it was recently discovered that up to a quarter of existing nuclear weapons systems had not been tested for year 2000 (Y2K) compliance. In the end, there were no major disasters as a result of the millennium bug, and the entire turnover was seen a non-event.


Born on this day

Saturday, November 27, 1880. : Sir Ralph Freeman, designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, is born.

Ralph Freeman was born on 27 November 1880 in London, England. After studying civil engineering at the City and Guilds of London Institute, he joined Douglas Fox & Partners, a firm of consulting engineers specialising in the design of steel bridges. He rose to become senior partner and in 1938 the firm changed its name to Freeman Fox & Partners. Freeman's most famous design work can be seen on the Victoria Falls Bridge, completed in 1905, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, completed in 1932.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge connects the Sydney CBD with the North Shore commercial and residential areas on Sydney Harbour. Pictures of the Harbour bridge, usually with the sails of the Sydney Opera House in the foreground, provide the image of Australia that tourists expect to see. The Sydney Harbour Bridge remains an enduring testimony to the talent of its designer, Sir Ralph Freeman.
 
Nov 27th
1889
The 1st permit issued to a drive through Central Park in NYC was given to Curtis Brady
1895
scientist/chemist/engineer/ Alfred Nobel's will established Nobel Prize
1967
The Beatles released their album'Magical Mystery Tour'
 
Australian History

Monday, November 28, 1932. : The 'Dog on the Tuckerbox' statue at Gundagai is unveiled.

The "Dog on the Tuckerbox" is an historical monument situated in southern New South Wales, Australia. Celebrated in Australian folklore, poetry, and song as being either five or nine miles from Gundagai, the Dog on the Tuckerbox sits approximately 5 miles, or eight kilometres, from Gundagai. Gundagai's Dog on the Tuckerbox originated out of an incident from the mid-1800s, when some travellers' bullock carts became stuck in the mud near Gundagai. The bullockies were unable to free their carts, and everything ended up coated in mud. The romanticised version of the story goes that the bullocky departed for help, and the dog stayed to faithfully guard his master's tuckerbox (food box). However, the reality is that the dog was in fact relieving itself directly above the tuckerbox, which was the only thing not submerged by the mud.

The story was originally captured by an unknown poet writing under the pseudonym of Bowyang Yorke and published in the Gundagai Times in the 1880s. A later version was written by Gundagai journalist and poet Jack Moses. The tale was then popularised in 1937 in the song "Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox" by Australian songwriter Jack O'Hagan who also wrote "Along the Road to Gundagai" and "When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai". Ironically, O'Hagan never visited Gundagai himself.

The statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox was created by Gundagai stonemason Frank Rusconi, and unveiled on 28 November 1932, by Joseph Lyons, then Prime Minister of Australia. The unveiling occurred on the 103rd anniversary of explorer Charles Sturt's crossing of the Murrumbidgee River at the place where Gundagai now stands.

Australian Explorers

Saturday, November 28, 1829. : Captain Charles Sturt crosses the Murrumbidgee River on his way to solve the mystery of the inland rivers.

Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Drawing on the skills of experienced bushman and explorer Hamilton Hume, Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling.

Pleased with Sturt's discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. On 28 November 1829, Sturt and his party crossed the Murrumbidgee near the present site of the town of Gundagai. Following the river in a whaleboat, Sturt discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume), as did the Darling, and that the Murray River flowed to the ocean, emptying out at Lake Alexandrina on the southern coast.

New Zealand History

Wednesday, November 28, 1979. : 257 people are killed when an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight crashes into Mount Erebus, Antarctica.

Mount Erebus, located on Ross Shelf, Antarctica is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Discovered on 27 January 1841 by explorer Sir James Clark Ross, the volcano rises 3,795 metres above sea level.

Sightseeing flights frequently include Mount Erebus on their tours. On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew members. The flight departed from Auckland International Airport with guide Peter Mulgrew standing in for Sir Edmund Hillary, who had acted as a guide on previous flights but had to cancel on this occasion. At the time of the crash, the altitude of the aircraft was 445m.

Following an inquest, the crash was attributed to pilot error. The pilot descended below the customary minimum altitude level, continuing at that height even though the crew was unsure of the plane's position. However, the New Zealand Government called for another inquiry in response to public demand. The Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by highly respected judge Justice Peter Mahon, blamed Air New Zealand for altering the flight plan waypoint coordinates in the ground navigation computer without advising the crew. The new flight plan took the aircraft directly at the mountain, rather than along its flank.

Although all the bodies were recovered, the wreckage of the aircraft still remains on the slopes of Mount Erebus, buried by snow and ice. A wooden cross was raised above Scott Base to commemorate the accident, and was replaced in 1986 with an aluminium cross after the original was eroded by low temperatures, wind and moisture.
 

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