Born on this day
Sunday, November 26, 1922. : The creator of Snoopy and the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip, Charles M Schulz, is born.
Charles Monroe Schulz was born in St Paul, Minnesota, on 26 November 1922. As a teenager he was shy and introverted, and when he created his comic strip ‘Peanuts’, he based the character of Charlie Brown on himself. Charlie Brown first appeared in the comic strip “Li’l Folks”, published in 1947 by the St Paul Pioneer Press. In 1950, Schulz approached the United Features Syndicate with his best strips from “Li’l Folks”, and “Peanuts” made its debut on 2 October 1950.
“Peanuts” ran for nearly 50 years, appearing in over 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. In 1999, Schulz had a stroke, and it was then discovered that he had colon cancer. He died two months after announcing his retirement from drawing “Peanuts”, on 13 February 2000. After his death, comic strips all over the world paid tribute to Schulz and Peanuts within their own formats. The Charles M Schulz Museum was opened on 17 August 2002, for the purpose of preserving, displaying, and interpreting the art of Charles M Schulz.
Australian History
Monday, November 26, 1838. : A second trial finds some of the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre of Aborigines guilty.
After numerous clashes between European settlers and Aboriginals people in late 1837 in northwest New South Wales, tensions were high. On 10 June 1838, a gang of stockmen, heavily armed, rounded up between 40 and 50 Aboriginal women, children and elderly men at Henry Dangar’s Myall Creek Station, not far from Inverell in New South Wales. 28 Aborigines were murdered. These were the relatives of the Aboriginal men who were working with the station manager, William Hobbs. It was believed that the massacre was payback for the killing of several colonists in the area, yet most of those massacred were women and children.
At a trial held on November 15 that year, twelve Europeans were charged with murder but acquitted. Following uproar from some colonists at the acquittal of the men, another trial was held on 26 November 1838. Following the retrial, 7 men were charged with murder and sentenced to be hung in December, under the authority of Governor George Gipps.
Australian History
Monday, November 26, 1855. : The colony of Van Diemen’s Land becomes known as Tasmania.
On 24 November 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman discovered a previously unknown island on his voyage past the “Great South Land”, or “New Holland”, as the Dutch called Australia. He named it Van Diemen’s Land after the governor of Batavia. The Dutch, however, did not settle New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land, and had little interest in the continent. The First Fleet, which arrived in Port Jackson, New South Wales, in 1788 comprised eleven British ships carrying officers and convicts from England.
Fears that the French would colonise Van Diemen’s Land caused the British to establish a small settlement on the Derwent River in 1803. Thirty-three of the 49 people in the group were convicts, and the settlement continued to receive convicts re-shipped from New South Wales or Norfolk Island up until 1812. Regular shipments of convicts directly from Britain began in 1818. A second penal colony was established at Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Van Diemen’s Land in 1822, and three years later, the British Government separated administration of Van Diemen’s Land from that of New South Wales. Macquarie Harbour was eventually closed down, to be replaced by Port Arthur.
The Bishopric of Tasmania was proclaimed in 1842, and the name “Tasmania” began to be used in unofficial communications. The push for transportation of convicts to Van Diemen’s Land to end gained momentum, and transportation finally ceased in 1853. Many of the colony’s inhabitants sought to give Van Diemen’s Land a new name in order to remove the stigma of the island being associated with terrible punishment. A parliamentary petition for the colony’s name to be changed was presented to Queen Victoria, who agreed to both the name change and the new constitution in 1855.
On 26 November 1855, the colony’s first governor, Lieutenant-Governor Henry Fox-Young, signed the name change Order, which was then published in the ‘Hobart Gazette’ on the following day, 27 November. Although the name change took effect locally, the colony only officially became known as Tasmania on 1 January 1856. The colony became self-governing, and elections for parliament were held that same year.
Australian History
Monday, November 26, 1917. : A raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office is carried out, under the orders of Prime Minister Billy Hughes.
Conscription, or compulsory military service, has always been a highly controversial issue in Australia. At the outbreak of World War I, Australians were keen to go to war. Many sought to serve their newly federated country as patriotic Australians, while others hoped to serve on behalf of “Mother England”.
Prime Minister William ‘Billy’ Hughes was Australia’s second wartime Prime Minister, being appointed after the resignation of Andrew Fisher in October 1915. Hughes sought to introduce conscription during World War I via a referendum. The 1916 referendum failed when 51% voted against the introduction of conscription. Although Hughes won a clear majority at the Federal election in 1917, he did not bring in legislation for compulsory overseas service, but sought a second referendum in December 1917. To that end, he tried to direct public opinion in favour of conscription, and this included the removal of dissenting material which might sway public opinion against the introduction of conscription.
On 26 November 1917, Hughes ordered Jeremiah Joseph Stable, an officer with the Australian Field Artillery, to conduct a raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office. Stable, along with Federal Police, was instructed to enter the printing office and seize all copies of no. 37 Queensland Parliamentary Debates, as they contained an anti-conscription speech by Premier T J Ryan. Stable had already previously censored parts of the speech from the press, but the printing office held the original copies of the parliamentary debates, and Hughes feared the speech might be circulated.
World History
Monday, November 26, 1703. : Over 8000 people die in Britain’s worst storm on record.
The United Kingdom is the World’s most hurricane-prone nation. Friday, 26 November 1703, saw England’s worst storm on record rip across East Anglia. Gales of up to 80mph were reported, with windmill blades spinning so ferociously that the friction caused them to catch fire, while 4000 grand oak trees in the New Forest were felled. Hundreds of vessels of the British fleet were lost, including four Royal Navy men-of-war, and an estimated 8000 sailors lost their lives. It was reported that a ship at Whitstable in Kent was lifted from the sea and dropped over 200 metres inland. Civilian casualties on land were in the hundreds, but no accurate records exist to give the true number of lives lost that day.