Australian History

Thursday, January 24, 1788. :   French ships are noted outside Botany Bay just two days before Captain Arthur Phillip takes formal possession of New South Wales.

Over 150 years before English explorer Lieutenant James Cook ever sighted eastern Australia, the Dutch landed on the Western coast. Australia held no great interest for the Dutch, and no formal claims were made. The French, however, showed considerable interest in what the Dutch had named “New Holland”, and organised several expeditions to the continent. In 1756, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville sighted the Great Barrier Reef. In 1772, two French expeditions set out to investigate whether the land James Cook charted in 1770 was “Terra Australis”, or the great southern continent. The first was headed by Captain Dufresne, who claimed Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) for France, but after Dufresne was killed by Maori in New Zealand, his claim went no further. The second expedition was under the commande of Louis-François-Marie Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn, who landed on the northern coast of Dirk Hartog Island. Saint-Aloüarn took formal possession of the western coast, raising the French flag and documenting the occasion. He marked the claim by naming the bay ‘Baie de Prise de Possession’ (the Bay of Taking of Possession).

Although unaware of this formal claim, the British remained wary of the French presence in Australian waters. When the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip realised a more suitable site for settlement was needed, and thus set sail with a small exploration party on the 21st. On 24 January 1788, two French ships were noticed at the entrance to Botany Bay. They were the L’Astrolabe and La Boussole, under the command of Jean-Francois La Perouse. Phillip had made plans for the entire fleet to move north to Port Jackson, but the presence of the French ships, and the same bad weather that prevented the French from entering Botany Bay, initially caused him to postpone the First Fleet’s departure.

While Phillip continued ahead to Port Jackson, the ‘Supply’ and the ‘Sirius’ were sent to exchange greetings with the French. Captain Watkin Tench, a marine officer who made extensive observations about the journey of the First Fleet and the early years of settlement at Port Jackson noted the following in his account “A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay”:
“The astonishment of the French at seeing us, had not equalled that we had experienced, for it appeared, that in the course of their voyage they had touched at Kamschatka, and by that means learnt that our expedition was in contemplation. They dropped anchor the next morning, just as we had got under weigh to work out of the Bay, so that for the present nothing more than salutations could pass between us.”

Although Phillip and La Perouse maintained cordial relations during the French ships’ sojourn, the two did not meet directly: there is strong evidence to suggest Phillip had been a spy and, due to the intense rivalry between the British and the French, preferred that his presence as commander remain undetected. La Perouse and his crew remained camped on the North Shore of Botany Bay for six weeks, where they refitted their ships, built a stockade and planted a garden. Nothing more is known of the expedition of La Perouse, as the ships La Boussole and L’Astrolabe disappeared in the Pacific after their March 10 departure was observed by lookouts on South Head.

Australian History

Saturday, January 24, 1903. :   The Golden Pipeline, a massive engineering undertaking bringing vital water to the Western Australian goldfields, is opened.

The goldfields of Western Australia, discovered in 1893, are located in one of the world’s most isolated and inhospitable areas. Even the Premier of Western Australia at the time of the Kalgoorlie-Coolgardie discoveries, Sir John Forrest, noted that “Gold in this colony is found only in the most out-of-the-way places, the most desolate places, far away from water, and where it is difficult to obtain supplies”. As a former explorer himself, Forrest understood the difficulties faced by communities in outback Western Australia. Indeed, the lack of water in the goldfields around Kalgoorlie limited development of the mining industry, until a young engineer named CY O’Connor proposed an audacious plan to bring water to the region.

Charles Yelverton O’Connor was born on 11 January 1843 in Ireland. He arrived in Perth, Western Australia in 1891 after having been offered the position of Engineer-in-Chief by Sir John Forrest. His first task was to build a safe harbour for Perth, Fremantle Harbour, which remains Western Australia’s largest and busiest port. O’Connor was also employed as acting general manager of railways in Western Australia. In this capacity, he greatly improved the operation of the government railways.

O’Connor’s next major project was to build a pipeline that would deliver water to the goldfields, approximately 600 km east of Perth. Thousands of miners had inundated the goldfields, and the water that was available was not only expensive, but often harboured diseases such as typhus. O’Connor was called upon by Forrest to come up with a workable solution. With his usual attention to detail, O’Connor researched the problem, consulted with renowned engineers in London, then presented a comprehensive, carefully costed proposal. His plan included constructing a dam near Mundaring Weir on the Helena River east of Perth, then pumping the water 560 km to Kalgoorlie via a series of 8 pumping stations. The pipeline, a massive engineering feat in itself, would need to also cater for an elevation increase of 300 metres before reaching the goldfields. It would deliver 5 million gallons, or 22 730 cubic metres, of water per day to the goldfields. O’Connor intended to utilise a new steel, rivetless pipe with two joints along its length held together by a locking-bar, that had been developed by Australian engineer Mephan Ferguson. This type of pipe was necessary to prevent leakage of valuable water, and its use was endorsed by renowned English engineer and consulting engineer to the Western Australian government, John Carruthers. During the five-year construction of the pipeline, further improvements to the materials were made, all of which contributed to the strength and longevity of the pipeline, which is still in use today.

Seven years passed between the inception of O’Connor’s ideas and the completion of the pipeline’s construction. The Golden Pipeline was opened on 24 January 1903. When John Forrest opened the pipeline at Coolgardie, he said of O’Connor, ‘the great builder of this work … to bring happiness and comfort to the people of the goldfields for all time’. However, O’Connor was not present at this ceremony. When Forrest left the state parliament to enter federal politics, O’Connor was left without support against his detractors. Subjected to public criticism over the cost of the pipeline, O’Connor committed suicide on the beach near Robb’s Jetty in March 1902. This brilliant man never saw his vision come to fruition. He could not have dreamt that his pipeline would still be a vital link for the goldfields over a century later or that it would be recognised internationally by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a significant industrial heritage landmark, on a par with the Panama Canal.

World History

Thursday, January 24, 0041. :   Gaius Caesar (Caligula), third Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, is assassinated.

Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus was born in Antium on 31 August AD 12. As the third Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he ruled from AD 37 to 41. Gaius Caesar gained his nickname of Caligula when, as a young child, he became the mascot of his father’s army. His father, Agrippina, would put a miniature soldier costume on young Gaius, and he was soon given his nickname of “Caligula”, meaning “Little Boots” in Latin, after the small boots he wore as part of his costume.

Caligula gained favour with the Emperor Tiberius so he was a natural successor upon the latter’s death in AD 37. Tiberius had made his grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, joint heir, but the Roman Senate annulled Tiberius’ will and proclaimed Caligula emperor. Gemellus was very young and therefore no obstacle to Caligula’s ambitions, and Caligula had him killed soon after becoming Emperor.

Caligula was a shrewd and popular leader early in his reign, but sickness (possibly encephalitis) changed the direction of his reign to one of insanity and delusional actions. On 24 January AD 41 he was assassinated by several members of his own Praetorian Guard.

World History

Sunday, January 24, 1965. :   Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister who refused to be demoralised by Germany’s Blitz campaign in WWII, dies.

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England. He served with the British Army in India and Sudan, and became nationally known through his writings when, as a journalist, he was captured in South Africa during the Boer War. Churchill became a member of Parliament in 1900, remaining an MP for over 64 years.

Churchill served as Prime Minister of Britain from 1940-45, during WWII. His powerful oratory and refusal to make peace with Hitler were instrumental in rallying and maintaining British resistance to Germany. This was particularly so during the first two years of the war and the onslaught of the Blitz by the German Luftwaffe, which was aimed at crushing British morale. Initially, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would “never surrender”. His government was defeated shortly after the war ended, but he was re-elected in 1951. In 1953 Churchill was knighted, and awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his four-volume work, “A History of the English-speaking Peoples”. He retired as Prime Minister in 1955 but remained in Parliament until 1964. A year later, on 24 January 1965, Churchill died and was laid to rest in the Oxfordshire parish churchyard of Bladon.

World History

Monday, January 24, 1972. :   A Japanese soldier, unaware that World War II ended almost thirty years earlier, is discovered hiding on Guam.

During World War II, in late 1941 the Japanese began their conquest of the Pacific region, hoping to take control from the Indian/Burmese border, south through Malaya, across the islands of Indonesia to New Guinea, northwest to the Gilbert Islands and north to the Kuril Islands off the Japanese coast.

Guam was a US possession and military base bombed by the Japanese the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Within weeks, Guam was taken by the Japanese in their sweep across the western Pacific as it would provide a supply base. It remained under Japanese control until American forces retook the island in August 1944. During the battle for Guam in which around 55,000 American troops took place, over 7,000 Americans and approximately 17,000 Japanese were killed.

On 24 January 1972, a Japanese soldier was discovered hiding on Guam, unaware that the war was over. Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi was found near the Talofofo River by either hunters or local farmers. When the Japanese retreated, Shoichi Yokoi hid, rather than surrender to the enemy forces. For 28 years, he had survived by eating coconuts, breadfruit, papayas, snails, eels and rats, and living in an underground cave within a grove of bamboo. He used his skills as a tailor to create clothing from the fibres of wild hibiscus plants.

Following his discovery in the jungles of Guam, Shoichi Yokoi was discharged and returned to Japan, where he was welcomed as a hero. He later married and, ironically, had his honeymoon on Guam.

World History

Tuesday, January 24, 1984. :   The Apple Macintosh computer is released.

The Macintosh, or Mac for short, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured and marketed by Apple Computer, running the Macintosh operating system, or Mac OS. Released on 24 January 1984; it was the first popular personal computer to use the now-standard graphical user interface (GUI), with windows on a desktop and mouse control instead of the command line interface, standard for the time. The original Macintosh operating system was in use from the time of the release of the original Mac, and underwent many major revisions until the introduction in 1999 of the new BSD Unix-based Mac OS X, featuring improved stability, multitasking and multi-user capability.