Australian Explorers
Monday, January 7, 1799. : Bass and Flinders complete their first circumnavigation of Van Diemen’s Land.
Matthew Flinders and George Bass were early sea explorers who charted sections of Australia’s coastline, adding valuable information to the maps of the time. In 1798, Bass explored along the southern coast of what would later become the colony of Victoria. His journeys led him to the belief that Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) was separate from the mainland. Governor Hunter wished for this theory to be proven conclusively, so he commissioned Flinders and Bass to circumnavigate Van Diemen’s Land. The two men set out at dawn in the ‘Norfolk’ on 7 October 1798. Three months later, on 7 January 1799, they were back at Cape Barren Island, having completed their first circumnavigation of Van Diemen’s Land.
Australian Explorers
Sunday, January 7, 1912. : Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson reaches and names Commonwealth Bay on the Antarctic continent.
Australian Antarctic explorer, Douglas Mawson, was born on 5 May 1882, in Yorkshire, but his family emigrated to Australia in 1884. He studied geology at Sydney University, and was appointed geologist to an expedition to the New Hebrides in 1903. After this, he returned to Australia to become a lecturer in petrology and mineralogy at the University of Adelaide in 1905. In 1907, Mawson joined an expedition to Antarctica led by Ernest Shackleton, as a scientific officer, and was one of the first to ascend Mount Erebus and get close to the South magnetic pole. He was offered a place on Robert Scott’s Terra Nova expedition but turned it down to lead the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914, sailing on the “Aurora”.
On 2 December 1911, Mawson departed from Hobert on the “Aurora”, bound for Macquarie Island, a sub-Antarctic island 1500 kilometres south east of Tasmania and 1300 kilometres north of Antarctica. Here, he established a base before leaving on December 23 to explore the Antarctic continent. On 7 January 1912, the Aurora reached a place that Mawson named Commonwealth Bay. A whaleboat was sent ashore on December 8, and the point at which they landed, Cape Denison, was found to harbour an abundance of Antarctic wildlife, including Weddell seals and Adelie penguins.
Australian History
Thursday, January 7, 1965. : The first hydrofoil ferry, the MV Manly, begins operating in Sydney Harbour.
Australia’s very first ferry service began operating in Sydney Harbour in October 1789. It was a small, locally built wooden hoy called the “Rose Hill Packet”, or more commonly known as ‘the Lump’. Powered by sails and oars, the ferry operated between Sydney Cover and Rose Hill, now Parramatta. Ferry services were vital during Australia’s colonial years, and have continued to play an important part in Australia’s major cities as new technology has brought improvements to design, speed and reliability of ferries.
Hydrofoil technology was one such improvement. Hydrofoils are wing-like structures mounted beneath the hull of watercraft which lift the boat out of the water during forward motion, reducing hull drag and increasing the boat’s speed. Australia’s first hydrofoil ferry was the MV Manly which began operating in Sydney Harbour on 7 January 1965. Introduced by Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company, it was constructed by Hitachi in Japan under licence from Sachsenberg Supramar. The MV Manly had an aluminium hull and foils made from tempered steel. The passenger service operated between Circular Quay and Manly, taking 17 minutes to complete its run –about half the time of other ferries.
The hydrofoils proved to be mechanically unreliable, and expensive to run. They were replaced by JetCats in the early 1990s.
Australian History
Friday, January 7, 1983. : Hans Tholstrup completes the first solar-powered crossing of Australia.
Hans Tholstrup is an enterprising Danish-born environmentalist who achieved a milestone in solar travel on 7 January 1983. On that day, Tholstrup and Larry Perkins became the first solar car racers to complete a Solar Trek from Perth to Sydney, Australia. The drive from Perth took 20 days, averaging 23 kilometres per hour in the “Quiet Achiever”, a home-built bathtub-shaped machine. This crossing was achieved in half the time of the crossing attained by the first petrol-driven vehicle.
Following his success, Tholstrup developed the World Solar challenge in 1987. The Challenge showcases the development of solar car technology and promotes solar energy as an alternative to conventional fossil-fuelled vehicles. After 1996, he sold the Challenge to the South Australian government, which continues to oversee the event.
World History
Sunday, January 7, 1990. : The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public amidst fears that its lean has become too dangerous.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the bell tower, or campanile, of the cathedral in Pisa’s Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). The tower took nearly 200 years to complete, being finished in 1372. It began leaning shortly after its construction began, on 9 August 1173. The tower was in serious danger of toppling completely by 1964, when the Italian government sought aid and advice in preserving its famous icon.
Following decades of consultation and preparatory efforts, the tower was closed to the public on 7 January 1990. Its lean was 4.9 metres off the perpendicular; in the preceding century, the belfry atop the tower had moved as much as almost 25cm. The Tower remained closed until December 2001 while corrective reconstruction and stabilisation work was implemented. The excessive lean of the tower was corrected by removing 38 cubic metres of soil from underneath the raised end: it is expected to remain stable for another 300 years.
World History
Monday, January 7, 2008. : 40 people are killed in a massive warehouse fire in South Korea.
Incheon, South Korea, is a metropolitan city and a major seaport on the west coast of South Korea, approximately 80 kilometres southeast of Seoul. On 7 January 2008, the city was the scene of a major industrial fire which killed 40 people.
Reports indicated that the fire began in the warehouse basement, where workers used flammable materials. Vapour from the basement’s engine room caught fire, setting off a series of explosions. Approximately 200 firemen were dispatched to the scene, and whilst a dozen people were rescued, 40 in total were killed. Many of the victims were construction workers trapped inside the basement of the refrigerated goods facility. They were unable to escape a toxic cloud of gas that came from burning insulation material.
The fire was the deadliest in South Korea since 2003, when 200 were killed in a massive blaze in the subway system of Daegu, 250km south-east of Seoul.
World History
Wednesday, January 7, 2015. : Terrorists kill 12 at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Charlie Hebdo is a French weekly magazine featuring satirical cartoons, reports and debates on a number of controversial topics such as politics, religion and a wide range of social issues. Charlie Hebdo suffered its first terrorist attack in 2011 when one of its offices was fire-bombed and its website hacked. The attack was believed to be in response to a satirical cartoon of the Islamic figure Muhammad. Another more serious attack occurred four year later, resulting in a dozen deaths. On 7 January 2015, two brothers identified as Chérif and Saïd Kouachi entered the Paris offices of the magazine, where they killed eleven people, among them three cartoonists and former editor Stéphane Charbonnier. They then left the building, killing a French police officer outside. After the terrorists escaped, another five people were killed in a series of related attacks in the Île-de-France region. A major police manhunt uncovered the terrorists responsible in an industrial complex, where they fired at police and soldiers, but were killed by return fire.
The Yemen branch of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. Four days after the murders, up to two million people came together in Paris for a rally of national unity, while another 3.7 million people joined in demonstrations across France. Further ramifications were felt around the world, with violent demonstrations in many places as Muslim extremist groups clashed with those who condemned the terrorist action in Paris. Charlie Hebdo, which had been considering closing prior to the attacks due to declining sales, remains operating at this stage.