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.
Australian History
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.
Australian History
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 northwest 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.
Australian History
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.
World History
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.