Australian History
Saturday, March 8, 1902. : The first test to pump water through the most difficult section of the Golden Pipeline to the Western Australian goldfields is successfully carried out.
The goldfields of Western Australia, discovered in 1893, are located in one of the world’s most isolated and inhospitable areas of the world’s driest hot continent. Waterways in the west are limited to coastal areas. When people began flocking to the goldfields in their thousands, the need for clean water to be readily available increased dramatically. Premier John Forrest called on the services of CY O’Connor, an engineer he had recruited to build Fremantle Harbour, and to improve the operations of the government railways. Charles Yelverton O’Connor, born on 11 January 1843 in Ireland, had arrived in Perth, Western Australia in 1891 after having been offered the position of Engineer-in-Chief by Sir John Forrest. He had proposed and delivered a bold plan for a safe harbour at Perth, and his work in the railways was underway. His next project was to convey water to the goldfields which lay approximately 600 km east of Perth.
An intelligent visionary and meticulous planner, 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 Coolgardie via a series of 8 pumping stations. The pipeline, a massive engineering feat, 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. The design of the pipe allowed for a heavier, more durable steel to be used, and prior to leaving the factory, each pipe was pressure tested to 400 psi. To protect the pipes, they were coated in a mixture of asphalt and coal-tar, and impregnated with sand. The pipes were then transported by train to unloading points alongside the route of the pipeline, where gangs of workers vied with each other to quickly unload them, allowing for a speedy turnaround of the locomotives. As time progressed, the gangs became quicker and more experienced at laying the pipes and caulking them, a process which was speeded up significantly after a Perth company invented an electric caulking machine.
On 8 March 1902, the first successful preliminary pumping test of the water main over the most difficult part of the pipeline was undertaken. This was over a distance of six miles, the equivalent of 9.6 km. By this stage, O’Connor’s greatest supporter, John Forrest, had left the state government and entered Federal Parliament, and O’Connor was left defenceless against the detractors who doubted his skill. Two days after the successful test, O’Connor committed suicide on the beach near Fremantle. The entire pipeline was opened in January 1903, and remains in use today, a lasting legacy for a man whose vision was ahead of his detractors at the time.
Australian History
Thursday, March 8, 1973. : 15 people are killed in a firebomb attack on the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane, Australia.
The Whiskey Au Go-Go nightclub was located in the inner Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley. On 8 March 1973, two drums of petrol were ignited in the foyer of the nightclub, causing a fireball and the release of deadly gases. Grease was smeared on the door handles to prevent patrons from escaping. Fifteen people were killed in what was Australia’s worst mass murder at that time.
James Finch and John Stuart were gunmen in the underworld that was trying to control prostitution and gambling in Brisbane at the time. The two men were arrested but staunchly protested their innocence, blaming corrupt police for framing them. Both men were convicted; ultimately, Stuart died on New Year’s Day 1979, while Finch was paroled fifteen years later, in 1988, and deported back to England, his country of birth. Once safely in England, Finch then declared he was indeed guilty of the murders.
World History
Wednesday, March 8, 1702. : William III of England, also known as William of Orange, dies after being thrown from his horse.
William III of England was born on 14 November 1650, in The Hague, Netherlands. He became the Sovereign Prince of Orange at his birth because his father died of smallpox eight days before he was born. Known by many titles including William III of England, William II of Scotland and William of Orange, he was King of England and Ireland from 13 February 1689, and King of Scotland from 11 April 1689. As a Protestant, William participated in many wars against the powerful Roman Catholic King of France, Louis XIV.
After James II of England ascended the throne in 1685, the English feared that the king’s policies were directed too much towards restoring the power of the Roman Catholic church. In June 1688, a group of political figures known as the “Immortal Seven” secretly invited William to bring an army of liberation to England. William and a force of about 15,000 men landed at southwest England on 5 November 1688. James, his support base dissolved, was allowed to escape to France, and William had no wish to make him a martyr for Roman Catholicism. Whilst the Scottish parliament accepted the new rulers, Ireland, being mostly Catholic, remained loyal to the deposed king and had to be taken by force. In 1690 William led the army that defeated James and his Irish partisans at the Battle of the Boyne, and members of Parliament accepted him in order to restore their own power.
King William died on 8 March 1702, five days after a riding accident. Whilst riding in the Park at Hampton Court, his horse stumbled on a molehill and the King was thrown. As he left no heirs, the crown passed to Anne, second daughter of King James II of England.
World History
Friday, March 8, 1782. : The Gnadenhutten Massacre of Christian Indians occurs in Pittsburgh, USA.
During the American War of Independence, the Delaware, or Lenape, Indians who lived in the Ohio Country were divided into three main groups. Some decided to fight against the Americans, while others were sympathetic to the United States, signing a treaty with the Americans in 1778 through which they hoped to establish the Ohio Country as an American Indian state within the new United States. The third group had converted to Christianity, and lived in several nearby villages run by Moravian missionaries.
American Indians tended to be viewed with suspicion, as there were some violent tribes that had engaged in the killing of settlers. In September 1781, British allied Indians, mainly Wyandots and Delawares, forcibly removed the Christian Indians and the white missionaries from the Moravian villages, relocating them to a new village known as Captive Town on the Sandusky River. Two missionaries were suspected of providing military intelligence to the American army at Fort Pitt and tried for treason, but ultimately acquitted. The Christian Indians were left to starve at Captive Town, and in February 1782, over 100 of them returned to their old villages in order to harvest the crops they had been forced to leave behind.
Early in March 1782, a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounded up the Christian Indians and accused them of taking part in the ongoing raids into Pennsylvania, a charge which the Indians truthfully denied. The Pennsylvanians held a council, and voted to kill them all anyway. On 8 March 1782, 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children were murdered, scalped, their bodies heaped into the mission buildings, and the town burned to the ground. The other abandoned Moravian towns were then burned as well. Two Indian boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. Although there was some talk of bringing the killers to justice, no criminal charges were ever filed.
World History
Thursday, March 8, 1906. : The US Army massacres 600 innocent villagers in the Philippines.
In December 1898, the US purchased the Philippines and other territories from Spain at the Treaty of Paris for 20 million US dollars, after the US defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. The US government intended to make the Philippines an American colony. The Filipinos, who had fought for their independence from Spain since 1896 and had even fought alongside the Americans in their war against Spain, felt betrayed by their former allies. Tensions escalated into war between America and the Philippines, during which it is estimated that 250,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos, both military and civilian, were killed.
One of the greatest atrocities after the war was the Moro Crater Massacre, which occurred on 8 March 1906. Filipinos had continued to rebel against American authority and groups had been suppressed throughout the islands. A tribe of 600 Moros, including women and children, had fortified themselves in the crater of an extinct volcano near Jolo, sheltering from the American troops. 540 soldiers fired upon the Moros who were armed with nothing more than their knives: at the end of the day, every single one of them had been slain, while fifteen American soldiers had been lost.