Born on this day
Sunday, June 22, 1930. : Aviator Charles Lindbergh’s young son, who is later kidnapped and murdered, is born.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr was born on 22 June 1930. His father was Charles Lindbergh, most famous for being the first pilot to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean. Because his father’s flying exploits had earned him the nickname “The Lone Eagle”, baby Charles was popularly dubbed the “eaglet”.
On the evening of 1 March 1932, Lindbergh discovered his son was missing from his cot in their house in East Amwell, New Jersey, USA. A handwritten ransom note riddled with spelling errors and grammatical irregularities was left, demanding $50,000. The New Jersey police were called in, but the lack of organisation meant that a lot of valuable evidence was disturbed or destroyed. The Bureau of Investigations (not yet called the FBI) was authorised to investigate the case. Further ransom notes were received, and even leaders of organised crime rings were prepared to assist in the recovery of the child, in return for legal favours and protection. However, baby Charles was never returned alive: his body was found by a truck driver on 12 May 1932, in a wooded area just a few kilometres from the Lindbergh home.
Australian History
Monday, June 22, 1964. : The Royal Flying Doctor Service’s Cloncurry base is relocated to Mt Isa, Queensland.
Australia’s Flying Doctor Service began with the vision of Reverend John Flynn, whose first posting as a Presbyterian minister was to Beltana, a tiny, remote settlement 500 kilometres north of Adelaide. After reporting to his church superiors on the difficulties of ministering to such a widely scattered population, he was appointed as the first Superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission, the ‘bush department’ of the Presbyterian Church, in 1912. Flynn served in the AIM at a time when only two doctors served an area of 300,000 sq kms in Western Australia and 1,500,000 sq kms in the Northern Territory. Realising the need for better medical care for the people of the outback, he established numerous bush hospitals and hostels.
By 1917, Flynn envisaged that new technology such as radio and the aeroplane could assist in providing a more effective medical service. His speculations attracted the attention of an Australian pilot serving in World War I, Clifford Peel, who wrote to Flynn, outlining the capabilities and costs of then-available planes. Flynn turned his considerable fund-raising talents to the task of establishing a flying medical service. On 15 May 1928, the Aerial Medical Service was established at Cloncurry, in western Queensland.
Communication was vital for the service to operate, so Flynn collaborated with Alfred Traeger, who developed the pedal radio, a lighter, more compact radio for communication, readily available to more residents of the outback for its size and cost. Because the pedal radio eliminated the need for electricity, which was available in very few areas of the outback in the 1920s, it made communication more accessible to the people who needed it. Thus, Flynn took the advantages of both radio and aeroplanes to provide a “Mantle of Safety” for the outback. Initially conceived as a one-year experiment, Flynn’s vision has continued successfully through the years, providing a valuable medical service to people in remote areas.
In 1942 the service was renamed the Flying Doctor Service. Queen Elizabeth II approved the prefix “Royal” in 1955 following her visit to Australia, and the service became the Royal Flying Doctor Service, or RFDS. The RFDS was relocated from its original Cloncurry base to Mt Isa, western Queensland, on 22 June 1964. Whilst some bases have been closed or relocated through the years, more new bases have been established through the years, and the Service continues to grow. As of 2016, the RFDS owns a fleet of 64 aircraft, operating from 25 bases across Australia.
Australian History
Wednesday, June 22, 1977. : The Uniting Church in Australia is established.
The Uniting Church in Australia is the third largest Christian denomination in Australia, after Roman Catholic and Anglican, with a membership of around 234 000 in 2500 congregations across the country. It was formed on 22 June 1977 when the Congregational Union in Australia, the Methodist Church of Australasia and the Presbyterian Church of Australia merged.
The document upon which the union was established is the Basis of Union, which outlines the affirmations of the Christian faith. The church follows the precepts of the Reformation Witness in the Scots Confession of Faith (1647), the Savoy Declaration (1658) and the preaching of John Wesley in his Forty Four Sermons (1793). The Uniting Church in Australia is represented by a circular emblem showing the cross of Jesus Christ positioned over a darkened world, with the Holy Spirit shown as a dove with wings of red flame. Beneath the cross and the dove is a wide “U” which is both a symbol of union, and a semicircle to indicate incompleteness of the renewing of the church and the world.
World History
Monday, June 22, 1987. : Singer, dancer and actor Fred Astaire dies.
Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz in Nebraska on 10 May 1899. Astaire’s mother took him to New York for professional dance training in 1906, with the intent to train him for a career in vaudeville. A Paramount Pictures screen test report on Astaire read simply: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Slightly balding. Also dances.” Astaire went on to become a film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor.
Astaire was awarded an honorary Oscar for his “unique artistry and his contributions to the techniques of musical pictures” in 1948. He won nine Emmys for a series of TV specials in the 1950s and 60s and in 1978, he was among the first recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement. He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1981 by the American Film Institute. Physically active right into old age, Astaire died from pneumonia on 22 June 1987.
World History
Monday, June 22, 1992. : Two skeletons excavated in Yekaterinburg are identified as Czar Nicholas II and his wife.
Czar Nicholas II was the last crowned Emperor of Russia. He ruled from 1894 until he was forced to abdicate in 1917 amidst civil war. A year later, on 17 July 1918, he and his wife, together with their five children, the family doctor and three attendants, were taken to the cellar of a house in Yekaterinburg. They were told to line up for a family portrait, but instead a detachment of Bolsheviks burst in and began firing, killing the family and servants.
Attempts were made to hide the evidence of the bodies, disposing of them down a mine-shaft. As rumours of what had happened began to surface, Bolshevik leader of the rebellion, Yurovsky, removed the bodies and buried most of them in a sealed and concealed pit. It was not until the 1970s that a local geologist and a filmmaker found some of the remains after obtaining an account of the burial cover-up written by the leader of the death squad. They found the site he identified, dug into the pit and retrieved three skulls. Later, however, they became apprehensive about what they had done and replaced them, keeping quiet until Mikhail Gorbachev’s “glasnost”, or policy of openness. In 1989, the filmmaker announced the discovery. In July 1991, the bodies were exhumed and the process of identification began. On 22 June 1992, two of the skeletons were officially identified as being that of Czar Nicholas II and his wife.
World History
Friday, June 22, 2001. : It is announced that two boys imprisoned at age ten for the murder of toddler James Bulger will be released, after eight years.
Three-year-old James Bulger was on a shopping trip with his mother on 12 February 1993. That same day, two ten-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, had decided to skip school and spend the day in Bootle Strand Shopping Centre. James’s mother was being served in a butcher’s shop when the two older boys took James from where he waited outside, and led him away. During the next couple of hours they tortured the boy in an horrific manner, finally weighing him down across a railway track, where he was eventually hit by a goods train.
When James’s body was found two days later, events surrounding his death were reconstructed, and at least 38 people reported having seen the two boys walking with him, alternating between hurting and distracting him. Some of the witnesses challenged their treatment of James, but were powerless to act when the boys claimed they were looking after their younger brother. Venables and Thompson were arrested within days. Their trial was conducted in the same format as an adult trial, with the accused sitting in the dock away from their parents and with the judge and court officials dressed in full legal regalia. They were found guilty and were sentenced to imprisonment at a young offenders institution until such time as they were deemed to no longer be a threat to the public.
On 22 June 2001, the British authorities announced that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both then 18, would be released. They were given new homes and identities to protect them from a public that was still horrified at what two children had been capable of doing. Since then, Thompson has not reoffended. Venables, however, has been reincarcerated several times for possessing images of child sex abuse. In September 2020 he was denied parole.