Born on this day

Sunday, July 10, 1921. :   Harvey Ball, inventor of the Smiley face, is born.

Harvey Ross Ball was born on 10 July 1921 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Whilst still at school he was apprenticed to a local sign painter, and later attended Worcester Art Museum School where he studied fine arts. He then served over two decades in the National Guard, and was posted in Asia and the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he worked for a local advertising firm until he started his own business, Harvey Ball Advertising, in 1959.

The invention of the Smiley face came about in an attempt to boost employee morale after it dropped when State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, MA (now known as Allmerica Financial) purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. Ball was employed as a freelance artist to create a smiley face to be used on buttons, desk cards, and posters. The Smiley was invented within ten minutes, and earned Ball just $45. The use of the Smiley was part of the company’s friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out 100 smiley pins to employees. The aim was to get employees to smile while using the phone and doing other tasks. The buttons were very popular, and by 1971, over 50 million Smiley Face buttons had been sold.

Ball never applied for a trademark or copyright for his design, a move which he never regretted. However, he founded the World Smile Corporation, which licenses Smileys and organises World Smile Day, which in turn raises money for the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation, a non-profit charitable trust which supports children’s causes. World Smile Day is held on the first Friday of October each year and is a day dedicated to “good cheer and good works”. The catch phrase for the day is “Do an act of kindness – help one person smile”.

Australian History

Wednesday, July 10, 1839. :   Governor Gawler writes the letter in which he names the Flinders Ranges.

The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain range in South Australia. Known for their breathtaking landscapes, the ranges showcase outback South Australia, and cover a distance of over 430 km from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. Comprised of sedimentary rock, the ranges are relatively low: the highest peak being St Mary Peak (Ngarri Mudlanha), with an elevation of 1189m.

The first European to observe the Flinders Ranges was Matthew Flinders, in 1802. However, Flinders did not name the range after himself; nor did he give any Australian feature his own name. The Flinders Ranges were named by the second Governor of South Australia, George Gawler. In a letter to Colonel Torrens dated 10 July 1839 and subsequently published in the ‘Government Gazette’, Gawler wrote of the work of explorer Edward John Eyre, who had recently returned from an expedition into the interior of South Australia. In the same letter, Gawler advised that he had named the mountain range “The Flinders Ranges”.

Australian History

Saturday, July 10, 1852. :   Sydney, Australia, is incorporated as a city.

The city of Sydney is Australia’s largest city, though it is not the country’s Capital city. Originally known as Sydney Town, it was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip, who led the First Fleet from Britain. He named it after the British Home Secretary, Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, in recognition of Sydney’s role in issuing the charter authorising Phillip to establish a colony. The state capital of New South Wales, Sydney boasts a current population of around 4.3 million. It is built along the shores of Port Jackson, one of the world’s most spectacular natural harbours.

Sydney began to develop a sense of order and prominence under Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. Macquarie was instrumental in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony, commissioning the construction of roads, bridges, wharves, churches and public buildings. He founded new towns such as Richmond, Windsor, Pitt Town, Castlereagh and Wilberforce (known as the “Macquarie Towns”), as well as Liverpool. He was also the greatest sponsor of exploration the colony had yet seen.

Following Macquarie’s tenure, Sydney continued to grow and prosper. It was first incorporated as a city on 10 July 1852, earning it the title of Australia’s “first city”.

Australian History

Sunday, July 10, 1910. :   Australia’s Commonwealth Naval Forces are granted the title of Royal Australian Navy by King George V.

From the time that Australia was first colonised in 1788, up until 1859, Australia’s naval defence depended on detachments from the Royal Navy in Sydney. A separate British naval station was established in Australia in 1859, while a Royal Navy squadron, paid for and maintained by Australia, was retained in Australian waters through to 1913.

In 1909, the decision was made to establish an Australian Fleet Unit. The first ships comprising this fleet arrived in Australian waters during November of 1910. These Commonwealth Naval Forces became the Royal Australian Navy on 10 July 1911, following the granting of this title by King George V.

Late in 1911, the Federal Parliament of Australia selected Captain’s Point, Jervis Bay, as the site of the future Royal Australian Naval College. As the Australian Capital Territory was inland, it was determined that the national seat of government needed access to the ocean, so the Jervis Bay Territory was surrendered by New South Wales to the Commonwealth in 1915 under the “Jervis Bay Territory Acceptance Act 1915”.

Australian History

Friday, July 10, 1936. :   The Thylacine, commonly referred to as the Tasmanian Tiger, is named a protected animal.

The Thylacine was a dasyurid, or carnivorous marsupial, living in Australia up until the twentieth century. It is believed that the Thylacine existed on the Australian mainland until the introduction of the dingo thousands of years ago. Although the Thylacine was often called the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf, it was neither of these. Its body was similar in shape to that of the placental wolf, but it was a marsupial, putting it in an entirely different class. It stood 58-60cm tall, with a body and tail length of up to 180cm.

When Europeans settled in Tasmania, the Thylacine’s fate was sealed. Farmers shot the creatures, fearing them as a threat to livestock, while hunters prized them as trophies; these acts were supported by the government of the time which offered a bounty of one pound for every dead adult Thylacine and ten shillings for each dead Thylacine joey. This bounty system, introduced in 1830, was not terminated until 1909. By this time, the Thylacine was very rare, and being sought for zoos worldwide. Australian authorities were slow to protect native wildlife, with the result that many species became extinct or on the verge of extinction. In a last attempt to protect the remaining specimens, Tasmania named the Thylacine a protected animal. On 10 July 1936, the governor of Tasmania, Sir Ernest Clark, announced that “… in exercise of the powers and authority conferred upon me by the Animals and Birds’ Protection Act, 1928, do, by this proclamation, transfer Native Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) from Schedule 3, Part 1, to Schedule 2, Part 1, of that Act …”.

The last known specimen of the Thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo in September that same year. The last captive animals were exhibited in zoos, where their needs were not understood, and the Thylacines in Hobart died from exposure. Despite numerous apparent “sightings” over the years, not one of these has ever been confirmed, and in 1986, the Thylacine was officially classified as Extinct.

World History

Wednesday, July 10, 1940. :   In WWII, the Battle of Britain begins, in which Germany attempts to destroy the Royal Air Force and gain control of British air space.

The Battle of Britain was a major campaign in the second World War. Germany aimed to destroy the Royal Air Force and aircraft production, thereby gaining a position of dominance in the war. Secondary objectives were to destroy ground infrastructure, as well as intimidating and demoralising the British people.

British and German sources differ on the actual dates of the campaign, with the former claiming it ran from 10 July 1940 to 31 October 1940, and the latter stating it began in August 1940 and ended in May 1941. Regardless, the British were victorious in the Battle of Britain, marking the first failure of Hitler’s war machine. The victory also altered American opinion that Britain could not survive the attack. While there were surprisingly few military casualties, British civilian losses from July to December 1940 totalled 23,002 dead and 32,138 wounded.

World History

Wednesday, July 10, 1985. :   The Greenpeace flagship, the ‘Rainbow Warrior’, is sunk in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, after an explosion resulting from deliberate sabotage.

The Greenpeace flagship, the ‘Rainbow Warrior’, was named after a North American Indian legend, and launched in 1978. The ship arrived in New Zealand in July 1985 in preparation for leading a flotilla of boats to Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific Ocean to protest against French nuclear tests on the atoll.

Just before midnight on 10 July 1985, while the Rainbow Warrior waited in Auckland Harbour, underwater charges which had been placed by frogmen on the hull of the ship exploded, sinking the vessel. One person was killed in the explosion, Portuguese photographer Fernando Periero. An investigation later revealed that the saboteurs were two French secret agents. In a major cover-up operation, the French Government denied its involvement. Within a couple of months, however, the French defence minister Charles Hernu had resigned and New Zealand was paid $7m in compensation by the French Government. A new ‘Rainbow Warrior’ was launched in 1987.