Born on this day
Monday, July 28, 1902. : Australian Aboriginal painter, Albert Namatjira, is born.
Albert Namatjira was born Elea Namatjira on 28 July 1902. He was born into the Arrernte tribe of the Northern Territory. Namatjira was raised at the Lutheran mission school, Hermannsburg, near Alice Springs. In his early years, he learned to paint in non-traditional style, but his experience in European watercolour style was gained from painter Rex Batterbee. Namatjira held his first exhibition in Melbourne in 1938, and his work was completely sold out.
Namatjira was also the first Australian Aborigine to be granted Australian citizenship in 1957, ten years before Australian citizenship was offered to all Aborigines. The sale of his paintings brought him great wealth, but as an Australian Aborigine, he did not have the right to own land or to build a house until the law was changed.
After Namatjira’s death in 1959, his painting style was denounced by many indigenous people as a mere product of being “assimilated” into western society. However, his unique desert landscapes, with their striking detail and earthy colours, are still hailed as the work of one of the greatest Australian artists of all time.
Australian History
Saturday, July 28, 1923. : Construction begins on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge connects the Sydney CBD with the North Shore commercial and residential areas on Sydney Harbour. It is the largest steel arch bridge in the world, though not the longest, with the top of the bridge standing 134 metres above the harbour.
In 1912, John Bradfield was appointed chief engineer of the bridge project, which also had to include a railway. Plans were completed in 1916 but the advent of WWI delayed implementation until 1922. Workshops were set up on Milson’s Point on the North Shore where the steel was fabricated into girders. Granite for the bridge’s construction was quarried near Moruya. Construction of the bridge began on 28 July 1923, and took 1400 men eight years to build at a cost of £4.2 million. Sixteen lives were lost during its construction, while up to 800 families living in the path of the proposed Bridge path were relocated and their homes demolished when construction started.
The Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang, opened Sydney Harbour Bridge on 19 March 1932.
Australian History
Wednesday, July 28, 1993. : The opal is made a national emblem of Australia.
Opal is a precious stone which shows a variety of iridescent colours from reds, pinks and purples to yellows, greens and blues. The brilliant colours are produced by the diffraction of light through microscopic spheres within the opal which split the white light into all the colours of the spectrum.
Opal was first discovered in Australia in 1849 near Angaston, South Australia, by German geologist Johannes Menge. More productive fields were discovered through the decades, and Australia now produces around 97% of the world’s opal. It is mined mainly in dry, outback areas such as Quilpie-Yowah in western Queensland, Lightning Ridge in north-west New South Wales, and Coober Pedy and Andamooka in the dry central north of South Australia. Australian Aborigines tell a legend that the opal was created when a rainbow fell to earth.
On 28 July 1993, the opal was officially made Australia’s national gemstone. Opal is also the state gem of South Australia.
World History
Friday, July 28, 1741. : Composer of Baroque music, Antonio Vivaldi, dies.
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on 4 March 1678 in Venice, Italy. As well as becoming a priest, nicknamed Il Prete Rosso (“The Red Priest”) and an accomplished violinist, he was also a composer of the Baroque Era, whose style ultimately influenced other famous composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach.
Baroque music is a style of European classical music, written during the Baroque Era, which spanned approximately 1600 to 1750. The Baroque music style followed the Renaissance style, and made more complex use of harmony and rhythm. It was typically harder to perform than Renaissance music as it was written more for virtuoso singers and instrumentalists. Vivaldi wrote 46 operas and hundreds of concertos, as well as sinfonias, sonatas, chamber music, sacred music, and one of his best-known works, The Four Seasons (Le Quattro Stagioni), in which he attempted to capture the moods of the four seasons through his music. Vivaldi died on 28 July 1741 in Vienna.
World History
Tuesday, July 28, 1750. : The great German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, dies.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany on 21 March 1685. He was a German composer and organist of the Baroque Era. The Baroque Era spanned approximately 1600 to 1750, and followed the Renaissance style. It was typically harder to perform than Renaissance music as it was written more for virtuoso singers and instrumentalists, and made more complex use of harmony and rhythm.
Bach is arguably one of the greatest composers of all time. His most famous works include the Brandenburg Concertos, The Well-Tempered Clavier (a collection of 48 preludes and fugues), Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Mass in B Minor, much sacred choral music, and the St Matthew Passion. He wrote Cantatas, Masses and Magnificats, Chorales, Oratorios and many other styles and forms of music. When Bach died on 28 July 1750, he left behind the legacy of a musically talented family, many of whom also composed prolifically. His style strongly influenced both Mozart and Beethoven.
World History
Saturday, July 28, 1945. : A B-25 bomber, lost in fog, crashes into the Empire State Building, killing 14.
As the world was celebrating the end of WWII, tragedy occurred. On 28 July 1945 at 9:49am local time, an unarmed B-25 bomber slammed into the northern side of the Empire State Building in New York, between the 79th and 80th floors, at 322 kilometres per hour. The aircraft’s wings were torn off and a 5m x 6m hole gouged in the side of the building. One engine flew right through the Empire State Building and out the other side, and crashed through the roof of a nearby building. The other engine and part of the bomber’s landing gear fell through an elevator shaft. When the plane hit, its fuel tanks exploded, engulfing the 79th floor in flames. The fire was doused within 40 minutes. The pilot, an experienced, decorated WWII veteran, died, along with two crew. Eleven workers in the Catholic War Relief Office on the 79th floor were also killed. A subsequent investigation found that the accident was caused by pilot error due to dense fog.
One of the more amazing survival stories involved elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver. After being treated for burns, Oliver was on her way down the elevator to the ambulance when the cable snapped, weakened by the crash. Oliver survived the elevator plummeting from the 75th floor down to the basement. The descent was slowed by cables beneath the elevator acting as coils as it neared the basement, and by the cushioning effect of the compressed air under the elevator, caused by the very tight fit of the car in the hatchway.
World History
Wednesday, July 28, 1976. : Hundreds of thousands of people are killed as China is hit by an earthquake.
An earthquake measuring between 6.3 and 8.3 on the Richter scale hit China at 3:42am, local time, on 28 July 1976. The city of Tangshan, northeast of Beijing, was at the earthquake’s epicentre. Chinese officials were reluctant to release details of the catastrophe, rejecting offers of help from the rest of the world. They stated that survivors had enough food and clothing, and that medical staff and facilities were sufficient to deal with the emergency. Ultimately, the Chinese government estimated that between 240,000 and 250,000 people died in the earthquake, but estimates since then have put the figure closer to half a million. Rebuilding started immediately in Tangshan, and the city is now home to over one million people.