Australian Explorers
Saturday, November 28, 1829. : Captain Charles Sturt crosses the Murrumbidgee River on his way to solve the mystery of the inland rivers.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Drawing on the skills of experienced bushman and explorer Hamilton Hume, Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling.
Pleased with Sturt’s discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined the Darling. On 28 November 1829, Sturt and his party crossed the Murrumbidgee near the present site of the town of Gundagai. Following the river in a whaleboat, Sturt discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume), as did the Darling, and that the Murray River flowed to the ocean, emptying out at Lake Alexandrina on the southern coast.
Australian History
Monday, November 28, 1932. : The ‘Dog on the Tuckerbox’ statue at Gundagai is unveiled.
The “Dog on the Tuckerbox” is an historical monument situated in southern New South Wales, Australia. Celebrated in Australian folklore, poetry, and song as being either five or nine miles from Gundagai, the Dog on the Tuckerbox sits approximately 5 miles, or eight kilometres, from Gundagai. Gundagai’s Dog on the Tuckerbox originated out of an incident from the mid-1800s, when some travellers’ bullock carts became stuck in the mud near Gundagai. The bullockies were unable to free their carts, and everything ended up coated in mud. The romanticised version of the story goes that the bullocky departed for help, and the dog stayed to faithfully guard his master’s tuckerbox (food box). However, the reality is that the dog was in fact relieving itself directly above the tuckerbox, which was the only thing not submerged by the mud.
The story was originally captured by an unknown poet writing under the pseudonym of Bowyang Yorke and published in the Gundagai Times in the 1880s. A later version was written by Gundagai journalist and poet Jack Moses. The tale was then popularised in 1937 in the song “Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox” by Australian songwriter Jack O’Hagan who also wrote “Along the Road to Gundagai” and “When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai”. Ironically, O’Hagan never visited Gundagai himself.
The statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox was created by Gundagai stonemason Frank Rusconi, and unveiled on 28 November 1932, by Joseph Lyons, then Prime Minister of Australia. The unveiling occurred on the 103rd anniversary of explorer Charles Sturt’s crossing of the Murrumbidgee River at the place where Gundagai now stands.
World History
Sunday, November 28, 1660. : The founding meeting is held prior to the formation of the Royal Society.
The Royal Society is also known as the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge. A voluntary organisation devoted to the advancement of science, fellowship to the society is by peer election, and is considered a great honour.
The founding meeting for the Royal Society was held on 28 November 1660, at Gresham College in Bishopsgate. It followed a lecture by Sir Christopher Wren, who was Gresham’s Professor of Astronomy. Those present included theologian, natural philosopher, chemist, physicist and inventor Robert Boyle, and English clergyman and author John Wilkins. All subsequent meetings, and the concept and design of the society, received endorsement from the restored monarchy of King Charles II.
The Royal Society of London was formally created after the passing of the Great Seal on 15 July 1662. Lord Brouncker was the first President, while Robert Hooke was appointed as Curator of Experiments in November 1662. A second Royal Charter was sealed on 23 April 1663, naming the King as Founder and changing the name to “The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge”. Since the foundation of the Royal Society, the reigning monarch has always been the patron.
World History
Saturday, November 28, 1964. : Mariner 4, the first spacecraft to transmit close range images of Mars, is launched.
Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to obtain and transmit close range images of Mars. It was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, on 28 November 1964. The probe passed within 9844 kilometres of Mars on July 14, 1965, obtaining the first ever close-up photographs of the Mars surface. The images revealed that Mars had a vast, barren wasteland of craters scattered throughout a rust-coloured surface of sand, with some indications that liquid water had once etched waterways through the surface. Mariner 4 had various field and particle sensors and detectors, and a television camera which took 22 television pictures, each 48 seconds apart, covering about 1% of the planet.
World History
Wednesday, November 28, 1979. : 257 people are killed when an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight crashes into Mount Erebus, Antarctica.
Mount Erebus, located on Ross Shelf, Antarctica is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Discovered on 27 January 1841 by explorer Sir James Clark Ross, the volcano rises 3,795 metres above sea level.
Sightseeing flights frequently include Mount Erebus on their tours. On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew members. The flight departed from Auckland International Airport with guide Peter Mulgrew standing in for Sir Edmund Hillary, who had acted as a guide on previous flights but had to cancel on this occasion. At the time of the crash, the altitude of the aircraft was 445m.
Following an inquest, the crash was attributed to pilot error. The pilot descended below the customary minimum altitude level, continuing at that height even though the crew was unsure of the plane’s position. However, the New Zealand Government called for another inquiry in response to public demand. The Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by highly respected judge Justice Peter Mahon, blamed Air New Zealand for altering the flight plan waypoint coordinates in the ground navigation computer without advising the crew. The new flight plan took the aircraft directly at the mountain, rather than along its flank.
Although all the bodies were recovered, the wreckage of the aircraft remains on the slopes of Mount Erebus, buried by snow and ice. A wooden cross was raised above Scott Base to commemorate the accident, and was replaced in 1986 with an aluminium cross after the original was eroded by low temperatures, wind and moisture.