Australian History
Sunday, March 4, 1804. : The Australian Battle of Vinegar Hill, also known as the Battle of Castle Hill, begins.
Castle Hill is a suburb in Sydney, Australia, about 30 kilometres northwest of the central business district. The area was established as a government farm by Governor King in July 1801. Most of the convicts who worked the farm were Irish, many of them having been transported for agitation against British rule.
On 4 March 1804 the convicts, led by Phillip Cunningham and William Johnston, rebelled in the Castle Hill Rebellion, which also became known as the ‘Battle of Vinegar Hill’. It was named the Battle of Vinegar Hill after an uprising of Irish rebels against British authority in 1798 – an uprising which saw many of the rebels transported to New South Wales as political prisoners. One convict set fire to his hut in Castle Hill at 9:00 pm, the signal for the rebellion to begin. Cunningham led as 200 rebels broke into the Government Farm’s buildings, taking firearms, ammunition and other weapons. The rebels then began marching towards Constitution Hill at Parramatta, gathering more firearms and supplies as they went.
New South Wales Corps soldiers caught up to the rebels the following day. The rebels were outgunned and outnumbered by British troops, who massacred about twenty of them. Cunningham was hanged on March 6 without a trial; several more of the rebels were hanged following swift trials over the following days.
Australian History
Friday, March 4, 1831. : Lieutenant-Governor James Stirling is commissioned first governor of the Swan River colony.
Australia’s western coastline was first sighted by Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer in 1611 when he experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. As the route became more popular, the western half of the continent became known as “New Holland”, and more Dutch explorers ventured to explore the coastline. However, the Dutch saw no benefits in colonising the western coast, as the land seemed dry and barren.
In 1826 Edmund Lockyer was sent to claim the western half of the Australian continent for Britain. He arrived at King George Sound on Christmas Day in 1826, and established a military base which he named Frederick’s Town (now Albany). Just over two years later, Captain Charles Fremantle was sent to take formal possession of the remainder of New Holland which had not already been claimed for Britain under the territory of New South Wales. On 2 May 1829, Captain Fremantle raised the Union Jack on the south head of the Swan River, thus claiming the territory for Britain.
In late 1828, Captain Sir James Stirling RN was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Swan River colony, although there was no formal legislative basis for his appointment. The first steps were taken under the 1829 Act to provide for the government of the Colony in November 1830, and Stirling was then commissioned as Governor and Commander-in-Chief on 4 March 1831.
Australian History
Saturday, March 4, 1899. : Cyclone Mahina hits north Queensland, killing over 400.
Cyclone Mahina, which hit north Queensland on 4 March 1899, was a category 5 cyclone, and resulted in the greatest death toll of any natural disaster in Australia. It hit a pearling fleet of around 100 vessels which lay at anchor at Bathurst Bay, driving the boats onto the shore or onto the Great Barrier Reef.
307 people were killed in this one act alone, and only 4 sailors survived. Just before the eye of the cyclone passed overland to the north a tidal wave 13 – 15 metres high, caused by the storm surge, swept inland for about 5 kilometres, destroying anything that was left of the Bathurst Bay pearling fleet, along with the settlement. The death toll of between 400 and 410 included at least 100 indigenous Australians, some of whom died when they were caught by the back surge and swept into the sea while trying to help shipwrecked men. A memorial stone to ‘The Pearlers’ who were lost to the hurricane was erected on Cape Melville. The disaster is also commemorated in the Anglican church on Thursday Island.
World History
Saturday, March 4, 1933. : Amidst the Great Depression, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is inaugurated.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, was born on 30 January 1882 at Hyde Park in upstate New York. After initially studying law, he sought public office and was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910. After a bout with poliomyelitis, a viral infection of the nerve fibres of the spinal cord which left his lower body partially paralysed for the remainder of his life, Roosevelt returned to politics, and became governor of New York. In this position, he worked tirelessly for tax relief for farmers, as well as implementing practical action such as the development of hydroelectricity on the St Lawrence River. He was reelected governor just after the October 1929 stock market crash was developing into a major depression.
In his second term as governor, Roosevelt mobilised the state government to provide relief and spur economic recovery. His aggressive approach to the economic crisis resulted in his gaining the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. By the time he took office on 4 March 1933, most banks were closed, farms were suffering, 13 million workers were unemployed, and industrial production stood at just over half its 1929 level. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt uttered his famous words, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” In the subsequent years, many of Roosevelt’s reforms (under his “New Deal” policy) helped aid the American economy into recovery. Such reforms included the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, and creation of the Public Works Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority. As WWII approached, Roosevelt was also aware of the growing threat from the Germans and Japanese, and provided strong leadership through the crises that followed, including the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the US entry into the war.
Roosevelt was re-elected for a third term in 1940, and again for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. However, a few months after his inauguration, he died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage, on 12 April 1945. He had been President for more than 12 years, longer than any other person, and had led the country through some of its greatest crises to the brink of its greatest triumph, the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, and to within sight of the defeat of Japan as well.