Born on this day
Tuesday, January 29, 1850. : Lawrence Hargrave, Australian inventor of the box kite, is born.
Lawrence Hargrave was born on 29 January 1850 at Greenwich, England, but emigrated to Australia in 1865. He took on an engineering apprenticeship in Sydney, and was always interested in a variety of experiments, particularly those to do with flying machines. Hargrave invented the box kite in 1893, and used it to further his aerodynamic studies.
On 12 November 1894, Hargrave linked four of his kites together, added a sling seat, and flew about five metres in the air on a beach near Wollongong, New South Wales. In doing so, he demonstrated that it was possible for man to build, and be transported in, a safe and stable flying machine. His radical design for a wing that could support far more than its own weight opened up opportunities for other inventors to develop the design for commercial purposes. Hargrave never patented his designs, so did not receive the recognition he deserved.
Australian History
Wednesday, January 29, 1817. : NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie signs the charter to incorporate Australia’s first bank, the Bank of New South Wales.
Westpac Banking Corporation, more commonly known as simply Westpac, was Australia’s first bank. Governor Lachlan Macquarie signed the charter incorporating the Bank of New South Wales on 29 January 1817, urged by New South Wales Deputy Judge-Advocate John Wylde and supported by Judge Barron Field. The purpose of the charter was to reassure the prospective proprietors of the limitations of their liability. The charter was then delivered to the directors of the bank in March 1817.
The Bank of New South Wales was founded in Sydney as the first bank in Australia on 8 April 1817. The following year, in March 1818, the charter was dismissed as null and void by the Crown’s law officers in England, as Macquarie did not have the legal powers to grant it. The point was moot: by this stage, the bank had been fully operational for almost a year. Its presence had boosted the colony’s finances considerably.
Branches were initially restricted to the colony of New South Wales, but were later opened at Moreton Bay, Brisbane, in 1850, Victoria in 1851, New Zealand in 1861, South Australia in 1877, Western Australia in 1883, Fiji in 1901, and Papua New Guinea and Tasmania in 1910. In 1982, the Bank of New South Wales merged with the Commercial Bank of Australia to form the Westpac Banking Corporation, which derived its name from the fact that its major operations are in the Western Pacific.
Australian History
Tuesday, January 29, 1895. : It is agreed at a conference of Australian Premiers that forming a Federal Constitution is a priority.
Prior to 1901, Australia was made up of six self-governing colonies; New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. Despite achieving statehood, each of these colonies remained under British rule from the time the First Fleet landed in 1788, until 1901. Numerous politicians and influential Australians through the years had pushed for federation of the colonies, and self-government that would ensue.
Starting with the Australasian Inter-Colonial Conference in 1883, the Federation movement gained impetus, continuing to grow with successive Federal Councils in 1886, 1888 and 1889. Sir Henry Parkes’s Tenterfield oration in October 1889 spurred further action, and in February 1890, the Australasian Federation Conference was held in Melbourne, attended by representatives of each of Australia’s six colonies, and New Zealand.
On 29 January 1895, the Conference of Premiers met in Hobart, Tasmania, on the initiative of George Reid, Premier of New South Wales. At this conference, it was agreed that Federation “was the great and pressing question of Australian politics,” and that “the framing of a Federal Constitution” was an urgent duty. This conference set the scene for further conferences to draft the new Federal Constitution prior to Federation.
Australian History
Tuesday, January 29, 1957. : Danish architect Joern Utzon is named as the winner of the competition to find a designer for the new Sydney Opera House.
The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, sits on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour. Designed by Danish architect Joern Utzon in 1955, it has become one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. NSW Premier at the time, Joseph Cahill, called for designs for a dedicated opera house, and it was Utzon who was announced as the winner from among 233 entries, on 29 January 1957. Utzon arrived in Sydney to oversee the project in 1957 and work commenced on the opera House in 1959. The building was completed in 1973, at a cost of $102 million, and formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973.
World History
Friday, January 29, 1886. : Karl Benz patents the internal combustion engine.
Karl Friedrich Benz was born on 25 November 1844, in Baden Muehlburg, Germany, now part of Karlsruhe. The son of an engine driver, Benz went to school at the Karlsruhe grammar school and Karlsruhe Polytechnic. Benz started Benz & Company in 1883 in Mannheim to produce industrial engines. It was there that he invented and patented the two-stroke engine. He was later influenced by Gottlieb Daimler, who inspired Benz to develop a four-stroke engine suitable for powering a four-wheeled horseless carriage. He demonstrated the first gasoline car powered by an internal-combustion engine in Mannheim, Germany, on 3 July 1886 after patenting it on 29 January 1886. The vehicle had three wheels, an electric ignition, differential gears and was water-cooled. It reached a top speed of 10 kilometres per hour.
By 1900, Benz & Company, the company started by Benz, was the world’s largest manufacturer of automobiles. In 1926, the Benz and Daimler firms merged to form Daimler-Benz, which produces the Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Benz died in 1929.
World History
Wednesday, January 29, 1986. : The Height 611 UFO incident occurs in the former USSR.
Stories of UFOs have abounded in one form or another for centuries. In all the continents of the world, people can claim to have seen strange lights in the sky. The Height 611 UFO incident was one in which the UFO was said to have crashed on the Earth.
Around 8:00pm on 29 January 1986, residents of Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, USSR reported seeing a reddish ball which appeared about half the size of the visible moon. Initially, the disc flew parallel to the ground at an elevation of 700 to 800 metres, and silently, at a speed determined later to be around 54 kilometres per hour. It then moved towards Height 611, also known as Mount Izvestkovaya, which abuts the town. Upon reaching the mountain, its elevation suddenly declined, and it fell into the slopes. Eye witness versions of the fall differ: some stated the UFO fell with a flash, while others claimed the UFO’s light was like a forest fire which lasted for about an hour.
Several days later, a group of UFO enthusiasts investigated the site where the UFO landed. They located a blackened and burnt landing ground where the rocks were coated with a dark filmy substance with shiny lead, iron and silicon drops. Chemical analysis of the site showed similarities to that left behind in the Tunguska event of 1908, in which forests of trees were flattened by an explosion of unknown origin, possibly the result of meteoroid impact.
Although no definitive conclusion was ever reached regarding the Height 611 incident, similar flying balls were noted in the same area in November 1987, and again in 1989.
New Zealand History
Wednesday, January 29, 1840. : William Hobson arrives in the Bay of Islands to take up his position as the first Governor of New Zealand.
New Zealand is an island country located approximately 2000 km southeast of Australia in the South Pacific. The first people on the islands were Polynesians, arriving from about 1200 onwards. These were the people who developed the Māori culture. The first known Europeans to sight the islands of New Zealand were Dutch trader and explorer Abel Tasman, in 1642, followed by James Cook, over 120 years later. Cook charted and circumnavigated the North and South Islands in 1769 and, in November of that year, claimed New Zealand for Great Britain. This signalled the start of European occupation of the islands.
The first British Governor in New Zealand was William Hobson. Born in 1793 in Waterford, Ireland, Hobson’s career in the Royal Navy began before he was ten years old, when he joined the frigate ‘La Virginie’ with the rank of volunteer, second class. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and working his way up through the naval ranks, he was promoted to Commander in May 1824. In this capacity, he helped to suppress piracy in the Caribbean. In 1836, although on a commission to the East Indies, he was instead ordered to New South Wales to serve under Governor Richard Bourke. Soon after arriving in Australia, he was dispatched to New Zealand when James Busby, the British Resident in the Bay of Islands, communicated his fears to Governor Bourke about unrest between the Māori and the Pakeha, or European settlers. At that time, although New Zealand was not officially a British colony, its European settlers were overseen from New South Wales. This was Hobson’s first visit to New Zealand, and he recommended a treaty with the Māori, imposition of British Law and establishing British sovereignty over the islands.
In 1839, the British government appointed William Hobson as consul and Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand, succeeding Busby. Hobson arrived in the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840. Within days, working with his secretary James Freeman and James Busby, he had drafted the Treaty of Waitangi which eventually led to the establishment of New Zealand as a Colony of the Crown.