Born on this day
Wednesday, March 3, 1847. : Inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, is born.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 3 March 1847. It was whilst living in Canada, from 1870, that Bell pursued his interest in telephony and communications. He moved to the US shortly afterwards to continue developing his inventions. On 7 March 1876, he was granted US Patent Number 174,465 for “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically … by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound”, i.e. the telephone. Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877. He also collaborated with other inventors to produce such items as the phonograph, photophone (a device enabling the transmission of sound over a beam of light), metal detector and hydrofoil.
Bell died on 2 August 1922, and two days later, his death was marked by a minute’s silence from the ringing of telephones all over his adopted country.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, March 3, 1818. : Hamilton Hume and James Meehan set out to find an overland route from Sydney to Jervis Bay.
One of Australia’s few native-born explorers, Hamilton Hume, was born at Parramatta in New South Wales on 18 June 1797. Living in the young colony and working with his father on his farm at Appin, Hume developed excellent bush skills. Thus, he was one of a small party sent by Governor Macquarie in 1818 to find an overland route south from Sydney to Jervis Bay. With him was ex-convict James Meehan, who had been transported to New South Wales for his part in the Irish uprising of 1798. Meehan’s skills became apparent when he was assigned to the Survey Department, and he was pardoned and appointed Deputy Surveyor-General. Also in the party was prominent pastoralist Charles Throsby.
Hume and Meehan, together with a party of convict helpers, set out from the Liverpool area on 3 March 1818. They measured the distance they travelled by having a convict push a ‘perambulator’, or measuring wheel. The party split along the way, and Throsby headed south, fording the Shoalhaven River west of where Nowra now stands, and arriving at Jervis Bay a month later. Meehan and Hume headed upstream along the Shoalhaven Gorge, but were forced further southwest to Lake Bathurst, south of today’s Goulburn. Returning to Sydney, they discovered the rich, fertile land of the Goulburn Plains, named by Meehan after Henry Goulburn, Colonial Under-Secretary.
Australian History
Friday, March 3, 1837. : The city of Melbourne, Australia, is named.
The first settlers to Australia’s southern mainland coast were Lieutenant David Collins and a group of officers, convicts and free settlers who, in 1803, first landed where Sorrento now stands. Lack of fresh water and suitable timber doomed the colony to a short-lived existence, and within a few months, Collins had transferred the entire settlement across Bass Strait to Van Diemen’s Land, and established Hobart on the Derwent River.
The next settler in the district was John Batman. On 6 June 1835, Batman signed a ‘treaty’ with the Aborigines, giving him free access to almost 250,000 hectares of land. In August that year, Governor Bourke declared Batman’s treaties invalid, and issued a proclamation warning off him and his syndicate as trespassers on crown land. Despite the attempts at government intervention, the foundling settlement of Melbourne remained, and flourished.
The new township was surveyed and named as Melbourne on 3 March 1837, in honour of the British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.
Australian History
Friday, March 3, 1854. : Australia’s first telegraph line is opened.
Canadian-born Samuel Walker McGowan is credited with bringing the telegraph technology to Australia. Lured by the opportunities opened up by the discovery of gold in Victoria, McGowan arrived in Melbourne in 1853. Although isolated from telegraph technology in America, and limited by lack of equipment and suitable component manufacturing firms in Australia, McGowan succeeded in opening up the first telegraph line in Australia on 3 March 1854. It ran from Melbourne to Williamstown.
Australian History
Thursday, March 3, 1892. : Perth’s first St Johns First Aid training course is held.
The Order of St John is a British royal order of chivalry which can trace its origins back to the Knights Hospitaller in the Middle Ages. It is well known for its health organisations such as the St John Ambulance association, which was established in 1877 in England. The purpose of the Association was to promote and develop effective first aid training in response to increased numbers of accidents as society became more industrialised. Training centres were opened in major railway centres and mining areas in English colonies, including Australia.
Mathieson Henry Jacoby was an Adelaide-born worker for the Telegraph Department in South Australia who moved to Western Australia in 1891. Jacoby had already obtained a St John First Aid certificate in Adelaide, and soon after his arrival in Perth he sought permission to establish a St John Ambulance Association centre. Once the state branch of the St John Ambulance was founded, with Dr George McWilliams as the inaugural President, Jacoby and McWilliams encouraged a number of Perth doctors to promote and teach first aid in the colony. The opening class of St John First Aid training, which was attended by 20 police, 10 railway workers and two other local community members, was held on 3 March 1892.
Australian History
Tuesday, March 3, 1942. : Japanese bomb the quiet coastal towns of Broome and Wyndham, in Australia’s northwest.
In WWII, the first real attack of the Japanese on an Australian base occurred with the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942. That attack scattered the naval base at Darwin and demoralised Australians. Darwin was bombed by the Japanese a total of sixty times between 19 February 1942 and 12 November 1943.
Shortly after this initial attack, the northwest coastal towns of Broome and Wyndham also came under fire. On 3 March 1942, a squadron of nine Japanese Zero Fighter planes swept over Broome, opening fire at the busy harbour and the aerodrome. At the time, the port in Broome was crowded with Dutch refugees fleeing the Japanese invasion of the Netherlands East Indies. Most of these were women and children who had been evacuated to Broome and were preparing to fly south to safety.
It is estimated that over one hundred people were killed and forty wounded in the Broome attack, a significant loss in a small town. Very low tides at the Broome jetty still reveal remains of Dutch sea planes bombed by the Japanese, and the wrecks of the flying boats can be seen on the muddy sea floor of Roebuck Bay. At the same time Broome was being bombed, eight Japanese fighters hit Wyndham, but the air raid was focused on the town’s aerodrome.
Special Days
Saturday, March 3, 1973. : Today is World Wildlife Day.
World Wildlife Day celebrates the world’s plants and wild animals. Designed to raise awareness of our unique wildlife and the world’s biological diversity, the day encourages people to get to know the animal and plant species under threat in their area or country, to find out more about the threats and challenges these species and their habitats face, and what can be done to conserve them.
The need to protect endangered species throughout the world was highlighted in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN (The International Union for Conservation of Nature). Ten years later, on 3 March 1973, the original resolution was agreed to and signed by representatives of 80 countries in Washington DC after many years of drafting the text of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
On 20 December 2013, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 3 March as World Wildlife Day. This annual event is now considered to be the most important global celebration committed to preserving wildlife.