Born on this day
Sunday, April 22, 1917. : Australian artist Sidney Nolan is born.
Sidney Nolan, who became one of Australia’s best known painters of the twentieth century, was born in Melbourne on 22 April 1917. He was one of the leading figures of the “Heide Circle” of artists which also included Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Arthur Boyd. He became close friends with arts patrons John and Sunday Reed, living with the Reeds at their home, “Heide”, just outside Melbourne, which has since become the Heide Museum of Modern Art. Here, Nolan began painting his famous “Ned Kelly” series, a series of stylised depictions of bushranger Ned Kelly.
Nolan is known for painting a wide range of personal interpretations of historical and legendary figures, including Burke and Wills, and Eliza Fraser. Nolan captured whole themes in much of his work, as seen in the series Gallipoli, The St Kilda period, Dimboola, Leda and the Swan and the Sonnets. Nolan died on 28 November 1992 in London, where he had lived since the 1950s.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, April 22, 1788. : Governor Arthur Phillip sets out to explore Sydney Harbour.
Captain Arthur Phillip was Governor of the colony of New South Wales, the first settlement of Europeans on Australian soil. Knowing that the colony would need to grow its own food in order to succeed, Phillip suggested that convicts with experience in farming, building and crafts be included in the First Fleet, but his proposal was rejected. Thus, he faced many obstacles in his attempts to establish a self-sufficient colony, including the fact that British farming methods, seeds and implements were unsuitable for use in the different climate and soil.
On 22 April 1788, less than three months after the arrival of the First Fleet to Australia, Phillip set out to explore Sydney Harbour, in search of more land suitable for settlement. Together with eleven men and enough provisions for six days, Phillip travelled as far as he could by boat up Sydney Harbour, tracing the Parramatta River to the point where Parramatta itself would be established six months later, as Rose Hill. The party then spent four days travelling overland towards the Blue Mountains. Further progress was halted by ravines and untraversable countryside, and insufficient supplies, and Phillip returned to Sydney Cove determined to send out further exploration parties.
Australian History
Friday, April 22, 1887. : A cyclone hits near Broome, Western Australia, killing 140.
Australia’s north-western coast is located in one of the most cyclone-prone areas of its coastline. The pearling industry developed in the region in the late 1800s, and pearling luggers populated the waters off the town of Broome. Many fleets of pearlers were lost to cyclones over several decades.
When an unnamed cyclone hit on 22 April 1887, a pearling fleet bore the brunt of the storm; thirteen vessels were destroyed and 140 people killed. Eighty Mile Beach (some sources say Ninety Mile Beach), near Broome, was littered with bodies and debris washed up from the battered fleet.
World History
Tuesday, April 22, 1834. : The island of St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean becomes a British Crown Colony.
St Helena is an island measuring approximately 16km by 8 km, with a total area of 122 km2. It is located in the south Atlantic Ocean, some 2000 km off the west coast of Africa, and regarded as one of the world’s most isolated islands.
St Helena was originally discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, after which it became an important stopover for ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa. In 1658, English joint-stock and trading company, the East India Company, was granted a charter by political leader Oliver Cromwell to govern St Helena. English settlers came to the island in 1659, establishing plantations with the use of slaves from Africa.
The island is perhaps best known for being the location to which self-proclaimed Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, was exiled until his death in 1821. During this time, St Helena was still a possession of the East India Company, but the British government maintained law and order. Following Napoleon’s death, authority on the island reverted to the East India Company.
On 22 April 1834, control of Saint Helena was passed from the East India Company to the British Crown, meaning that the island became a crown colony. Many long-term inhabitants left due to administrative cost-cutting, while trade routes moved away from the island with the development of steam ships which did not depend on trade winds. St Helena was used to intern around 6000 prisoners from the Boer War in 1900 and 1901, but from an all-time high population of 9,850 in 1901, the number of permanent residents on St Helena has now dwindled to around 4,250 inhabitants.
World History
Wednesday, April 22, 1970. : The first annual “Earth Day” is held.
Earth Day is an annual day observed in over 175 countries, designed to increase people’s awareness and appreciation of the natural environment. The concept of Earth Day was developed by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in response to the devastation caused by the widespread 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Senator Nelson used the ideas from student anti-Vietnam war movements which organised teach-ins to call for an “environmental teach-in”. This event, which became the first annual Earth Day, was held on 22 April 1970.
Nelson first conceived the idea in September 1969 after he was made aware of the environmental disaster of the Californian oil spill. The concept of a national environmental teach-in was spread to college and university campuses across the US, where student organisers took up the challenge to educate others about the dangers to the environment posed by modern society. An estimated 20 million people participated that first year. For the first two decades, the movement was restricted to the US, but in 1990, it was taken abroad to 144 other countries.
There was, in fact, another Earth Day which preceded the inaugural annual observance. On 21 March 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, San Francisco and several other cities celebrated Earth Day. This event was said to have been pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. However, the scale of the Earth Day held a month later eclipsed McConnell’s event.
World History
Saturday, April 22, 2000. : Six year old Cuban refugee, Elian Gonzalez, is seized by armed federal agents at his relatives’ home in Florida.
Each year, thousands of refugees leave Cuba and attempt to cross to Florida, USA, in unsuitable vessels. Many such attempts result in the deaths of the refugees, but few result in the notoriety gained by the case of Elian Gonzales. In November 1999, a young Cuban mother and ten others died making the crossing, but her six-year-old son, Elian Gonzalez, together with three other survivors, floated safely in to the Florida coast on an inner tube. The boy, staying with his mother’s relatives in Florida, became the centre of an intense custody dispute as his father sought to bring Elian back to Cuba.
On the morning of 22 April 2000, around two dozen US federal agents broke down the door of the house where Elian was staying and seized the boy. The raid was ordered after negotiations failed with Elian’s relatives, and crowds gathered outside the house to prevent Elian from being taken. Outrage followed the publication of a photograph showing a terrified Elian and a caretaker hiding in a closet while a masked agent pointed a gun in their direction. Following a series of court hearings, Elian returned to Cuba with his father in June 2000. He was believed to settle back into life in the small town of Cardenas, in central Cuba.