Australian Explorers
Tuesday, April 27, 1802. : Matthew Flinders climbs Arthur’s Seat in Victoria.
Arthur’s Seat is a low but striking hill on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. Located 75 kilometres southeast of the city of Melbourne, Arthur’s seat rises to a height of 305 metres above sea level. The hill was named by Acting Lieutenant John Murray in January 1802, after Arthur’s Seat Hill in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Captain Matthew Flinders was famous for his circumnavigation and charting of the entire Australian continent in 1802-1803. Entering Port Phillip Bay six weeks after John Murray, Matthew Flinders climbed Arthur’s seat on 27 April 1802. From the summit, he could view the entire Bay, and was impressed by its vastness, stating “even at this elevation its boundary to the northward could not be distinguished”. Following this, Flinders spent the next three days exploring Port Phillip Bay in his boat.
Arthur’s seat is now a major tourist attraction on the Mornington Peninsula, and offers a chairlift to the summit as a unique alternative to the winding road that ascends the hill.
Australian History
Saturday, April 27, 1968. : The first Kentucky Fried Chicken in Australia opens.
Kentucky Fried Chicken, now commonly known as KFC, was begun by Colonel Sanders. Harland Sanders’s father died when he was young, and his mother had to work to support her children, so Sanders learned to cook for his family. Through working a series of jobs, Sanders gained the finances to acquire his own service station in Corbin, Kentucky, where he began to cook chicken for patrons. As his popularity grew, he was employed as a chef in a motel and restaurant, where he began perfecting the recipe that would eventually become a household name. He used the same 11 herbs and spices which are used in KFC today, and his use of a pressure cooker enhanced the process by ensuring quicker cooking, which helped seal in the flavour.
Colonel Sanders opened his first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in the United States in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the 1950s. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet opened in Australia in Guildford, in Sydney’s western suburbs, on 27 April 1968. Since then, the number of KFC stores in Australia has grown to more than 640.
Australian History
Tuesday, April 27, 1971. : Relics from the wreck of The Batavia are recovered in Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia.
The ‘Batavia’ was a ship built in Amsterdam in 1628. On 29 October 1628, the newly built Batavia, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company, sailed from Texel for the Dutch East Indies to obtain spices. During the voyage two of the crew, Jacobsz and Cornelisz, planned to hijack the ship, with the aim of starting a new life somewhere using the supply of trade gold and silver on board. After stopping at South Africa for supplies, Jacobsz deliberately steered the ship off course away from the rest of the fleet, planning to organise a mutiny against the captain at some stage.
In June 1629 the ship struck a reef near Beacon Island, part of the Houtman Abrolhos island group off the Western Australian coast. 40 drowned but most of the crew and passengers were taken to nearby islands in the ship’s longboat and yawl. The captain organised a group of senior officers, crew members and some passengers to search for drinking water on the mainland. Unsuccessful, they then headed north to the city of Batavia, now Jakarta. Their amazing journey took 33 days, and all survived.
After they arrived in Batavia, a rescue attempt was made for the other survivors, but it was discovered that a mutiny had taken place. Cornelisz had planned to hijack any rescue ships, and organised the murder of 125 men, women and children. The rescue party overcame the mutineers, executing the major leaders, including Cornelisz, while others were taken to be tried in Batavia. The mutiny and murders brought infamy to the story of the lost Batavia.
On 27 April 1971, relics and artifacts from the Batavia wreck were salvaged, later followed by the stern of the ship. In 1972 The Netherlands transferred all rights to Dutch shipwrecks on the Australian coasts to Australia. Some of the items, including human remains, which were excavated, are now on display in the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, Australia. Others are held by the Geraldton Region Museum. Included in the relics is a stone arch which was intended to serve as a welcome arch for the city of Batavia.
World History
Wednesday, April 27, 1521. : Sailor and explorer Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines.
Ferdinand Magellan was born in Sabrosa, near Vila Real in the province of Trás-os-Montes, Portugal, in the year 1480. He became the first person to lead an expedition sailing westward from Europe to Asia and to cross the Pacific Ocean.
In 1519, with the intention of reaching the Spice Islands by sailing west around South America, Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean, sailing across it. He did not complete his final voyage as he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines, on 27 April 1521. Magellan did not complete the entire circumnavigation, but as the leader of the expedition, he is credited with being the man who led the first successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth. He died further west than the Spice Islands, which he had visited on earlier voyages, making him one of the first individuals to cross all the longitudes of the globe.
The Strait of Magellan is a navigable, but extremely hazardous, route immediately south of mainland South America, and an important natural passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. Magellan was the first European to navigate the strait in 1520, during his global circumnavigation voyage.
World History
Friday, April 27, 1810. : Beethoven composes the piano piece, ‘Für Elise’.
Ludwig van Beethoven was a brilliant composer born in Bonn, Germany, in December 1770. His talent was recognised when he was very young, but only began to develop fully after he moved to Vienna in 1792 and studied under Joseph Haydn. This marked his “Early” composing career, when he tended to write music in the style of his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart. His first and second symphonies, the first six string quartets, the first two piano concertos, and the first twenty piano sonatas, including the Pathétique and Moonlight, were written in this period.
Beethoven’s “Middle” period of composing began shortly after he was beset with deafness. His music of this period tended towards large-scale works expressing heroism and struggle, and included six symphonies, commencing with the “Eroica”, and including the rich and penetrating Fifth Symphony. It was during this period that Beethoven composed a short, romantic composition, the Bagatelle in A minor, that became known as “Für Elise”. It was written on 27 April 1810 for Therese Malfatti, whom Beethoven was considering marrying at that time – a marriage which never eventuated. There is some debate as to whether the name Elise was simply a nickname for Therese, or whether the publisher could not read Beethoven’s handwriting.
World History
Tuesday, April 27, 1937. : The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is completed.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and a portion of the south-facing Marin County headlands near the bayside town of Sausalito.
The bridge, including the approach, spans 2.7 km long; the main span, or distance between the towers, is 1,280 m, and the clearance below the bridge is 67 m at mean high water. Each of the two towers rises 230m above the water. The diameter of the main suspension cables is 0.91m, just under a metre. The Golden Gate Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in the world when it was built in 1937. Begun in 1933, it was completed on 27 April 1937 and opened to pedestrians on 27 May 1937. The following day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington DC, signalling the start of vehicular traffic over the Bridge. During the bridge’s construction, a safety net was set up beneath it, significantly reducing the expected number of deaths for such a project. 11 men were killed from falls during construction, and approximately 19 men were saved by the safety net. 10 of the deaths occurred near completion, when the net itself failed under the stress of a scaffold fall.
An internationally recognised symbol of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge has been declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.