Australian Explorers

Sunday, April 21, 1861. :   Explorers Burke, Wills and King stagger into their base camp at Cooper Creek upon their return from the Gulf of Carpentaria, and find it deserted.

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. Their purpose was to find a route which could pave the way for a new telegraph line to be laid from Darwin to Melbourne, making Melbourne the centre of Australia’s communication with the rest of the world.

The party departed 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 the depot which would serve to offer the necessary provisions for when the men returned from the Gulf. In November 1860, Burke and Wills first reached Cooper Creek, where they established a base camp. 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 mid-December that Burke decided to push on ahead to the Gulf, regardless of the risks. He left stockman William Brahe in charge with instructions that if the party did not return in three months, Brahe was to return to Menindee.

The small party consisting of Burke, Wills, King and Gray finally reached the northern coast in February 1861. After being prevented from seeing the sea by mangroves, the group immediately turned around and began the long and arduous trip back to Cooper Creek – a trip which Gray never completed. The trek to the Gulf and back took over four months, and during that time Gray died. A full day was spent in burying his body.

Finally, on 21 April 1861, the remaining three men staggered back into the base camp at Cooper Creek, and found it deserted. They discovered lettering freshly blazed on the coolibah tree at the depot, giving instructions to dig for the supplies Brahe had left. Among the supplies, they discovered they had missed the relief party by just seven hours – about the amount of time it took to bury Gray.

The tragedy of the situation was that, after digging up the cache, the men then attempted to move on further down Cooper Creek, but failed to leave further messages emblazoned on the Dig tree indicating that his party had returned and were now making for Mt Hopeless. When Brahe returned to check the depot several weeks later, he found no evidence of Burke’s return, and saw no need to dig up the cache beneath the tree. Had he done so, he would have found evidence of Burke and Wills’ return. Shortly after this, Wills returned to the Dig Tree to see whether a rescue party had arrived. Wills buried his journals and a message informing any potential rescue party of his location down the creek, but again failed to leave any message on the Dig Tree.

In the end, both Burke and Wills died. Only King survived, aided by Aborigines. He alone helped to piece together the fateful events of the expedition, and how the parties had missed each other at the base camp.

Australian History

Tuesday, April 21, 1970. :   The Hutt River province in Western Australia secedes from the Commonwealth of Australia.

The Hutt River Province Principality is a large farming property about 595 km north of Perth, Western Australia, and is about 75 square km in size. It was founded on 21 April 1970 by farmer Leonard George Casley when he and his family and associates proclaimed their secession from Western Australia.

The year 1969 saw the climax of a long-running dispute between Casley and the Western Australian government over what Casley believed to be unreasonable wheat quotas which would spell ruin for his farm, family and business. Casley resorted to an apparent provision in British common law which he felt allowed him to secede and declare independence from the Commonwealth of Australia. Casley was elected administrator of the new “sovereign state” by his family and later became the self-styled His Royal Highness Prince Leonard of Hutt. Exports of the principality include wildflowers, agricultural produce, stamps and coins, while tourism is also important to its economy. Although actual residents are very few, it claims to have a world-wide citizenship of 13,000. Neither Australia nor any other nation has acknowledged recognition of the Province publicly.

World History

Thursday, April 21, 1910. :   American author and satirist, Mark Twain, born during the appearance of Halley’s Comet, dies as the comet returns.

American writer Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on 30 November 1835, in Florida, Missouri. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, and later worked as a licensed Mississippi river-boat pilot. Writing from a mixture of experience and imagination, the pseudonym ‘Mark Twain’ was spawned in 1861 when he signed a humorous travel account with that name. He acquired this name as a result of his time as a boat pilot, when a boatman’s call would announce “Mark twain”, meaning that the river was only two fathoms deep, the minimum depth for safe navigation.

Twain is best known for stories such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876), “The Prince And The Pauper” (1881), “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1884), “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” (1889) and “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson” (1894). As well as short stories, speeches, and essays, he penned some autobiographical works, including “The Innocents Abroad” (1869), “A Tramp Abroad” (1880), “Life on the Mississippi” (1883), and “Mark Twain’s Autobiography.” He continued writing under the pseudonym of Mark Twain until his death on 21 April 1910.

When Twain was born, Halley’s Comet could be seen in the sky. A year before his death, Twain commented, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it… The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'”

World History

Sunday, April 21, 1918. :   Notorious German flying ace, the Red Baron, is killed by Australian gunners.

German flying ace, the Red Baron, was born Manfred von Richthofen on 2 May 1892. He joined the army in 1911 and by the time World War 1 began in 1914, he had been promoted to lieutenant. As a German fighter pilot during World War 1, he became the most famous flying ace, shooting down Britain’s leading ace, Major Lanoe Hawker. Flying an aircraft painted bright red, he was known in Germany as “Der Rote Kampfflieger” or “the red fighter pilot”.

Richthofen recorded a total of 80 victories before he was shot down and killed on 21 April 1918 over the Somme Canal in France. Richthofen had been wounded in a crash during combat in July 1918, and after undergoing several operations to remove bone splinters, he was perhaps not as careful as usual. At 11:00am on 21 April, Richthofen was pursuing a Sopwith Camel piloted by Canadian rookie Wilfrid May, when another Canadian pilot, Captain Arthur ‘Roy’ Brown, came after Richthofen. Ignoring the attack, Richthofen chased May right into Allied territory held by Australian troops. The Australians fired skyward, and a single .303 shell pierced the Red Baron’s lungs and heart.

For decades, accounts varied as to who shot down the Red Baron. Initial credit went to Captain Brown, but young Australian stretcher-bearer Ted Smout, one of the first on the scene, was convinced it was an Australian bullet that downed Richthofen. He recalled the Red Baron being removed from his aircraft, and uttering “Kaputt” (broken) just before he died.

On an aside, Ted Smout, who was Australia’s 6th last surviving World War I veteran, was honoured with a bridge named after him. The 2.7km long Ted Smout Memorial Bridge parallels the Houghton Highway bridge linking Brisbane and Redcliffe.

World History

Friday, April 21, 1989. :   Student protests in China begin, ultimately leading to the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Tiananmen Square is a large open area in central Beijing, China. The world’s largest public square, it contains the monument to the heroes of the revolution, the Great Hall of the People, the museum of history and revolution, and the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. As such, many rallies, protests and demonstrations have been held in the square; the most notorious were, arguably, the student protests of 1989 which led to the Tiananmen Square Massacre on 4 June 1989.

Hu Yaobang, a leader of the People’s Republic of China, was a dedicated reformer who was deposed from his position. His ideas of freedom of speech and freedom of press greatly influenced the students. Following his death, approximately 100,000 students gathered at Tiananmen Square on 21 April 1989 to commemorate Hu and to protest China’s autocratic communist government. When protestors were denied their demands to meet with Premier Li Peng, students all over China boycotted the universities, marching to Tiananmen Square and calling for democratic reforms. The demonstrators were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants, filling the square with over a million people.

The government declared martial law in Beijing in May, and on 3 June, troops and tanks were sent in to retake the square. On 4 June 1989, between 2,000 and 4,000 students were massacred by the tanks and infantry, although exact figures have never been determined due to suppression by the Chinese government. Many protestors were also arrested and executed in the months following the protests. The event sparked international condemnation of China, and harsh economic sanctions were imposed on China until the nation released some of those who were arrested.