Australian Explorers
Saturday, January 23, 1830. : Charles Sturt’s exploration party narrowly avoids a confrontation with hostile Aborigines.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after 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, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. Sturt followed the Murrumbidgee in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume).
Sturt upheld a policy of kindness towards the many Aboriginal tribes he encountered, readily sharing food and gifts with them. On 23 January 1830, whilst traversing the Murray, Sturt’s party encountered a group of about six hundred hostile Aborigines on sandbanks of the river. His men loaded their guns and prepared for battle, but disaster was averted when an Aborigine whom Sturt had befriended days earlier appeared from the bushes and intervened. Passing on by, Sturt discovered that the sandbank where the Aborigines stood marked the entrance of a larger river from the north. Sturt determined this to be the Darling, which he had discovered the previous year.
Australian History
Monday, January 23, 1939. : The Waterside Workers’ Strike, which earns Robert Menzies the nickname of ‘Pig-Iron Bob’, finally ends after nine weeks.
Robert Gordon Menzies entered politics in 1928 after being elected to Victoria’s Legislative Council for East Yarra. After six years in Victorian state politics as Attorney-General and Minister for Railways (1928–34), he was elected to federal parliament as Member for Kooyong. From 1935, Menzies was Deputy leader of the United Australia Party under Joseph Lyons, as well as Attorney-General and Minister for Industry.
On 16 November 1938, members of the Waterside Workers’ Union at Port Kembla in New South Wales refused to load cargo of pig-iron onto the steamer Delfram. Around 400 tons of pig-iron had already been loaded when the men held a stop-work meeting at 1pm, based on their belief that the pig-iron was not intended for Singapore, as they had been told, but bound for Japan. Japan was already seen as a major threat in the Pacific.
In his position as Attorney-General, Menzies was forced to intervene. Reminding the unions that the League of Nations had not imposed trade sanctions against Japan, he threatened to invoke the Transport Workers Act against the unions if they did not load the pig-iron. Due to the ongoing strike action, the steelworks were closed, forcing many workers into unemployment. On 23 January 1939, after a dispute lasting nine weeks and resulting in an estimated cost of £100,000 in lost wages and £3000 for the owners of the Delfram which lay idle at Port Kembla throughout that time, the workers agreed to load the remaining pig-iron. Union leaders met with the Prime Minister and Robert Menzies to settle the terms later that week. The entire incident earned Robert Menzies the nickname of “Pig-Iron Bob”, which remained with him throughout his political career, and followed him into the history books.
World History
Monday, January 23, 1556. : The world’s deadliest earthquake on record, in which over 800,000 die, occurs in China.
On the morning of 23 January 1556, an earthquake hit Shaanxi, China. Approximately 830,000 people were killed in the deadliest earthquake on record to date. Over 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected, with some counties reporting losses of 60% of the population. Many of the people lived in artificial caves in loess cliffs, loess being the silty soil that windstorms deposited on the Loess plateau, which covers almost all of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. Landslides brought on by the quake destroyed many of the soft loess clay caves.
World History
Monday, January 23, 1719. : The principality of Liechtenstein is formed.
Liechtenstein is a tiny landlocked country in the Upper Rhine valley of the European Alps in Europe. It has an area of just over 160 square kilometres, and a population of 37 000, while the official language is German. Bordered by Austria to the east, and by Switzerland to the south and west, Liechtenstein is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world, meaning it is a landlocked country surrounded by other landlocked countries (the other example being Uzbekistan).
Liechtenstein gained its name from Castle Liechtenstein in Lower Austria, which was possessed by the House of Habsburg from at least 1140 to the 13th century, and from 1807 onwards. The House acquired large tracts of land throughout Moravia, Lower Austria, Silesia and Styria. The tiny counties of Schellenberg and Vaduz were purchased in 1699 and 1712, and this allowed for the creation of a principality within the Holy Roman Empire. Liechtenstein was created on 23 January 1719, and became independent in 1866.
World History
Monday, January 23, 1922. : The first Insulin injection is used on a diabetic teenager.
Diabetes is a chronic condition in which there is too much sugar in the blood. The condition results from the body’s inability to produce enough insulin, which is required to convert glucose, or sugar, from food into energy. Glucose is found in foods such as breads and cereals, fruit and starchy vegetables, legumes, milk, yoghurt and sweets. Since it cannot be converted into energy, the glucose stays in the blood. If left untreated, diabetes can affect other body parts and organs such as the kidneys and heart, eyes, nerves, gums and feet.
There are two types of diabetes, Type 1 and type 2, and there is currently no cure. There are ways to manage it, such as through diet, lifestyle changes and insulin injections. For those with Diabetes type 1, insulin injections are a vital part of controlling the disease. Prior to the discovery of insulin, a diagnosis of diabetes meant certain death within days or weeks.
The first injection of insulin (initially called Isletin) was made on 14-year-old Leonard Thompson on 23 January 1922 at the Toronto General Hospital in Ontario, Canada. Thompson suffered a severe allergic reaction as a result of an apparent impurity in the injection. Over the next twelve days, chemist James Collip improved and purified the ox-pancreas extract, delivering a second injection which was successful in bringing the boy out of his diabetic coma. Thompson recovered, and continued to be treated regularly with insulin until he died of pneumonia thirteen years later.
World History
Friday, January 23, 1942. : Japanese troops land on Rabaul, New Guinea, bringing the threat of World War II much closer to Australia.
Rabaul is situated on the island of New Britain, now part of Papua New Guinea. Separated from the main island of New Guinea by Dampier and Vitiaz Straits, New Britain is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago. During World War II, it was also the site of an invasion by Japanese troops, which dragged Papua New Guinea into the war and which brought the threat of Japanese invasion of Australia even closer.
In late 1941, the Japanese began their conquest of the Pacific region, hoping to take control from the Indian/Burmese border, south through Malaya, across the islands of Indonesia to New Guinea, northwest to the Gilbert Islands and north to the Kuril Islands off the Japanese coast. This would leave Australia wide open for invasion, although that was not the intention of Japan at the time. Singapore and the Malay Peninsula, which had been defended by British Empire Forces, fell in a 70 day campaign that began in December 1941.
On 23 January 1942, Japanese forces landed in Rabaul, quickly taking control. This began the serious Japanese offensive in the South Pacific. The first of over 100 Japanese bombings of the Australian mainland began in February, and on 8 March, the Japanese invaded the New Guinean mainland, capturing Lae and Salamaua.
Port Moresby was the next major target, and in May 1942, the Japanese launched an invasion fleet to Port Moresby from Rabaul. Thus began the Battle of the Coral Sea, the largest naval battle ever fought close to Australia’s shores. Australian Prime Minister John Curtin had sought help from the United States to defend the Pacific. Although a bitter campaign and one in which many troops were lost from both sides, the Battle of the Coral Sea was a successful one. Repelled by the American forces, the Japanese then sought to invade Port Moresby from the northern coast, over the rugged Owen Stanley Range via the Kokoda Trail, which linked to the southern coast of Papua New Guinea. With much assistance from the Papua New Guinean natives, dubbed “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels”, the Australian and the US troops turned back the Japanese forces, which then retreated to bases at Buna, Gona and Sanananda. Here, the Japanese were eventually defeated in a hard-fought campaign which lasted through December 1942 to 23 January 1943 – one year after the Japanese first landed at Rabaul.