Born on this day
Sunday, November 2, 1755. : Marie Antoinette, queen of France and wife of Louis XVI, is born.
Marie Antoinette was born in Vienna on 2 November 1755, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and his wife Empress Maria Theresa. When a new peace treaty was signed between Austria and France, it was hoped that a royal marriage would seal the peace. At age fourteen, Marie Antoinette was chosen to marry the dauphin in France, who became King Louis XVI four years later.
Marie Antoinette embraced the lavish lifestyle with enthusiasm. She had little regard for the poor and struggling peasants, and spent money frivolously. For her attitude, she became the symbol of the people’s hatred for the old regime during the French Revolution. When the French Revolution began, Marie Antionette supported the old regime. When the National Convention established the French Republic in 1792, Marie Antoinette and the king were imprisoned. Antoinette was beheaded on 16 October 1793.
Australian History
Monday, November 2, 1903. : Manly Council (Sydney) rescinds its by-law prohibiting bathing in the ocean during daylight hours.
In the 1800s, a Manly Council by-law (Sydney) prohibited swimming in the ocean during daylight hours, specifically between 6am and 8pm. William Henry Gocher was the proprietor of a local newspaper, who disagreed with the law enough to openly defy it. In his newspaper, the ‘Manly and North Sydney News’, he announced his intention to go bathing in the ocean during the daylight hours on 2 October 1902.
Gocher flouted the law three times before he was actually arrested. However, he maintained his campaign against the bathing laws, and a year later, on 2 November 1903, the Manly Council rescinded the by-law that prohibited bathing during daylight hours, specifically, after 7:00am. A new by-law was issued permitting bathing in daylight hours, but emphasising the need for neck-to-knee swimwear for anyone over 8 years old. Men and women were also required to swim at separate times.
Australian History
Thursday, November 2, 1922. : Qantas establishes its first regular passenger air service between Charleville and Cloncurry.
Qantas is Australia’s national airline service and the name was formerly an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”. The inspiration for Qantas came when, in March 1919, the Australian Federal Government offered a £10,000 prize for the first Australians to fly from England to Australia within 30 days. The challenge was taken up by W Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, former Australian Flying Corps officers who had served at Gallipoli. The men were promised sponsorship for the race by wealthy grazier Sir Samuel McCaughey, but McCaughey died before funding could be delivered.
Undaunted, Fysh and McGinness undertook an assignment from the Defence Department to survey part of the route of the race, travelling almost 2200km from Longreach in northwest Queensland to Katherine in the Northern Territory in a Model T Ford. The journey took 51 days and covered territory which no motor vehicle had negotiated before, and the difficulties highlighted the need for a regular aerial service to link remote settlements in the Australian outback.
Fysh and McGinness sought sponsorship once again, but this time for a regular air service, rather than a one-off race. Wealthy grazier Fergus McMaster, whom McGinness had once assisted in the remote outback when his car broke an axle, was happy to fund the venture. McMaster also garnered further investment from his own business acquaintances. Originally purchased under the name of The Western Queensland Auto Aero Service Limited, the air service became the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, or Qantas, in November 1920.
Based in Winton, western Queensland, the original Qantas fleet was made up of just two biplanes: an Avro 504K with a 100-horsepower water-cooled Sunbeam Dyak engine and a Royal Aircraft Factory BE2E with a 90 horsepower air-cooled engine. The men’s former flight sergeant Arthur Baird was signed on as aircraft mechanic. Initially, the service operated just for joyrides and demonstrations, until the first major air contract was landed in November 1922.
On 2 November 1922, Qantas commenced its first regular airmail and passenger service, between Cloncurry and Charleville. The first passenger was 84-year-old outback pioneer Alexander Kennedy, who flew on the Longreach-Winton-McKinlay-Cloncurry leg of the inaugural mail service from Charleville to Cloncurry.
World History
Friday, November 2, 1917. : Britain declares its intention to establish a new Jewish state within Palestine.
On 2 November 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submitted a declaration of intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This letter, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, became known as the Balfour Declaration, and stated that the British government supported Zionist plans for a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. Some of the motivation for the Declaration came from Britain’s hopes to increase Jewish support for the Allied effort in World War I.
The Balfour Declaration was unpopular among Arabs in Palestine, who feared that their own rights would be subjugated with the creation of a Jewish homeland. Increased tension between Jews and Arabs during the post-war period caused delays in the enacting of the Balfour Declaration. However, after the atrocities to the Jewish people during the Holocaust in WWII, the Zionist cause gained much support from the international community, resulting in the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
World History
Thursday, November 2, 2000. : An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first permanent residents of the International Space Station.
The International Space Station (ISS) is located in “low Earth” orbit around our planet at an altitude of approximately 360km. It is a joint project of 6 space agencies: the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Russian Federal Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA/ASC), Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) and the European Space Agency (ESA).
On 2 November 2000, American astronaut William Shepherd, together with Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, became the first permanent residents of the International Space Station. The mission of this first crew was to activate life support systems and experiments, while continuing stowage and checkout of the new station. They also assisted with the ongoing assembly of the Space Station and conducted the first station-based spacewalks. The turnaround for crews is four months, and so far, only Americans and Russians have inhabited the Space Station.
New Zealand History
Monday, November 2, 1868. : New Zealand becomes the first country to adopt a standard national time.
New Zealand is an island nation in the South Pacific, located approximately 2,250 km to the southeast of Australia. Although the first European discoverer was Abel Tasman, in 1642, New Zealand was claimed for Great Britain by James Cook in November 1769. Following Cook’s visit to the islands, they were settled by whalers, missionaries, and traders. The islands were annexed by Great Britain early in 1840, and the first permanent European settlement established on 22 January 1840. Early in February, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by over 500 Māori chiefs of New Zealand and the British Governor William Hobson, signalling that New Zealand was now an official colony of Great Britain. Initially part of the Australian colony of New South Wales, New Zealand became a separate colony in 1841 and attained self-government in 1852.
New Zealand is believed to be the first country in the world to adopt a standard time zone, doing so on 2 November 1868. The standard was known as New Zealand Mean Time (NZMT). This was even before the Greenwich Mean Time zone divisions were officially adopted in 1884. In 1941, clocks were advanced half an hour in a move which was made permanent in 1946, putting New Zealand exactly 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.