Australian History

Friday, June 12, 1931. :   The territories of North Australia and Central Australia are reunited as the Northern Territory.

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, bordered by the states of Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia. From 1825 to 1863, the Northern Territory was part of New South Wales. In 1863, control of the Northern Territory was handed to South Australia as a result of the successful 1862 expedition of John McDouall Stuart to find an overland route through the desert from Adelaide to the north. In 1911, a decade after Federation, the Northern Territory was transferred to Commonwealth control.

During the 1920s, George Pearce, Federal Minister for Home and Territories, campaigned for the separation of the Northern Territory into two smaller territories, on the grounds that it was too large to be properly governed. Thus, in 1926, the ‘Northern Australia Act’ separated the Northern Territory into North Australia and Central Australia, with the division at the 20th parallel of South latitude. Darwin was to be capital of North Australia and Alice Springs capital of Central Australia.

Although separation took effect in February 1927, within four years the Act was repealed. On 12 June 1931, North Australia and Central Australia were reunited as the Northern Territory.

Australian History

Saturday, June 12, 1948. :   Donald Bradman scores 138 in the First Test at Trent Bridge.

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 years 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.

Australian History

Thursday, June 12, 2003. :   Optus launches the C1 satellite, the largest Australian hybrid communications and military satellite ever launched.

The Optus and Defence C1 satellite is a joint initiative between Australian communications provider Optus and the Australian Department of Defence. Launched on 12 June 2003 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5G rocket, it is the largest hybrid communications and military satellite launched, to date.

Costing A$500 million, the C1 has an expected life span of 15 years. The satellite carries 16 antennas which provide 18 beams across Australia, New Zealand and East Asia, in addition to global beams which cover from India to Hawaii. The C1 satellite is positioned in orbit at 156 degrees east longitude, and is controlled from Optus’s Sydney earth station.

World History

Wednesday, June 12, 1929. :   WWII Holocaust diarist, Anne Frank, is born.

Anne Frank was born on 12 June 1929. As persecution of the Jews escalated in WWII, she was forced to go into hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands. She, her family and four other people hid in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam. After two years of living in this way, they were betrayed to the Nazis and deported to concentration camps. At the age of 15, Anne Frank died after a typhus epidemic spread through the camp killing an estimated 17,000 prisoners at Bergen-Belsen. The date has been variously estimated as 31 March 1945, just two months before the end of the war. After the war, it was estimated that of the 110,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, only 5,000 survived.

Anne Frank’s legacy is her diary. It was given to her as a simple autograph/notebook for her thirteenth birthday. In it she recorded not only the personal details of her life, but also her observations of living under Nazi occupation until the final entry of 1 August 1944.

World History

Friday, June 12, 1964. :   Anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, is given a life sentence in jail.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on 18 July 1918. Mandela was seven years old when he became the first member of his family to attend school: it was there that he was given the English name “Nelson” by a Methodist teacher.

In his university days, Mandela became a political activist against the white minority government’s denial of political, social, and economic rights to South Africa’s black majority. He became a prominent anti-apartheid activist of the country, and was involved in underground resistance activities. On 12 June 1964, Mandela was jailed for life after he confessed to plotting to destroy the South African state by sabotage. Although interred in jail from 1962 to 1990 for his resistance activities, Mandela continued to fight for the rights of the South African blacks. He was eventually freed, thanks to sustained campaigning by the African National Congress, and subsequent international pressure. He and State President F.W. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mandela was elected to the Presidency of South Africa in the country’s first multi-racial elections held in 1994. He retired in 1999 and died fourteen years later.