Australian Explorers
Sunday, January 17, 1773. : Captain James Cook’s ship, the ‘Resolution’, becomes the first known ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.
James Cook was born at Marton in North Yorkshire, on 27 October 1728. He was the son of a farm labourer, and held no great ambitions, being apprenticed in a grocer/haberdashery when he was 16. Lack of aptitude in the trade led his employer to introduce Cook to local shipowners, who took him on as a merchant navy apprentice. Here he was educated in algebra, trigonometry, navigation, and astronomy, which later set Cook up to command his own ship.
Cook is known for being the first European to sight the eastern coast of Australia, thus paving the way for British settlement of the continent. Two years after this journey, in 1772, Cook was sent again to discover if another great land lay east of Australia. Commanding the ship, ‘Resolution’, Cook became the first known European to cross the Antarctic Circle, on 17 January 1773, in latitude 67 degrees south. However, pack ice and the solid freezing of the ship’s sails prevented further exploration of the region.
Australian History
Monday, January 17, 1944. : Meat rationing is introduced throughout Australia, a result of World War II.
On 3 September 1939, Australian Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies announced that Australia was at war with Germany. It was several years before rationing of essential supplies was introduced. First to be rationed throughout Australia was petrol, followed by clothing in June 1942. A month later tea was rationed, then sugar, and in June 1943, butter was also rationed. On 17 January 1944, meat rationing began. It did not cover all meats: fish, rabbits, chicken, ham and bacon, and offal products were excluded. Rationing of meat finally ended two years after the war, in 1947.
Australian History
Wednesday, January 17, 1968. : Australian singing group ‘The Seekers’ are named Australians of the Year for 1967.
The seekers were a popular Australian singing group of the 1960s. Formed in 1962, the original group was made up of Judith Durham on vocals, Athol Guy on double bass and vocals, Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar and vocals, and Bruce Woodley on guitar and vocals. These members variously played banjo, mandolin and keyboard as well. They released their debut album “Introducing The Seekers” in 1963, and their debut single was “Waltzing Matilda”. Some of their enduring songs were “Georgy girl”, “The Carnival is Over”, “I’ll Never Find Another You”, “Morningtown Ride” and “A World of Our Own”. With a musical style which was a mixture of popular and folk, The Seekers became the first Australian popular music group to break through to the United Kingdom and the United States market, achieving outstanding success in the music charts.
On 17 January 1968, The Seekers were named Australians of the Year for 1967. They were presented with the award by Prime Minister Harold Holt. Other Australian Prime Ministers through the years also indicated their appreciation for the style and quality of The Seekers’ music, with Sir Robert Menzies once commenting that The Seekers were the only musical group he had “ever encountered who sang musical tunes and whom he thoroughly understood.”
World History
Monday, January 17, 1949. : The Volkswagen beetle makes its debut in the United States.
The name ‘Volkswagen’ which translates literally as “people’s car” is the name of an automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Germany. The VW Type 1, better known as the Beetle or Bug or Käfer (in German), is a small family car and probably the best known car made by Volkswagen. During the Beetle’s production which commenced in 1938 and ended in 2003, over 21 million Beetles in the original design were made.
The VW Beetle arrived in the United States on 17 January 1949. The car established a firm reputation for reliability and sturdiness. On 10 January 1996, an original 1963 VW Beetle belonging to Mr Albert Klein of Pasadena, California, had clocked up 1,592,503 miles, and was still running. This was the world’s record for automobile mileage of any small vehicle, and to date, has not been surpassed.
World History
Thursday, January 17, 1991. : The Gulf War against Iraq begins with the launch of Operation Desert Storm.
In the early hours of 2 August 1990, 100,000 Iraqi troops backed by 300 tanks invaded Kuwait, in the Persian Gulf. US economic aid to Iraq had inadvertently allowed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to amass weaponry which was then deployed for the invasion. Hussein’s motivation for the invasion was that it was a response to overproduction of oil in Kuwait, which had cost Iraq an estimated $14 billion a year when oil prices fell. The United Nations acted immediately to implement economic sanctions against Iraq. Iraq, however, would not retreat.
On 17 January 1991, a coalition force of armies from 34 nations, led by the United States, set out to free Kuwait. The initial operation was nicknamed ‘Operation Desert Storm’. The Gulf War lasted around 6 weeks, and resulted in a decisive victory for the coalition forces.
World History
Tuesday, January 17, 1995. : An earthquake in Kobe, Japan, kills over 6,400 people.
The Pacific Ring of Fire is an arc extending around the edge of Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand, along eastern Asia, north across Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, then south along the coast of the Americas. It contains most of the world’s volcanoes, both active and dormant, and is a hotbed of seismic activity. Countries which border the Ring of Fire are particularly prone to experiencing earthquakes. One such country is Japan, which has been hit by dozens of earthquakes, many of them resulting in significant destruction, in the last 200 years alone.
Kobe is a city of about 1.5 million in Japan, located on the island of Honshu and one of Japan’s major ports. At 6:45am on 17 January 1995, Kobe was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale. The high population density and linear layout of the city exacerbated the effects of the quake by increasing the amount of damage to buildings: 77% of people killed were crushed to death. In all 6,433 people died and 43,792 were injured in the earthquake. Many of the remaining injuries were from burns: over 300 fires broke out following the quake. 7,483 buildings were burnt to the ground and 9,017 more damaged by fire. In total, 104,906 houses were completely destroyed, and 460,000 were damaged. Over 300,000 people were left homeless afterwards. The quake is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the “costliest natural disaster to befall any one country”.