Australian Explorers
Sunday, November 11, 1860. : Explorers Burke and Wills first reach Cooper Creek on their expedition to cross Australia from south to north.
Robert O’Hara Burke and William Wills led the expedition that was intended to bring fame and prestige to Victoria: being the first to cross Australia from south to north and back again, and to win for Victoria the right to build the overland telegraph line. With a huge party of men, horses, camel and equipment, they departed from Melbourne on 20 August 1860, farewelled by around 15,000 people. The cost of the expedition was almost 5,000 pounds, a phenomenal amount for the time.
After reaching Menindee, Burke decided the split the party, leaving one group to wait for more supplies to arrive at Menindee. Burke then pushed on with a smaller party to Cooper Creek. At this time, Cooper Creek represented the farthest point in Australia where any exploration had reached. This permanent water supply had been visited by Captain Charles Sturt in 1845 and Augustus Charles Gregory in 1858, and was an ideal point to establish a depot.
The Burke and Wills party arrived at Cooper Creek on 11 November 1860. They initially formed a depot at Camp LXIII (Camp 63) while they conducted reconnaissance to the north. However, A plague of rats meant the party needed to move camp downstream, where they established another depot, at Bullah Bullah Waterhole, which was dominated by a large coolabah tree, now infamously known as the “Dig Tree”. This was Camp LXV (Camp 65) and here they built a stockade, naming it Fort Wills. It was from this point that the expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria departed
Australian History
Thursday, November 11, 1880. : Bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne.
Ned Kelly, Australia’s most famous bushranger, was born in December 1854 in Victoria, Australia. Kelly was twelve when his father died, and he was subsequently required to leave school to take on the new position as head of the family. Shortly after this, the Kellys moved to Glenrowan. As a teenager, Ned became involved in petty crimes, regularly targeting the wealthy landowners. He gradually progressed to crimes of increasing seriousness and violence, including bank robbery and murder, soon becoming a hunted man.
Many of Ned Kelly’s peers held him in high regard for his stand of usually only ambushing wealthy landowners, and helped to keep his whereabouts from the police, despite the high reward posted for his capture. However, he was betrayed to the police whilst holding dozens of people hostage in the Glenrowan Inn in June 1880. Wearing their famous armour, the Kelly brothers held a shootout with police. Gang members Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne were killed, and Ned was shot twenty-eight times in the legs, which were unprotected by the armour. He survived to stand trial, and was sentenced to death by hanging, by Judge Redmond Barry on 29 October 1880. Ned Kelly was hanged in Melbourne on 11 November 1880.
Australian History
Tuesday, November 11, 1958. : Victoria becomes the first Australian state to give official recognition to a floral emblem.
Common Heath is a delicate shrub which grows to between 30 centimetres and 1 metre high. It has narrow, tapered leaves and fine, star-shaped flowers which range in colour from white through a variety of pinks to red. Bearing the scientific name of “Epacris impressa Labill”, the shrub was first found in Tasmania in 1793 by French biologist and explorer Jacques Labillardiere. Common Heath grows primarily in southern Victoria, through the damp country of the range foothills, coastal heath lands, the Grampians in the west and the Little Desert scrub. Besides Victoria and Tasmania, it is also found in parts of New South Wales and South Australia.
On 18 September 1951, representatives from a range of Victorian government departments, societies and individuals met and unanimously agreed that Common Heath should be adopted as the State floral emblem. Subsequently, on 11 November 1958, the pink form of Common Heath, Epacris impressa, was proclaimed the floral emblem of Victoria, making the southernmost mainland state the first in Australia to officially recognise a floral emblem.
Australian History
Tuesday, November 11, 1975. : Australia’s Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, dismisses Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister.
Edward Gough Whitlam, born on 11 July 1916, became the 21st Prime Minister of Australia on 2 December 1972. It was the first ALP electoral victory since 1946. The Whitlam government embarked on a massive legislative social reform program which was forward-thinking and progressive in many ways. Whilst initially popular, the fast pace of reform engendered caution amongst the electorate, and the economy was beset by high inflation combined with economic stagnation.
These conditions were the catalyst to the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975. The opposition Liberal-National Country Party coalition held a majority in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament. In an unprecedented move, the Senate deferred voting on bills that appropriated funds for government expenditure, attempting to force the Prime Minister to dissolve the House of Representatives and call an election. The Whitlam government ignored the warnings, and sought alternative means of appropriating the funds it needed to repay huge debts. With Whitlam unable to secure the necessary funds, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, dismissed Whitlam as Prime Minister on 11 November 1975, and appointed Liberal opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister. This was done on the condition that Fraser would seek a dissolution of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, thus precipitating a general election.
World History
Thursday, November 11, 1880. : The term ‘boycott’ is created when British landowner Charles Boycott is ostracised by his tenants.
Charles Cunningham Boycott was born in Norfolk in 1823. He came to Ireland to work as a land agent for Lord Erne, the local landowner in the Lough Mask area. The Irish National Land League, seeking to protect tenants from exploitation and demanding fairer rent, withdrew the local labour required to save the harvest on Lord Erne’s estate. Captain Boycott refused the tenants’ demands for rent relief, and was subsequently shunned by the community. The campaign against Boycott commenced on 11 November 1880. No-one, whether neighbours, shopkeepers or fellow worshippers in church, spoke to Captain Boycott. Before he left Ireland, his name had become synonymous with ostracisation, leading to the development of the term ‘to boycott’.
World History
Monday, November 11, 1918. : Today is Remembrance Day, marking the end of World War 1, in 1918.
The first World War began in August 1914 and lasted for four years. At 5am on the morning of 11 November 1918, Germany, lacking manpower, weaponry and supplies, and facing imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies. This marked the end of World War 1, also known as the Great War. November 11 has come to be known as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. Traditionally, British, Canadian, South African, Australian and New Zealand citizens observe the day with two minutes’ silence at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, which is the time that the armistice became effective.
The red poppy has come to be recognised as the symbol for Remembrance Day. It was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders, an area in western Europe now spanned by Belgium, France and the Netherlands.