Born on this day
Wednesday, January 12, 1876. : Jack London, author of “Call of the Wild”, is born.
Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney on 12 January 1876 in San Francisco, California, USA. He had a colourful childhood, being thought to be the illegitimate son of astrologer William Chaney, who flatly denied his paternity. The young Jack was largely self-taught, and attributed his literary aspirations to when, at the age of seven, he found and read Ouida’s epic Victorian novel “Signa”, which describes an unschooled Italian peasant child who achieves fame as an opera composer.
Jack graduated from school at age thirteen, whereupon he began working from twelve to eighteen hours a day at Hickmott’s Cannery. Seeking to escape the workhouse life, he first became an oyster pirate, then a member of the California Fish Patrol. He went on to serve in various trades, including sealing, and working as a sailor, in a jute mill and a street-railway power plant. He even spent some time as a vagrant. It was after this that he aspired to greater things, completing his high school education in California in 1896, and briefly enrolling in the University of California until financial circumstances forced him to drop out.
London’s first stories were derived from his experiences in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. The author of dozens of adventure novels, his best known works include “The Call of the Wild”, “The Sea-Wolf” and “White Fang”. London died of a drug overdose in 1916 at the age of just forty.
Born on this day
Thursday, January 12, 1899. : Paul Hermann Muller, the man who discovered that DDT was a potent insecticide, is born.
Paul Hermann Müller was born in Olten/Solothurn, Switzerland, on 12 January 1899. He was a Swiss chemist who discovered that DDT was a potent insecticide. The discovery of DDT was vital to helping increase food production around the world, as the substance eliminated many of the problems associated with insects destroying crops. However, later research showed that DDT continues to accumulate in insect-eating animals. Due to the toxic effects of DDT on these animals and those further up the food chain, it has been banned in the United States since 1972, but residue was still being found in some foods grown in the US in 2002.
Muller won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT. It was the first time the award had been given to someone who was not a doctor. Muller died in Basel in 1965.
Australian History
Wednesday, January 12, 2005. : Nine die in a devastating bushfire on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
Bushfires are common in summer in Australia, but one of the country’s worst bushfires killed nine people in South Australia on 12 January 2005. Eight of the people killed were caught trying to flee the blaze in their cars. Another was trapped in a building at North Shields, where several people jumped into the sea to escape the flames.
The fire had begun in the Wangary area on the Eyre Peninsula late on January 10, when a spark from a gold prospector’s vehicle ignited dry scrub, then quickly spread. Vast amounts of stock and property were lost as the fire burnt through more than 48,000 hectares in the southern Peninsula. It was Australia’s deadliest bushfire since Ash Wednesday in 1983, when 75 people died in fires across Victoria and South Australia.
Australian History
Wednesday, January 12, 2011. : Tugboat skippers Doug Hislop and Peter Fenton heroically prevent Brisbane’s twin Gateway Bridges from being damaged by floating debris.
After the Brisbane River broke its banks in the massive 2011 floods (see entry for 11 January), it continued to rise to levels not seen since 1974. The following day, the Brisbane City flood gauge exceeded its major flood level, with floodwaters causing significant damage to thousands of properties as well as to infrastructure.
Just before 4:00am on 12 January 2011, it was reported that a 300m section of Brisbane’s floating Riverwalk had broken away from its moorings and was heading downstream towards the two Gateway Bridges. Tugboat pilot Doug Hislop, 65, and engineer Peter Fenton, 66, heard the reports and moved quickly in their tugboat ‘Mavis’ to intercept the 1200 tonne cement walkway which was being pulled along in waters of 10-12 knots. Fighting eddies and whirlpools in the surging waters, the two men guided the boardwalk carefully past marine infrastructure, as well as chemical and fuel wharves and an oil pipeline, and straightened it to pass safely under the Gateway Bridges, past the supports. The men were hailed as heroes for attempting a task that even the military had deemed too dangerous.
Sadly, Peter Fenton was killed in a dockside accident in December that same year. He was crushed when a shipping container fell on him while it was being unloaded at the Port of Brisbane docks. However, he will always be remembered for his heroic actions during the Brisbane floods.
World History
Thursday, January 12, 1905. : The “East Anglian Daily Times” reports on a wild man, carrying a book with strange writing and speaking an unknown language.
Stories of wild children and wild men are common in Europe, but usually restricted to Medieval times. An exception to this was the wild man of East Anglia.
On 12 January 1905, the East Anglian Daily Times reported the appearance of an unusual man in East Anglia. Wild in appearance, his language was unfamiliar. He carried a book filled with drawings and strange writing which no-one at Scotland Yard was able to decipher, or even identify as to its origin, as they were able to rule out at least a dozen common and uncommon European languages. The drawings were sketches of things the man had evidently seen along his journey.
In that same winter of 1904-05, there were reports of up to ten different wild men appearing in different parts of England, unable to communicate on the same level as those who found them. No “natural” phenomenon seemed to be at work: investigators favoured theories of sudden teleportation from other parts of the world, resulting in amnesia, but no satisfactory scientific explanation was ever given.
World History
Friday, January 12, 1979. : Singer “Tiny Tim” establishes a new world non-stop singing record of 2 hours, 15 minutes and 7 seconds.
“Tiny Tim”, American singer and ukulele player, was born Herbert Khaury on 12 April 1932. The son of a Lebanese father and a Polish Jewish mother, he was raised Catholic. This gave him a traditional grounding that was hidden by his flamboyant on-stage persona which traded on his short stature and high falsetto singing voice.
Tiny Tim’s natural singing voice was baritone, but there was little interest in a short person who could sing baritone and play the ukulele. He discovered his falsetto voice quite by accident whilst singing along to the radio one evening in 1952. When he entered a local talent show singing “You Are My Sunshine” in falsetto, the audience responded with resounding approval. Later, Tiny Tim became especially well known for his falsetto rendering of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”.
In January 1979, Tiny Tim was on tour in Australia. During this tour, on 12 January 1979 at Luna Park in Sydney, he established the world non-stop professional singing record of 2 hours, 15 minutes and 7 seconds. The record has since been broken numerous times.