Australian Explorers

Friday, April 17, 1835. :   Richard Cunningham, brother to Allan Cunningham, is killed by Aborigines whilst exploring with Major Mitchell.

Richard Cunningham, younger brother to botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham, was born in Wimbledon, England, on 12 February 1793. He travelled to Sydney, Australia, where he was appointed Colonial Botanist and Superintendent of Botanic Gardens, Sydney, in 1832, a position he held until his death in 1835.

On 7 April 1835, Richard Cunningham accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell on the latter’s second expedition, to prove (or, as Mitchell hoped, to disprove) Sturt’s theory that the Darling River flowed into the Murray. Early in the expedition, on 17 April 1835, Cunningham wandered off from where the party had camped in order to collect botanical specimens, becoming lost in the bush. Mitchell spent nearly a fortnight searching for him until deciding to finally continue with the expedition. After mounted police searched for Cunningham some time after Mitchell returned, it was discovered that Aborigines had tended to the botanist who, suffering from exposure at the time, had become delirious. Thinking he was possessed by evil spirits, the Aborigines killed him.

Australian Explorers

Wednesday, April 17, 1861. :   Charles Gray, of Burke and Wills’s expedition, dies.

Robert O’Hara Burke and William Wills led the expedition that was intended to bring fame and prestige to Victoria: being the first to cross Australia from south to north and back again. They left from Melbourne in August 1860, farewelled by around 15,000 people. The exploration party was very well equipped, and the cost of the expedition almost 5,000 pounds. Because of the size of the exploration party, it was split at Menindee so that Burke could push ahead to the Gulf of Carpentaria with a smaller party. The smaller group went on ahead to establish a depot at Cooper Creek. From here, they made several shorter trips to the north, but were forced back each time by waterless country and extreme temperatures. It was not until December 1860 that Burke decided to push on ahead to the Gulf, regardless of the risks.

The small party consisting of Burke, Wills, ex-soldier John King and middle-aged former seaman Charles Gray, finally reached the northern coast. Crossing extensive marshes, they came to a salt tidal channel surrounded by mangroves, which prevented them from either seeing or reaching the sea. The group immediately turned around and began the long and arduous trip back to Cooper Creek – a trip which Gray never completed. Gray died in the early hours of 17 April 1861, and his companions spent seven hours trying to dig him a shallow grave in the hard ground of the desert. Burke and Wills themselves perished in mid-1861, and only King survived to tell the tale of their journey.

Australian History

Wednesday, April 17, 1935. :   Australian airline Qantas operates its first overseas passenger flight.

Qantas is the name of Australia’s original airline service. The name Qantas was formerly an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”. Qantas was founded in Queensland on 16 November 1920, and operated air mail services subsidized by the Australian government, linking railheads in western Queensland. In 1934, QANTAS Limited and Britain’s Imperial Airways, forerunner of British Airways, formed a new company, Qantas Empire Airways Limited. QEA commenced services between Brisbane and Singapore using de Havilland DH-86 Commonwealth Airliners. On 17 April 1935, the first overseas passenger flight from Brisbane to Singapore was operated in a journey which took four days.

Most of the QEA fleet was taken over by the Australian government for war service between 1939 and 1945, and many of these aircraft were lost in action. After the war, QEA experienced severe financial losses, and the airline was taken over by the government under Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley. In 1967, the name was changed to Qantas Airways Limited.

Australian History

Sunday, April 17, 2005. :   Ownership of a replica of Captain Cook’s famous ship Endeavour is transferred to the Australian Government.

James Cook is known for his exploration of Australia’s eastern coast in 1770, in a ship known as the ‘Endeavour’. The HM Bark Endeavour was an ex-collier purchased by the English navy and converted specifically so it could be used for exploration. It was first launched in 1764 as the Earl of Pembroke. In 1768, it was bought by the British Admiralty to be fitted out for use in a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean, specifically observing the transit of Venus from the best vantage point, which was Tahiti, and to determine whether the great southern land truly existed.

The Endeavour successfully brought Cook to the south Pacific, where he made important observations and recorded new information about the Australian continent. After charting the coast, Cook continued his journey, formally claiming the eastern half of Australia for Great Britain under the name of New South Wales, before eventually returning to England.

The Endeavour was sold in 1775 and served as a collier once more until it was purchased by the French in 1790. Renamed ‘La Liberte’, it was used as a whaling ship until it ran aground off Newport in Rhode Island, in 1793. This may have been the end of the real ‘Endeavour’; however, it was not the end of the Endeavour’s legacy.

During the 1990s, an authentic replica was constructed at Fremantle, Western Australia, and it is considered one of the most historically accurate replicas in the world. Ownership of the ‘Endeavour’ replica was transferred to the Australian Government on 17 April 2005. The ship is usually on display at the Australian National Maritime Museum, on Sydney’s Darling Harbour, but has been sailed for significant events, such as the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2010. Commencing in April 2011, the ship circumnavigated Australia on a historical journey that was completed in May 2012.

World History

Thursday, April 17, 1980. :   Rhodesia, in Africa, gains independence and becomes Zimbabwe.

Rhodesia was the former name of the British colony of Southern Rhodesia in southern Africa, which was governed by a European minority until 1979. The colony was named after Cecil Rhodes, whose British South Africa Company acquired the land in the nineteenth century. In 1953, calls began mounting for independence in many of Britain’s African possessions. Thus, the United Kingdom created the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which consisted of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi respectively).

The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved on 1 January 1964. When Northern Rhodesia was granted independence by Britain in October 1964, the name was changed to Zambia. Southern Rhodesia remained a British colony and became known as Rhodesia. Rhodesia gained internationally recognised independence from Britain in 1980, and became the Republic of Zimbabwe on 17 April 1980.