Australian Explorers
Friday, November 19, 1813. : George Evans departs Sydney to explore the land west of the Blue Mountains discovered by Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth.
For twenty-five years since the First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson, the Blue Mountains virtually imprisoned the colony of New South Wales, preventing exploration to the west. Numerous attempts to cross the barrier of the Blue Mountains had failed. In May 1813, three graziers formed an exploration party and succeeded in crossing the mountain range. Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth found rich farming land in the Hartley region. However, further exploration was needed so the colony could expand beyond the Great Dividing Range. George Evans was the Deputy Surveyor-General of New South Wales, and keen to progress beyond the discoveries made by Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth.
On 19 November 1813, Evans left Sydney with a party of five men who were selected for their knowledge of the countryside and its difficult terrain. The party carried provisions for two months. Evans soon reached a mountain which he named Mt Blaxland, the termination of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth’s explorations. He continued through the countryside, eventually reaching what is believed to be the site of present-day Bathurst. Evans reported favourably on the rich pasturelands well-watered by numerous streams flowing through the region, describing the land as surpassing “in beauty and fertility of soil, any he [had] seen in New South Wales or Van Diemen’s Land.” He returned to Sydney after an expedition that lasted seven weeks, and reported on the viability of settling further west. He advocated building a road which would follow the ridge track determined by Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth. Shortly after this, William Cox was commissioned to build the road to Bathurst.
Australian History
Wednesday, November 19, 1834. : Edward Henty establishes an illegal settlement at Portland Bay, Victoria.
Edward Henty is regarded as the founder of Victorian settlement. Born at West Tarring, Sussex, England, in 1809, he came to Van Diemen’s Land with his father Thomas in 1832. On 19 November 1834, he landed at Portland Bay on the southwest coast of Victoria, to found a new settlement without official permission. Very few people knew about the settlement, as it was remote from major centres. The first recognition Henty received was when Major Thomas Mitchell, seeking a possible harbour, wandered into the area in 1836 after discovering the rich, fertile farming land of western Victoria. By this time, Henty and his brothers had been established for two years, and were importing sheep and cattle from Launceston.
Australian History
Tuesday, November 19, 1946. : Australian country music singer Slim Dusty records his first single.
David Gordon “Slim Dusty” Kirkpatrick was born on 13 June 1927 in Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia. The son of a cattle farmer, he was brought up on Nulla Nulla Creek dairy farm. He wrote his first song, entitled “The Way The Cowboy Dies” at age ten and took the name “Slim Dusty” when he was 11.
Slim Dusty wrote his first country music classic “When the Rain Tumbles Down in July” in 1945, when he was just 18, and the following year he signed his first recording contract with the Columbia Graphophone Co. for the Regal Zonophone label. On 19 November 1946, Slim Dusty made his first commercial recording of six songs, which included “When the Rain Tumbles Down in July”.
Slim Dusty went on to become Australia’s biggest selling recording artist in Australia. Although little-known outside Australia, his fame within his own country is widespread, especially following the 1957 release of his song “The Pub With no Beer”. He made a point of singing about real Australians, of telling their stories and capturing the Australian spirit in a way that appealed across the generations. He was the first Australian to receive a Gold Record and the first Australian to have an international record hit. He was the first singer in the world to have his voice transmitted to earth from space when, in 1983, astronauts Bob Crippen and John Young played Slim singing Waltzing Matilda from the space shuttle “Columbia” as it passed over Australia.
Slim Dusty was also one of the first Australians inducted into the Country Music Roll of Renown. During his 60-year career, he was awarded 65 Golden Guitars, more Gold and Platinum Record Awards than any other Australian artist, ARIA (Australian Recording Industry) Awards and induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame, video sales Platinum and Gold Awards, an MBE and Order of Australia for his services to entertainment.
When Slim Dusty died on 19 September 2003, he had been working on his 106th album for EMI Records. The album was Columbia Lane – the Last Sessions. It debuted at number five in the Australian album charts and was number one on the country charts on 8 March 2004, going gold after being on sale for less than two weeks.
World History
Sunday, November 19, 1493. : Explorer Christopher Columbus lands on Puerto Rico for the first time.
Explorer Christopher Columbus was determined to pioneer a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. In 1492 he set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Marýa, the Pinta, and the Niña. During his journeys, Columbus explored the West Indies, South America, and Central America. He became the first explorer and trader to cross the Atlantic Ocean and sight the land of the Americas, on 12 October 1492, under the flag of Castile, a former kingdom of modern-day Spain. It is most probable that the land he first sighted was Watling Island in the Bahamas.
Columbus returned to Spain laden with gold and new discoveries from his travels, including the previously unknown tobacco plant and the pineapple fruit. The success of his first expedition prompted his commissioning for a second voyage to the New World, and he set out from Cýdiz in September 1493. On 19 November 1493, he set foot on an island he had seen only the day before. He named it San Juan Bautista after St John the Baptist, and the town Puerto Rico, meaning “rich port”. (The names were later swapped around, with Puerto Rico becoming the name of the island, and San Juan the capital city.) At the time Columbus arrived, the island held a population of around 50,000 Taino or Arawak Indians. The men who greeted him made the mistake of showing him the gold nuggets in the river, and invited him to take as much as he wanted.
Columbus explored Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and various smaller Caribbean islands, and further ensuing explorations yielded discoveries such as Venezuela. Through all this, Columbus believed that he was travelling to parts of Asia. He believed Hispaniola was Japan, and that the peaks of Cuba were the Himalayas of India. Columbus died on 20 May 1506.
World History
Monday, November 19, 1703. : The legendary ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ dies.
The Man in the Iron Mask has spawned many myths and legends over time. One of the more factual accounts of the unknown French prisoner comes from the journal of Lieutenant Etienne du Junca, an official of the Bastille from October 1690 until his death in September 1706. Du Junca recorded that when a new governor of the Bastille arrived on 18 September 1698, he brought with him a prisoner wearing a black velvet (not iron) mask, and whose name was not disclosed to anyone. The new governor, Bénigne d’Auvergne de Saint-Mars, had kept the masked man in custody since at least the beginning of his own governorship at Pignerol, from 1665.
The masked man was always treated well, and evinced no complaints. When the prisoner died on 19 November 1703, Saint-Mars had the name “Marchialy” inscribed in the parish register. However, spelling of the day being purely as the inscriber perceived it, there was no way to know what the man’s name truly was. After his death, stories of the man in the mask became more and more exaggerated. By the time the writer Voltaire had developed the story in 1751, the mask was said to be riveted on, with a “movable, hinged lower jaw held in place by springs that made it possible to eat wearing it.” There were even rumours that, after the storming of the bastille in 1789, a skeleton was found with an iron mask still attached. Such stories have been found to be pure fabrication, and more scientific attempts have been used to try to determine the man’s name and the reason for his imprisonment: to date, he remains shrouded in mystery.
World History
Tuesday, November 19, 1726. : A young woman is reported to have given birth to over a dozen rabbits.
England’s “Mist’s Weekly Journal” reported a most unusual story on 19 November 1726.
Twenty-five year old married maidservant Mary Tofts from Godalmin, or Godalming, near Guildford, had suffered a miscarriage some months earlier, after chasing two rabbits while weeding in a field. The story Tofts told was that the incident of pursuing the rabbits created such a longing in her that she became obsessed with rabbits. She miscarried, and began dreaming of rabbits non-stop and craving roast rabbit. Some months later, over the course of two weeks, she “gave birth” to at least 16 rabbits, all of which were stillborn. Doctors of the time explained the rabbit births as being a result of “maternal impressions”. They believed that a pregnant woman’s experiences could be imprinted directly on the foetus at conception and cause birth defects.
Sir Richard Manningham, the most famous obstetrician in London, and one of the witnesses to the unusual births, later exposed the incident as an elaborate hoax. He found that Tofts had, in fact, inserted all the creatures into her own birth canal and waited for an opportune time to “deliver” them, over a series of days, in front of reputable witnesses. Tofts herself admitted to the hoax on 7 December 1726. The main victim of the scam was probably the medical profession, who suffered a great deal of ridicule for its gullibility.
World History
Thursday, November 19, 1959. : Motor company Ford announces that it is discontinuing the Edsel.
The Ford Edsel was named after Edsel Ford, the only son of the company’s founder, Henry Ford. It was introduced in response to market research which indicated that car owners wanted greater horsepower, unique body design, and wrap-around windshields. It took five years for the car to move from mere conception to driveable reality.
By the time the Edsel was ready to be released on the US market amid considerable publicity on “E Day”, 4 September 1957, the country was in a recession and consumers were turning to smaller, more economical models. The Edsel ran for three models over three years, and only 110,847 Edsels were produced before Ford announced on 19 November 1959 that it was discontinuing the model. $350 million was lost by the company on the venture.
World History
Wednesday, November 19, 1997. : The world’s first septuplets to all survive are born.
The McCaughey septuplets are the world’s first set of seven babies birthed who have all survived. They were born on 19 November 1997, to Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey of Carlisle, Iowa. The McCaugheys already had one child, Mikayla, who was conceived with help of the fertility drug, Metrodin. Hoping for a sibling for Mikayla, the McCaugheys again turned to Metrodin. Christian ethics prevented the parents from agreeing to the doctors’ suggestions of selective reduction, which involves aborting some of the foetuses to allow the others more room to grow.
The babies, born nine weeks prematurely, were named Kenneth (Kenny), Alexis, Natalie, Kelsey, Brandon, Nathan and Joel. Medical problems were surprisingly minimal although Alexis, the smallest, suffers from chronic lung disease, and Alexis and Nathan have cerebral palsy. The septuplets graduated from Carlisle High School, Des Moines in May 2016. As of 2022, all of them have careers or are working towards that goal, while Brandon, Kenny, Natalie and Kelsey are married.