Born on this day
Monday, June 19, 1797. : Australian-born explorer Hamilton Hume is born.
Hamilton Hume, born near Parramatta, New South Wales on 19 June 1797, was an Australian-born settler with excellent bush skills. Hume was 15 when his family moved to a grant of 100 acres at Appin. His first exploration was at age 17 when, with his younger brother John and an Aboriginal man, he explored as far as the Berrima – Bong Bong district. Over the next two years, Hume continued his explorations beyond this area to the Bungonia district. During this time, he learnt skills of negotiating with the indigenous people, and his explorations were never marred by the hostilities which beset later explorers.
In 1818, Governor Macquarie sent Hume, James Meehan and Charles Throsby through the same countryside, hoping to find an overland route south from Sydney to Jervis Bay. The party did not remain together, with Hume and Meehan continuing on to reach Lake Bathurst and the Goulburn Plains. The following year, Hume and Meehan were given the opportunity to accompany explorer John Oxley to Jervis Bay. Several other expeditions followed, during which Hume discovered the Yass Plains and the Clyde River, and for which he was rewarded with a land grant of 300 acres at Appin.
Hume is perhaps best known for his 1824 exploration with William Hovell south of Sydney to Port Phillip. Although the two men argued for most of their journey, and even for many years after their return, this expedition was successful in many ways. Hume and Hovell became the first to discover the “Hume River”, though it was later renamed by Sturt as the Murray River. They were the first known Europeans to see the Australian Alps and their journey revealed extensive grazing and pastureland further south.
Hume continued to make a name for himself exploring beyond the Sydney area. In 1828, Governor Darling sent Hume to accompany Charles Sturt on an expedition to the interior of Australia, following the course of the Macquarie River. The men reached the Bogan and Darling Rivers, during which Hume’s skills in negotiating with the Aboriginal people proved to be particularly valuable. Sturt requested Hume’s company on his expedition down the Murrumbidgee River which led to the discovery of the lower reaches of the Murray River; however, Hume had developed health issues and was unable to take part.
Hume continued to live a distinguished life as a farmer and grazier. In 1860, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He died in 1873 and is buried in Yass Cemetery.
World History
Monday, June 19, 1865. : News that slavery has been abolished in all the states finally reaches Texas, two and a half years after the proclamation is officially announced.
The first African slaves arrived in North America in 1526, and though the practice of slavery took many years to become popular, it thrived under British colonialism. On 1 January 1808 American Congress voted to ban further importation of slaves, but children of slaves automatically became slaves themselves. There was no legislation against the internal US slave trade, or against the involvement in the international slave trade and the outfitting of ships for that trade by US citizens.
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was not in favour of abolition of slavery, but he opposed its expansion into new territories and states in the American West. It was this issue that led to the secession of the southern states to form the Confederate States of America, and ultimately also led to the Civil War.
Slavery was officially abolished in 1863. However, the news of the slaves’ freedom took two and a half years to reach some of the states. 19 June 1865 is the date when General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and announced that the state’s 200,000 slaves were free.
World History
Friday, June 19, 1885. : The Statue of Liberty, in 350 pieces, arrives in New York aboard a French freighter
The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island, formerly Bedloe’s Island, in New York Harbor. Its full title is “Liberty Enlightening the World”. Gustave Eiffel was the Structural Engineer of the Statue of Liberty, and its Sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. The Statue was completed in Paris in June 1884, and presented to America by France in recognition of the friendship established during the American Revolution.
The Statue was completed in Paris in June 1884 and presented to America by the people of France on 4 July 1884. It was then dismantled and shipped to the United States in 1885 for reassembling. Although France assumed responsibility for construction of the statue and assembling of the pieces in the USA, America was responsible for building the pedestal upon which the Statue of Liberty stands. On 19 June 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York aboard a French freighter as 350 individual pieces in 214 crates.
In response, the American community in Paris gave a return gift to the French of a bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty, standing about 11 metres high, and sculpted to a quarter-size scale. This statue now stands approximately one and a half kilometres downstream from the Eiffel Tower on Ile des Cygnes, an island in the Seine River.
World History
Wednesday, June 19, 1889. : The modern pizza is invented.
The word ‘pizza’ has been in existence for many centuries longer than the modern pizza. The first time the word was noted was in the year 997, in Medieval Latin, in reference to a Neapolitan. Bakers in Naples used the flatbread as a tool to gauge the temperature of an oven, and it was not intended to be eaten.
The modern pizza is believed to have been invented on 19 June 1889. Raffaele Esposito was a chef in Naples who wished to honour Queen Margherita of Savoy. He used the pizza flatbread base and topped it with a combination of fresh tomato, mozzarella cheese, olive oil and basil. Naming it after the Queen, Esposito created the very first “Pizza Margherita”, selecting the topping to represent the colours of the flag of Italy.
World History
Monday, June 19, 1944. : The Battle of the Philippine Sea is won by the US against the Japanese.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1942, it made a tactical error by drawing the US into a fight that it had previously avoided. Numerous naval battles ensued, such as the Battle of Midway, with many of them spelling further defeat for the Japanese forces and an end to their Imperial campaign to conquer the Pacific.
The Battle of the Philippine Sea was an air-sea battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II fought between the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy off the Mariana Islands. After Japanese forces were sighted on 15 June by American submarines, the US forces prepared for a major battle. This came on 19 June 1944, beginning with four raids by Japanese aircraft, which were effectively shot down by US forces. Similar attacks by the Japanese navy were offset, and the battle ended the following day after Japanese forces were ordered to withdraw from the Philippine Sea.
During the battle, the Japanese forces lost almost all of their carrier-borne aircraft and a third of the carriers involved in the battle. The four Japanese attacks used 373 carrier aircraft, of which 130 returned to the carriers, and several more were destroyed onboard the two carriers which were destroyed on the first day. After the second day the total losses included three carriers and over 400 carrier aircraft and around 200 land-based planes. Losses on the US side on the first day were only 23, and on the second 100, most due to night landings. After the battle the aircraft carrier force of the Imperial Japanese Navy was no longer militarily effective.
World History
Monday, June 19, 1978. : Garfield, the sardonic comic strip cat, debuts in print.
Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis, featuring the sardonic cat Garfield, Odie the dog, and their socially inept owner Jon Arbuckle. Garfield is named after creator Jim Davis’s grandfather, James Garfield Davis, who was named after former US president James Garfield.
Garfield first appeared in print on 19 June 1978, initially making his debut in 41 US newspapers. He has since gone on to appear in dozens of books, TV cartoons and even his own film. The comic strip was turned into a television cartoon special in 1982 called “Here Comes Garfield”, which was followed by twelve television specials and a television series, Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988 to 1995. A live-action movie entitled “Garfield: The Movie” debuted in the United States in June 2004.
Garfield is well known for his love of lasagne and eating in general, his sarcasm, and how he torments Odie, the dog, in ways which sometimes backfire. As of 2006, the comic strip is syndicated in roughly 2,570 newspapers and journals and it currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip.