Australian Explorers

Sunday, June 10, 1770. :   Lieutenant James Cook’s “The Endeavour” runs aground and nearly sinks on the Great Barrier Reef.

Following Lieutenant James Cook’s observations in Tahiti of the transit of Venus across the sun, he sailed southwest, where he explored and mapped the coastline of New Zealand. He then continued west, making the first European sighting of Australia’s eastern coast in April 1770. Claiming the continent for England, Cook sailed up the coast, charting and naming points of interest as he went.

Cape Tribulation, in far North Queensland, was so named by Cook after his ship, the HM Bark Endeavour, struck the reef and nearly sank. The Endeavour managed to stay afloat for another week whilst the crew sought desperately for land, eventually sighting the harbour formed by the Endeavour River. The ship was landed on 10 June 1770, and Cook spent almost two months repairing it, thus giving rise to the fledgling township of Cooktown.

The harbour was originally named the Charco, but Cook renamed it Endeavour when he departed on 4 August 1770. At that stage, the town had developed into nothing more than a tent village. The spot where Cook beached his damaged ship is marked by a stone monolith, called Cook’s Pillar, on the banks of the Endeavour River.

Australian History

Sunday, June 10, 1838. :   28 Aborigines are massacred by vengeful stockmen at Myall Creek.

Australian history is dotted with instances where Aborigines have been massacred, but their deaths have gone unrecorded. The Myall Creek massacre stands alone as one in which there was some attempt to bring the white perpetrators to justice.

On 10 June 1838, a gang of stockmen, heavily armed, rounded up between 40 and 50 Aboriginal women, children and elderly men of the Wirrayaraay people at Myall Creek Station, near Bingara, not far from Inverell in New South Wales. 28 Aborigines were murdered. It was believed that the massacre was payback for the killing of several colonists in the area, yet most of those massacred were women and children.

At a trial held on 15 November 1838, twelve Europeans were charged with murder but acquitted. Another trial was held on November 26, during which the twelve men were charged with the murder of just one Aboriginal child. They were found guilty, and seven of the men were hanged in December under the authority of Governor George Gipps. As a result of the hangings, the government received a huge backlash from people in Sydney, who saw the Aborigines as mere pests that deserved to be exterminated. Colonists who were outraged at the massacre of Aboriginal people were largely in the minority.

On 10 June 2000, a memorial to the Aborigines of Myall Creek was dedicated. An annual memorial service has been held on 10th June at the site of the massacre ever since. Some reconciliation between the descendants of the perpetrators of the massacre and of the people who were massacred has occurred, as documented in the ABC Australian Story episode “Bridge Over Myall Creek”.

World History

Tuesday, June 10, 1851. :   Sydney Ducks gang member John Jenkins is lynched by San Franciscan vigilantes.

During the convict era, between 1788 and the end of transportation in 1868, over 174,000 men, women and children were sent to Australia. Once pardoned or given a ticket-of-leave, many ex-convicts chose to remain in Australia. However, prospects were sometimes grim for those who chose to stay, some finding it impossible to earn a respectable living with the stigma of their convict past hanging over them. Nor could they return to their families in England, for the same reasons. Thus, when the goldrush began in California in 1848, many ex-convicts made their way to San Francisco.

With the population explosion in southern California, crime became rampant, particularly as many immigrants failed to find their fortune in gold and resorted to crime in order to survive. Criminals began to congregate in San Francisco, east of modern-day Chinatown, forming gangs. Among the most notorious were those dominated by Australians, ticket of leave and escaped convicts. By 1849, so many were gathering on the Barbary Coast that it was commonly called ‘Sydney Town’, populated by gangs such as the ‘Sydney Ducks’ and ‘Sydney Coves’. The Sydney Ducks were California’s first known gang.

On 3 May 1851, the Sydney Ducks were blamed for a fire which broke out following a severe earthquake on May 1. Looting was rife, and blame centred on the Australians when a man recognised as a Sydney-Towner was seen running from a paint shop shortly before it exploded in flames. The area remained notorious for its vicious crimes until Sydney Duck member John Jenkins was lynched by vigilantes on 10 June 1851. Following his hanging, the population of Sydney Town dropped significantly as many Australians fled the area.

World History

Saturday, June 10, 1944. :   642 residents of Oradour-sur-Glane, France, are killed by Nazi troops.

Nazi Germany’s troops were known for their brutality. After Germany invaded France in World War II, the local French Resistance developed to hinder the activities of the Germans. In 1944, with the Allied invasion looming, the French Resistance increased its activities in order to occupy the German forces and hinder communications.

Oradour-sur-Glane was a village in the Limousin région of Limoges France. It had come under direct German control in 1942. On 10 June 1944, a German command leader (Sturmbannführer) reported that he had been approached by two French citizens, who claimed another Sturmbannführer was being held captive in Oradour-sur-Glane, and his public execution was to be held that night. The entire village was reported to be working with the French Resistance guerrilla, the maquis.

As a result, 200 Nazi German troops rounded up the entire village of Oradour-sur-Glane, France, ostensibly to examine people’s papers. The men were rounded into barns, and the women and children into the church. The Nazi troops then set fire to the entire village. Anyone not burned was then killed by machine gun fire or grenades. Out of a population of 652, 10 people survived the conflagration and pretended to be dead until the troops had departed.

A new village was later built nearby, but the burnt ruins of the original village remain as testimony to the atrocities of Nazi Germany in World War II.

New Zealand History

Thursday, June 10, 1886. :   At least 153 die as Mt Tarawera in New Zealand erupts.

Mount Tarawera is a volcanic mountain situated 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua in the North Island of New Zealand. It is 1,111m high, and its crater is now a 6 km long chasm following the eruption that occurred in the early hours of 10 June 1886.

The volcanic ash in the air resulting from the eruption was observed as far south as Christchurch, over 800 km south. In Auckland the sound of the eruption and the flashing sky was thought by some to be an attack by Russian warships. The eruption also destroyed the Pink and White Terraces, which were a natural wonder located at Lake Rotomahana near Rotorua in New Zealand. They were regarded as the eighth wonder of the natural world and were New Zealand’s most famous tourist attraction. The eruption also buried the Maori village of Te Wairoa. The official death toll was 153 people, although actual numbers are believed to have been higher.