Australian History
Monday, November 5, 1804. : Lieutenant-Colonel William Paterson lands in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in order to begin a new settlement in the north.
Tasmania was first discovered by Abel Tasman in November 1642. Tasman discovered the previously unknown island on his voyage past the “Great South Land”, or “New Holland”, as the Dutch called Australia. He named it “Antony Van Diemen’s Land” in honour of the High Magistrate, or Governor-General of Batavia.
In 1804, Lieutenant-Governor David Collins moved most of the members of the settlement he had founded at Port Phillip Bay, but which had faltered due to unsuitable conditions, across Bass Strait. He established the settlement of Sullivan Cove, which was later renamed Hobart Town, on the Derwent River.
In that same year, the British Government appointed Lieutenant-Colonel William Paterson as Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land and instructed him to form a settlement at Port Dalrymple in the north of Van Diemen’s Land. This was to further offset French interest in the island. Paterson arrived at Outer Cove on 5 November 1804 with a detachment of soldiers and seventy-five convicts. He initially established the site at Western Arm, which he named York Town, but two years later he formed a new settlement on the present site of Launceston.
Australian History
Monday, November 5, 1956. : The ABC’s first television broadcast commences.
John Logie Baird first demonstrated the television in 1926. Although the United States introduced television broadcasts in 1928, and the UK in 1936, it was another decade before steps were made to bring the medium to Australia. In 1950, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced a gradual introduction of television in Australia, commencing with a launch of an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) station, as the Broadcasting Act 1948 prohibited the granting of commercial television licences. Three years later his government amended the Broadcasting Act to allow for commercial television licences. Test transmissions commenced in Sydney and Melbourne in July 1956, and at 7:00pm on 16 September 1956, Australia’s first TV broadcast was made by TCN Channel 9 in Sydney.
The inaugural ABC television station was ABN2 Sydney. The first broadcast was on 5 November 1956, and commenced with the ABC logo, and presenter Michael Charlton, whose father Conrad had introduced Australians to ABC radio in 1932. Charlton announced: “Hello there, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and children. This emblem that you’ve just seen is tonight the symbol of a historic occasion – the opening of the national television service, which, of course, is YOUR television service. And we hope that tonight, and in the weeks and years to come, that you’re going to see and enjoy a lot more of it on ABN2 – ABN Channel 2. My name is Michael Charlton, and I’m your host here tonight.”
Shortly afterwards, Charlton invited Prime Minister Robert Menzies to launch ABC Television. The first news bulletin was then read by ABC radio newsreader James Dibble, who became the senior ABC television newsreader. The ABC then followed two weeks later with a transmission in Melbourne.
Australian History
Friday, November 5, 2010. : It is reported that the world’s oldest ground-edge tool has been discovered in northern Australia.
Australia has come to be regarded as the home of one of the world’s oldest races. On 5 November 2010, the Monash University online news site reported that a Monash university archaeologist, with a team of international experts, had uncovered the oldest ground-edge stone tool in the world.
The discovery was originally made back in May 2010 at Nawarla Gabarnmang, a large rock-shelter in Jawoyn Aboriginal country in southwestern Arnhem Land in Australia’s far north. The tool appeared to be a stone-age axe, a significant tool in aboriginal communities. Axes were believed to carry the ancestral forces from the quarry from which they originated, providing a vital spiritual and cultural link through trade between aboriginal groups.
World History
Saturday, November 5, 1605. : Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up the English Houses of Parliament.
Guy Fawkes (later also known as Guido Fawkes) was born on 13 April 1570, in Stonegate, York, England. He embraced Catholicism while still in his teens, and later served for many years as a soldier gaining considerable expertise with explosives; both of these events were crucial to his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
From 1563, legislation evolved which demanded citizens recognise the King as Supreme Governor of the Church. Refusal to submit was punishable by death. The Gunpowder Plot was an attempt by a group of Catholic extremists to assassinate King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in one hit by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening. A group of conspirators rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords and filled it with 2.5 tonnes of gunpowder. However, one of the conspirators, who feared for the life of fellow Catholics who would have been present at parliament during the opening, wrote a letter to Lord Monteagle. Monteagle, in turn, warned the authorities. Fawkes, who was supposed to have lit the fuse to explode the gunpowder, was arrested during a raid on the cellar early on the morning of 5 November 1605. Fawkes was tortured into revealing the names of his co-conspirators. Those who were not killed immediately were placed on trial, during which they were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered in London. Climbing up to the hanging platform, Fawkes leapt off the ladder, breaking his neck and dying instantly.
November 5 came to be known as Guy Fawkes Day. At dusk, citizens across Britain light bonfires, set off fireworks, and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes, celebrating his failure to blow up Parliament and James I.
World History
Monday, November 5, 1928. : Mount Etna, Sicily, erupts and destroys the town of Mascali, but all inhabitants are evacuated safely.
Mount Etna is the largest volcano on the east coast of Sicily, an island off Italy. Etna stands about 3,320 m high with a basal circumference of 140 km, and covers an area of 1190 km². As one of the most active volcanoes in the world, it is in an almost constant state of eruption, but is not regarded as being dangerous.
On 5 November 1928, Mount Etna erupted, and the resultant lava flow largely destroyed the town of Mascali on the eastern side of the volcano. However, prior to its destruction, the town’s inhabitants had time to be systemically evacuated, with the help of the military. An entirely new town was rebuilt by 1937.
World History
Tuesday, November 5, 1935. : Parker Brothers releases the board game ‘Monopoly
The popular board game ‘Monopoly’ is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single seller. The game was developed by Charles B Darrow, but the concept was actually based on a game patented in 1904 by Lizzie J Magie, a Quaker from Virginia. Magie’s invention was called the Landlord Game, and was designed to promote her political agenda by demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants.
Darrow developed his own version of the game and patented it in 1935. ‘Monopoly’ was released on 5 November 1935. It was immediately popular as, during the Depression, people enjoyed the concept of a game in which players could make their fortune, accumulate large sums of money and send other players into financial ruin.