Born on this day
Thursday, February 11, 1847. : Thomas Edison, the American inventor who, singly or jointly, held a world record 1,093 patents for inventions, is born.
Thomas Alva Edison was born on 11 February 1847 in Milan, Ohio, USA. Childhood illness meant that he was a slow starter and easily distracted in his schooling. After his teacher described him as “addled”, his mother, a former schoolteacher herself, took charge of her son’s education, stimulating his curiosity and desire to experiment.
He began selling newspapers on the railroad at age 12, and learned how to operate a telegraph. In 1868, his first invention was an electric vote-recording machine. In 1869, he made improvements on the stock-ticker. The invention which first gained Edison fame was the phonograph in 1877, but in 1876 he had moved his laboratory to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he invented the first prototype of a commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb, in 1879. By the late 1880s he made motion pictures. Edison was a prolific inventor, and he became known as “The Wizard of Menlo Park”. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial research laboratory, and developed electric power from central generating stations. By the time he died in 1931, he had registered 1093 patents.
Australian Explorers
Monday, February 11, 1861. : Burke and Wills reach the northern coast but are unable to actually reach the sea, due to mangrove swamps.
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 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. 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 16 that Burke decided to push on ahead to the Gulf, regardless of the risks.
On 11 February 1861, a small party consisting of Burke, Wills, King and 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. Burke and Wills themselves perished in mid 1861, and only King survived to tell the tale of their journey.
Australian History
Monday, February 11, 1788. : The first criminal court session is held in the penal colony of New South Wales.
The First Fleet of convicts to Australia arrived in January 1788. Prior to the Fleet leaving England, British authorities saw that a judicial system in New South Wales to deal with criminal matters would be required. Thus, the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction was established in 1787 under the auspices of the First Charter of Justice in the British Empire of New South Wales. The formal proclamation of the Act of Parliament and the First Charter of Justice which Governor Arthur Phillip read out to his audience of convicts and marines two weeks after the Fleet’s arrival established the jurisdiction of the colony from Cape York in the north to the southernmost tip of Van Diemen’s Land. This event also established the colony’s first courts.
The first criminal court session was held in the new colony on 11 February 1788. During the proceedings, Samuel Barsby, whose original death sentence had been changed to transportation, was sentenced to 150 lashes for abuse and striking Marines. Thomas Hill, a “leather breeches maker” who had been transported for stealing a silver watch with a value of 20 shillings, was sentenced to 8 days confinement in irons on a small rocky island at the head of the cove for stealing biscuit from another convict.
The Court of Criminal Jurisdiction was superseded by the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1824.
Australian History
Monday, February 11, 1867. : The ship ‘Zanoni’ capsizes in the relatively sheltered waters of Gulf St Vincent.
In the middle of Gulf St Vincent, South Australia, not far from Ardrossen on the Yorke Peninsula, lies a shipwreck. Covered by about 18 metres of water, the ‘Zanoni’ is regarded as one of the best-preserved sailing shipwrecks in Australian waters. It capsized so suddenly that the crew had no time to salvage any possessions or equipment.
The ‘Zanoni’ was a 338 ton, three masted barque, not yet two years old. She had been built in Liverpool, England, and made her maiden voyage to South Australia, with a load of sugar from Mauritius. On the morning of 11 February 1867, she departed Port Wakefield in fine weather, bound for London with a cargo of 15 tons of bark and 4025 bags of wheat. Mid-afternoon, the barque was hit by a sudden squall which came over the gulf from the west. ‘Zanoni’ was tossed on her beams and overturned, sinking within five minutes. The crew swam to the lifeboat which had been thrown clear, and no lives were lost.
It has remained something of a mystery why a solid ship could have been so easily sunk in the fairly sheltered waters of Gulf St Vincent. What is even more intriguing is why the Marine Board and other searches conducted failed to find any trace of the vessel when its approximate location was known. It was only in April 1983 that the shipwreck was finally located.
World History
Sunday, February 11, 1990. : Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid campaigner and the first democratically-elected President of South Africa, is freed after 27 years in jail.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918. Rolihlahla Mandela was seven years old when he became the first member of his family to attend school: it was there that he was given the English name “Nelson” by a Methodist teacher.
In his university days, Mandela became a political activist against the white minority government’s denial of political, social, and economic rights to South Africa’s black majority. He became a prominent anti-apartheid activist of the country, and was involved in underground resistance activities. Although interred in prison in South Africa from 1962 to 1990 for his resistance activities, including sabotage, Mandela continued to fight for the rights of the South African blacks. On 11 February 1990, Mandela gained his freedom, thanks to sustained campaigning by the African National Congress, and subsequent international pressure. He and State President F.W. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mandela was elected to the Presidency of South Africa in 1994 and retired in 1999.