Australian Explorers
Friday, July 19, 1799. : Matthew Flinders becomes the first known European to land on Coochiemudlo Island in Moreton Bay.
Coochiemudlo Island is a small island in Moreton Bay in Queensland. It lies about one kilometre off Victoria Point in Redland City, just south of Brisbane, and is home to about 700 people. The name ‘Coochiemudlo’ comes from the name ‘Goochie mudlo’, also recorded as ‘kutchi mudlo’, given by the Quandamooka People of the Jandai language group. The name means ‘red earth’ and ‘rock’ or ‘stone’ and refers to a natural rich red rock cliff featured on the southwestern side of the island.
Matthew Flinders was the first sea explorer to thoroughly chart the coastline of Australia. Prior to his circumnavigation of the entire continent between December 1801 and June 1803, he undertook numerous smaller voyages of exploration, adding valuable information to the knowledge of Australian waters. Early in 1799, he set out in the sloop Norfolk to examine the coast north of Port Jackson in search of large navigable rivers. On this occasion, he was accompanied by Bungaree, an Aborigines from the Kuringgai people of the Broken Bay area. Whereas Lieutenant James Cook had sailed straight past Moreton Bay in 1770, Flinders entered the bay, navigating the waters between where Redcliffe and Brighton now stand. He continued south, reaching Coochiemudlo Island on 19 July 1799, where he rowed ashore in a dinghy and landed on the sandy beach. He then walked up to a high point on the island, looking towards the mainland in search of a river, but failed to find the mouth of either the Brisbane River or the Logan River.
Matthew Flinders Day continues to be celebrated on Coochiemudlo Island every year on a weekend around 19 July. The day is marked with a parade, markets and a re-enactment of Flinders’ landing.
Australian Explorers
Tuesday, July 19, 1814. : Matthew Flinders, the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia, dies.
Matthew Flinders was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1774. Flinders, together with George Bass, explored extensively south of Sydney shortly after his arrival in Australia, adding to the knowledge of the coastline, and producing accurate maps. As well as being the first to circumnavigate Australia, Flinders and Bass were the first to prove that Van Diemen’s Land, or Tasmania, was an island and not connected to the mainland. Australia was previously known as New Holland. When Lieutenant James Cook claimed the continent for England in 1770, the eastern coastline became known as New South Wales, and when the First Fleet came in 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip was ordered to extend the claim further west. The western half of the continent continued to be known as New Holland, and the eastern half was New South Wales.
Flinders circumnavigated the entire continent between 1801 and 1803. Shortly after he completed this expedition, he was captured by the French on the island of Mauritius and kept prisoner until 1810 on the grounds that he was a spy. He was finally released to return to England, but his health began to fail and he died young, on 19 July 1814. Before his death he completed a book on his travels called ‘A Voyage to Terra Australis’, although his original preference was for the title to read ‘A Voyage to Australia’. Flinders died on the day after his book was published.
Australian History
Wednesday, July 19, 1916. : Australia begins its worst 24 hours in history, with the loss of almost 2000 men in a single night.
The night of 19 – 20 July 1916 is sometimes referred to as Australia’s “worst day in history”. This is the day the nation lost almost 2000 men in a single night, during World War I.
The Battle of Fromelles was the first significant battle fought by Australian troops on the Western Front. Begun 19 days after the Battle of the Somme began, the main purpose of the Fromelles was to draw German troops away from being redeployed to the Somme from areas of the Western Front where less fighting was taking place. The main battle commenced with an attack at 6:00pm by troops of the 5th Australian and 61st British Divisions. The Australian troops were to attack from the north, from a point known as the ‘Sugarloaf’ while the British were to come in from the west. The problem was that the Australian Division was inexperienced, while the British Division were under strength. Although small sections of the German trenches were captured by the 8th and 14th Australian Brigades, the attack lacked the necessary element of surprise to be effective, as it was preceded by seven hours of artillery bombardment. German machine-gunners inflicted heavy damage on the Allied troops and, by 8:00am the following morning, the Battle of Fromelles was all but over, and the troops forced to withdraw.
The Battle of Fromelles was a categorical failure. Insufficient communications, together with misreading of the situation by distant headquarters and lack of local knowledge, resulted in inadequate retrieval and evacuation of the casualties. Many Australian troops who were wounded died because of the delay of several days in arranging a truce so they could be collected. The 5th Australian Division suffered a total of 5,533 casualties, including over 1900 deaths, while the 61st British Division suffered 1,547 casualties, to the Germans’ 1,000.
World History
Friday, July 19, 1799. : The Rosetta Stone is discovered, holding the key to unlock the secrets of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The Rosetta Stone is a dark grey-pinkish stone of granite, although it was originally thought to have been basalt. It was discovered on 19 July 1799 by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaign in Egypt. The irregularly shaped stone inscribed with ancient writing was found near the town of Rosetta, approximately 60km north of Alexandria.
The stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Demotic Egyptian. The Greek passage stated that all three scripts were identical in meaning. Because Greek was well known, the stone was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs, a language that had been considered dead for two thousand years. Twenty five years later, French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion successfully deciphered the hieroglyphics, using the Greek as a guide. This enabled further study of Egyptian hieroglyphics which had previously been indecipherable. It was the first time that the world became aware of the depth of the history and culture of ancient Egypt.
World History
Friday, July 19, 1935. : The world’s first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, USA.
The parking meter was originally invented by Carlton Cole Magee, the head of Oklahoma City’s Chamber of Commerce, in response to growing parking congestion. Magee filed for a patent for a “coin controlled parking meter”on 13 May 1935. He then formed the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company to manufacture his invention.
The first parking meter in the world was installed in Oklahoma City, USA, on 19 July 1935. It is estimated that there are now over five million parking meters in the USA. England received its first parking meter some 22 years later, on 10 July 1958. In all, 625 parking meters were installed in England that day.
World History
Saturday, July 19, 1941. : The ‘V for Victory’ campaign is inaugurated by Winston Churchill.
Winston Churchill had been Prime Minister of England for less than a year, during the early stages of World War II, when he inaugurated the ‘V for Victory’ campaign, on 19 July 1941. The BBC used the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which matched the dot-dot-dot-dash Morse code for the letter V, playing it before news bulletins and in its overseas transmissions. On the radio program that launched the campaign, Churchill announced, “The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting Nazi tyranny. So long as the people continue to refuse all collaboration with the invader it is sure that his cause will perish and that Europe will be liberated.”