Born on this day
Sunday, September 30, 1951. : Barry Marshall, Australian physician who proved ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress, is born.
Barry James Marshall is an Australian physician and Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, credited with disproving the myth that stress is the main cause of stomach ulcers.
Born on 30 September 1951 in the outback gold town of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Marshall lived in Kalgoorlie and Carnarvon until his family moved to Perth when he was seven. He earned his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Western Australia in 1975. Together with Robin Warren, a pathologist interested in gastritis, he studied the presence of spiral bacteria in association with gastritis. In 1982, Marshall and Warren performed the initial culture of Helicobacter pylori, developing their theory related to the bacterial cause of peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. Initially, Marshall’s hypothesis met with scepticism from colleagues, but continued cultures and even tests upon himself eventually indicated strong links between H. pylori, and peptic ulcers and gastritis.
To date, Marshall is continuing his research into the H. pylori, and oversees the H. Pylori Research Laboratory at the University of western Australia. In 2005, Marshall and Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm “for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease”.
Australian History
Thursday, September 30, 1813. : The strange coins “holey dollar” and “dump” are circulated in NSW to combat currency shortages.
The coins “holey dollar” and “dump” were created by punching the centre out of Spanish dollars. The external circle was the “holey dollar” and the punched-out inner circle was the “dump”. They were only ever used in New South Wales, Australia, and on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
In 1813, Governor Lachlan Macquarie faced the problem of currency shortages in the young colony of New South Wales. When the British Government sent £10,000 worth of Spanish dollars (40,000 Spanish dollars) to New South Wales, Macquarie took the initiative to create “holey dollars” and “dumps”. The dumps were assigned a value of 15 pence and were restruck with a crown on the obverse side and the denomination on the reverse. The dollars were worth 5 shillings, and were stamped with “New South Wales 1813” around the hole. The coins were released on 30 September 1813. The holey dollar became the first official currency produced specifically for circulation in Australia.
There are estimated to be around 350 Holey dollars and 1500 dumps still in circulation today. The coins were replaced by sterling coinage from 1822.
World History
Saturday, September 30, 1882. : The world’s first hydro-electric power plant is opened in Wisconsin, USA.
Hydroelectric power makes use of energy released by water falling, flowing downhill, moving tidally, or moving in some other way, to generate electricity. The world’s first commercial hydro-electric power plant was opened on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA, on 30 September 1882. It supplied power for lighting to two paper mills and a house. A few weeks later, another hydro-electric power plant was installed for commercial service at Minneapolis.
100 years later, in 1980, hydro-electric power accounted for about 25% of global electricity and 5% of total world energy use.
World History
Tuesday, September 30, 1902. : The synthetic fabric, rayon, is patented.
Rayon is a cellulose-based substance, originally known as “artificial silk”, or “art silk”. Unlike other man-made fibres such as nylon, it is not entirely synthetic, being made from wood pulp, a naturally-occurring, cellulose-based raw material. It was patented on 30 September 1902 by William H Walker, Arthur D Little and Harry S Mork of Massachusetts, the patent covering the process of the “making of cellulose esters”. Rayon can also be produced in a transparent sheet form known as “cellophane”.
World History
Saturday, September 30, 1939. : The Munich Agreement is signed, giving Germany strategic sections of Czechoslovakia.
Following on from the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of 29 September 1939, which involved dividing control of occupied Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, another country was also carved up and handed to Germany. In the early hours of 30 September 1939, the “Munich Agreement” was signed. This agreement allowed Germany to annex the strategically significant Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, where ethnic Germans made up most of the population.
Germany, France, Britain, and Italy all signed the agreement. It was believed that, by acceding to Hitler’s growing demands for territory, war could be averted. Czechoslovakia itself was not invited to the conference to discuss its future, and because of this, the Munich Agreement has sometimes been referred to as the Munich Dictate.
World History
Friday, September 30, 1955. : Actor James Dean is killed in a road accident.
James “Jimmy” Dean was born James Byron Dean on 8 February 1931 on a farm in Indiana. Once he left school, he enrolled in Santa Monica College, California, and initially studied law, later changing his major to drama. After an unremarkable start to his acting career, he moved to New York to pursue a career in stage acting, where he was accepted to study under Lee Strasberg in the Actors Studio. This opened doors for more acting opportunities, culminating in starring roles in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ and the 1956 release ‘Giant’, for which Dean was nominated for an Academy Award.
Dean’s roles in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ and ‘Blackboard Jungle’ symbolised the growing rebellion of American youth against the values of their parents, especially as seen in the emergence of rock ‘n’ roll. Many young people began to model themselves on Dean, and he gained iconic status, particularly when he died so young and in such a violent manner. Dean was killed on 30 September 1955, while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder near Cholame, California when another car crossed in front of his.