Born on this day
Saturday, February 9, 1884. : Arthur Stace, the man who chalked “Eternity” on Sydney footpaths for 37 years, is born.
Arthur Stace was born in Balmain, Sydney, on 9 February 1884. Growing up in a family of alcoholics, he ultimately turned to drink also. He returned from WWI shell-shocked, turning to a life of petty crime and a drinking habit that included cheap methylated spirits. One night, lured by the offer of a free cup of tea and something to eat up at a nearby Church Hall, he found himself at a meeting being conducted by Archdeacon R.B.S. Hammond of St Barnabas’ Church on Broadway. Stace was immediately captivated by the message of Christianity and the model offered by the man proclaiming the message. He was converted that very night.
Shortly after his conversion, Stace was listening to the evangelist John Ridley at the Burton Street Baptist Church. Ridley told of a man who was converted in Scotland through ‘Eternity’ being written on a footpath. Ridley called for someone to write Eternity on the footpaths of Sydney, and Stace knew that this was something he could do for God, to alert people to the condition of their own souls. For 37 years, he chalked ‘Eternity’ on footpaths throughout Sydney in a uniquely copperplate style, vastly different from his own usual scrawled style of writing.
Arthur Stace died on 30 July 1967. Ten years after he died, Ridley Smith, architect of Sydney Square, set the message ETERNITY in letters almost 21cm high in wrought aluminium, near the Sydney Square waterfall. On 1 January 2000, the worldwide telecast of millennium celebrations showed the Sydney Harbour Bridge alight with the word ‘Eternity’ in flowing copperplate, still proclaiming Stace’s message to the world.
Born on this day
Tuesday, February 9, 1897. : Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith is born.
Charles Edward Kingsford Smith, nicknamed ‘Smithy’, was born on 9 February 1897 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Passionately interested in flying and mechanics from an early age, he became one of Australia’s best-known aviators. He completed the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland and the first flight from Australia to New Zealand. In 1930 he flew 16 000 kilometres single-handedly and won the England to Australia air race.
Kingsford Smith is perhaps best known for being the first to cross the Pacific from the United States to Australia. On 31 May 1928, he and his crew left the United States to make the first Trans-Pacific flight to Australia in the Southern Cross, a Fokker FVII-3M monoplane. The flight was in three stages, from Oakland, California to Hawaii, then to Suva, Fiji, and on to Brisbane, where he landed on 8 June 1928. On arrival, he was met by a huge crowd at Eagle Farm Airport, and was feted as a hero. Fellow Australian aviator Charles Ulm was the relief pilot, and the other two crew members were Americans James Warner and Captain Harry Lyon, who took the roles of radio operator, navigator and engineer for the trans-Pacific flight.
Kingsford Smith disappeared in 1935 in the Bay of Bengal whilst flying from England to Australia in the Lady Southern Cross. Wreckage from the aircraft was located off the south coast of Burma eighteen months later, but no evidence of the crew was ever found. Sydney’s major airport was named Kingsford Smith International Airport in his honour. A federal electorate, for the federal parliament of Australia, which encompasses the airport is called Kingsford Smith. His original aircraft, the Southern Cross, is now preserved and displayed in a memorial at the International Terminal at Brisbane Airport. Kingsford Smith Drive in Brisbane passes through the suburb of his birth, Hamilton.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, February 9, 1830. : Captain Sturt discovers Lake Alexandrina, near the mouth of the Murray River.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Drawing on the skills of experienced bushman and explorer Hamilton Hume, Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling.
Pleased with Sturt’s discoveries, Governor Darling then sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined the Darling. In November 1829 Sturt and his party reached the Murrumbidgee. Sturt followed the river in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume), and that the Darling also flowed into the Murray.
Sturt continued to trace the course of the Murray southwards. On 9 February 1830, the whaleboat sailed into what Sturt described as “a beautiful lake … a fitting reservoir for the noble stream that had led us to it”. He had discovered Lake Alexandrina, from which he could see the open sea of the southern coast. Sturt’s discoveries were significant, for they allowed for the development of paddle-steamer transportation of goods and passengers along Australia’s inland waterways.
World History
Monday, February 9, 1942. : The SS Normandie burns and sinks in New York Harbor.
The Normandie, the largest and most luxurious ocean liner on the seas in the 1930s and 40s, was a French ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France. It was launched in 1932 and made its first transatlantic crossing in 1935. Two years later, it was reconfigured with four-bladed propellers, meaning it could cross the Atlantic in under four days.
The breakout of WWII caused the Normandie to be stuck in New York Harbor, placed in custody to protect it from possibly being captured by the Germans, as France had surrendered to Germany. After Pearl Harbor catapulted the USA into the war, the Navy seized the liner and began converting it into a troop ship. On 9 February 1942, during the conversion, sparks from a welding torch ignited a fire in a stack of thousands of life vests that had been stored in the first class dining room. The fire quickly spread, and water being poured from fireboats caused the ship to capsize. Fire damage was too great to salvage the Normandie: in 1946, the once grand and elegant ship was cut up for scrap metal.
World History
Thursday, February 9, 2012. : Kodak announces that it will cease producing digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames.
Kodak is a company with a long association with cameras and photography. Established by George Eastman in 1889, its full name is Eastman Kodak Company. Throughout the 20th century, Kodak dominated the production and sales of photographic film. However, as digital photography expanded in the 1990s, Kodak began to suffer significant declines in its photographic film sales. Competition from Japanese company Fujifilm, together with its strong marketing campaign, also began to impact on Kodak’s market share. Kodak had been somewhat slow to embrace digital photography. Although Kodak itself had invented the core technology used in digital cameras, and had diversified its production line to accommodate new technology, the effect of this decline was so great that, early in 2012, the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, which allows businesses to reorganise while still in control of its business operations. On 9 February 2012, as a cost-saving measure, Kodak announced that it would stop producing digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames, and instead turn its focus to the corporate digital imaging market.
Further measures were undertaken to pull the company from bankruptcy, such as the sale of commercial scanners and kiosk operations. In January 2013, financing was approved by court for the company to emerge from Bankruptcy by mid 2013.
Australian History
Sunday, February 10, 1788. : Reverend Richard Johnson officiates at the first marriage ceremonies in the New South Wales colony.
The First Fleet of convicts to New South Wales consisted of eleven ships. One of these was the ‘Golden Grove’ which carried Reverend Richard Johnson, the first chaplain to the New South Wales colony. The Fleet departed Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787 and arrived in Port Jackson on 26 January 1788.
Within two weeks of the arrival of the First Fleet on Australia’s shores, Johnson was called upon to officiate at the weddings of five couples. The marriage ceremonies were performed on 10 February 1788.
Two of the most notable couples were Henry Kable and Susannah Holmes, and William Bryant and Mary Brand. Making an impression on Governor Arthur Phillip, Henry Kable was promoted to several positions of responsibility, including eventually becoming chief constable. Later he established a successful sealing and whaling business.
The Bryants, on the other hand, became notorious for their daring escape from the colony. Stealing away into one of the ships bound for the new Norfolk Island colony, the Bryants then acquired a compass and maps, stole one of the longboats and sailed for Timor, along with their young son Emmanuel and daughter Charlotte. After being handed over to an English captain and sent to Java, William and his son eventually died from tropical fever, and Charlotte died after she and her mother were sent on a ship back to Sydney. Mary Bryant’s story was reported back in England and, due to extensive public sympathy, Mary was pardoned.