Born on this day
Monday, July 26, 1790. : Early Australian explorer, William Charles Wentworth, is born on a convict ship travelling to Australia.
William Charles Wentworth was born on 26 July 1790 on the ‘Surprize’, a ship in the Second Fleet transporting convicts to Australia. His mother, Catherine Crowley, had been sentenced to seven years’ transportation for crime of “feloniously stealing ‘wearing apparell'”. The exact date of his birth is unknown. Dr D’Arcy Wentworth, who also sailed on the same ship, as well as the ‘Neptune’ in the Second Fleet, acknowledged William as his son, and took a major role in young William’s education after his mother died in 1800. William was sent to school in Bletchley, England, where he was presented to his father’s patron and kinsman, Lord Fitzwilliam.
After his education, unable to secure a place in either the Woolwich military academy or the East India Company, Wentworth returned to Sydney. Governor Macquarie appointed him as acting provost-marshal, and he was given a significant land grant on the Nepean River. Wentworth was a “Currency Lad”, one of the first children born into the colony of New South Wales. He enjoyed his status as different from the “English ascendancy,” and was an outspoken nationalist, determined to gain civil rights for those who, like himself, were very much in the minority. He was an advocate of Australia becoming self-governing, and well-known around Sydney for his outspoken ways.
Wentworth, along with William Lawson and Gregory Blaxland, was the first European to cross the Blue Mountains which, for twenty-five years, had prevented the expansion of the colony at Sydney Cove. Many others had tried to find a way through, but been turned back by dead-end ravines and vast expanses of impassable rocky cliffs. Discovering a way through the Blue Mountains opened up the huge interior of Australia for settlement and further exploration.
Wentworth was the only one of the three explorers to make a significant name for himself in the new colony. He commenced ‘The Australian’ newspaper in 1824, played a major role in establishing the first real system of state primary education in New South Wales, and was instrumental in the founding of the University of Sydney in 1850.
Australian History
Monday, July 26, 1858. : Sydney and Melbourne are linked by telegraph.
Long before the telephone was invented, the telegraph was the main means by which long distance communication was undertaken. The first electrochemical telegraph was invented by Samuel Thomas von Soemmering in 1809, and improvements were made by various inventors in ensuing decades, with the technology spreading across the world. Within Australia, the first telegraph line was laid between Melbourne’s city centre to Williamstown in 1854, while South Australia followed two years later with a line from Port Adelaide to Adelaide city. The Melbourne to Adelaide telegraph line was the first inter-colonial line to be completed within Australia, in 1858. A few days later, on 26 July 1858, the link between Melbourne and Sydney, the two largest cities in Australia, was also completed.
Canadian-born Samuel Walker McGowan is credited with bringing the telegraph technology to Australia. Lured by the opportunities opened up by the discovery of gold in Victoria, McGowan came to Melbourne, Australia, in 1853. Although isolated from telegraph technology in America, and limited by lack of equipment and suitable component manufacturing firms in Australia, McGowan succeeded in opening up the first telegraph line in Australia on 3 March 1854. It ran from Melbourne to Williamstown. The network of telegraph lines quickly spread throughout Victoria, and then to Adelaide, South Australia.
Australian History
Thursday, July 26, 1883. : The St John Ambulance Association is founded in Melbourne.
The Order of St John is a British royal order of chivalry which can trace its origins back to the Knights Hospitaller in the Middle Ages. It is well known for its health organisations such as the St John Ambulance association, which was established in 1877 in England. The purpose of the Association was to promote and develop effective first aid training in response to increased numbers of accidents as society became more industrialised. Training centres were opened in major railway centres and mining areas in English colonies, including Australia.
On 26 July 1883, the St John Ambulance Association to teach public First Aid classes was founded at a public meeting in Melbourne. In 1887, the first ambulance service in Victoria was established, using Ashford litters, which were two wheeled carts with elliptical springs that supported a stretcher. Ashford Litter ambulances were located at the police stations in Russell Street, Little Bourke Street, King Street and West Melbourne, with another kept at the Melbourne Town Hall on Swanston Street. The first St John horse-drawn ambulance service began from Eastern Hill Fire Station in 1899.
Australian History
Sunday, July 26, 1987. : The Skitube alpine railway to the Perisher Valley ski resort is opened.
Perisher Range is in Kosciuszko National park in southern New South Wales. Home to Australia’s highest peak, Mt Kosciuszko, Perisher Range comprises some of Australia’s best ski fields, including Perisher Valley, Mount Blue Cow, Smiggin Holes, Charlotte Pass and Guthega.
For many years, access to the popular Perisher snowfields was difficult in winter due to the icy roads. As development of the Thredbo and Perisher Valley ski fields expanded during the 1980s, the single road access was no longer sufficient for those travelling for the ski season. Environmental concerns in the delicate alpine region ruled out improved road infrastructure, while costs would have been prohibitive. Chairlifts, overhead gondolas and cable railways were investigated as alternative modes of transport, but each of these had their limitations.
It was determined that a rack-rail system was the most viable option, especially if much of it could be run underground. The rack-rail, or cog/rack, system utilises cogs positioned underneath the powered rail cars which mesh into a rack of teeth beneath the rail tracks. It is a very safe method of transportation which is particularly suited to the high temperature fluctuations apparent in alpine areas, and is used where the grade is too steep for normal wheels to attain traction. It was originally developed in Switzerland by engineer Roman Abt.
The first leg of the alpine railway extended from Bullocks Flat through a tunnel in Ramshead Range to the resort at Perisher Valley. Construction of the standard-gauge rail line began in October 1984, and tunnelling commenced eight months later. The line from Bullocks Flat to Perisher opened on 26 July 1987. The total length of the track between Bullocks Flat and Perisher is 5.9km with a travel time of approximately 10 minutes; the vertical rise between the two points is 590m.
World History
Sunday, July 26, 1908. : The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) commences operations.
The FBI is the main investigative branch of the United States Department of Justice. It originated from a force of Special Agents created on 26 July 1908. During Theodore Roosevelt’s Presidency, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte ordered a force of Special Agents to take on investigative assignments in areas such as antitrust, peonage, and land fraud.
The first force consisted of ten former Secret Service employees and a number of Department of Justice peonage (i.e., compulsory servitude) investigators. On 26 July 1908, Bonaparte ordered them to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch. This action is considered to be the beginning of the FBI. At this stage, the FBI did not have a name nor an official leader, apart from the Attorney General. Its first designation was the Bureau of Investigation (BOI); it became the FBI in 1935.
World History
Wednesday, July 26, 1978. : The World Health Organisation announces that smallpox has been eradicated worldwide.
Smallpox is the only known major human disease to have been eradicated. It was a highly contagious viral disease unique to humans, caused by two virus variants called Variola major and Variola minor. V. major was the more deadly form, with a typical mortality of 20-40 percent of those infected. The other type, V. minor, only killed 1% of its victims. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths in the 20th century. Survivors were left blind in one or both eyes from corneal ulcerations, and left with persistent skin scarring, or pockmarks.
On 1 January 1967, the World Health Organisation (WHO), a specialised agency of the United Nations acting as a coordinating authority on international public health, announced the Intensified Smallpox Eradication Programme, involving the extensive distribution of the vaccine. On 26 July 1978, WHO announced the eradication of the smallpox strain Variola Minor. The last natural case of the more deadly strain, Variola Major, had occurred several years earlier, in 1975.