Australian History
Sunday, November 18, 1838. : The first group of German-Prussian Lutherans sponsored by wealthy Scottish businessman, George Fife Angas, arrives in South Australia.
In the 1800s, under King Friedrich Wilhelm III, German/Prussian Lutherans suffered religious persecution. Friedrich Wilhelm was an autocratic king who believed he had the right to create his own state church from the two main Protestant churches – the Lutheran church and the smaller Reformed church – in a united Prussian state church. This would effectively remove the right of Lutherans to worship in a way of their choosing. Penalties for non-adherance to the state religion were severe. Many Lutherans immigrated to Australia to escape the persecution.
Thanks to wealthy Scottish businessman and chairman of the South Australian Company, George Fife Angas, a deal was struck by Pastor August Kavel to start a new Lutheran settlement in South Australia. The first group of 21 Lutherans under Angas’s sponsorship arrived on the ship ‘Bengalee’ on 18 November 1838, followed two days later by the main group on the ‘Prince George’. They first settled at the town of Klemzig. Many more ships followed over the next three years.
Australian History
Tuesday, November 18, 1879. : One of Australia’s youngest bushrangers, a fifteen-year-old member of Captain Moonlite’s gang, is shot and killed.
Augustus Wernicke was one of Australia’s youngest bushrangers, and part of Captain Moonlite’s gang. Captain Moonlite, aka Andrew George Scott, became a bushranger upon his release from gaol, eight years after robbing the bank at Mount Egerton, Victoria. He recruited several other gang members, among them 15-year-old Wernicke, and walked to New South Wales, hoping to find employment at Wantabadgery Station, well known for its hospitality.
Being in the grip of a severe drought, and having recently changed hands, Wantabadgery could offer them nothing. In desperation, Moonlite took 35 people hostage. In the resultant shootout with police on 18 November 1879, gang members James Nesbitt and Augustus Wernicke, together with Constable Bowen, were all shot dead. Moonlite and the surviving gang members were tried and charged with the murder of Constable Bowen. Moonlite himself was hanged on 20 January 1880 at Darlinghurst Court.
World History
Monday, November 18, 1861. : The words to the famous “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” are first penned.
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;”
This begins the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, a well-known hymn which has become symbolic of patriotism in the USA. The hymn originated as a campfire spiritual, based on a melody written by William Steffe in 1856. The original lyrics were entitled “Canaan’s Happy Shore” or “Brothers, Will You Meet Me?”
Shortly before Civil War broke out in the US, Thomas Bishop, who joined the Massachusetts militia, wrote new lyrics called “John Brown’s Body”, referring to the famous abolitionist, and the song became one of his unit’s walking songs. After Bishop’s battalion was sent to Washington DC at the outbreak of the war, Julia Ward Howe, accompanied by Reverend James Freeman Clarke, heard the song during a public review of the troops outside Washington on Upton Hill, Virginia. Clarke suggested Howe write new lyrics for the fighting men’s song.
On the night of 18 November 1861, while staying in her hotel room in Washington, Howe awoke with the new lyrics already in her mind, and wrote them down immediately. They were first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862.
World History
Sunday, November 18, 1928. : Cartoon character Mickey Mouse debuts in ‘Steamboat Willie’.
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character who has become a symbol for The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney first created a cartoon character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, for Charles Mintz of Universal Studios. When Disney requested an increased budget to develop the character, he was fired, losing the rights to the cartoon creation which was owned by the company. Mickey Mouse was created to replace Oswald. Originally named Mortimer Mouse, Disney’s wife suggested that the name was too pretentious, and Disney came up with Mickey Mouse instead.
During his development, Mickey Mouse appeared in a couple of other cartoons, including ‘Plane Crazy’ and ‘The Gallopin’ Gaucho’. The character was not popular as he was initially very similar in appearance and mannerisms to Oswald, so Disney sought to develop the mouse as an entirely separate personality which would distinguish him from Disney’s previous work and that of his rivals. “Steamboat Willie”, featuring the new and different Mickey Mouse, was first released on 18 November 1928. Although this was not the first Mickey cartoon made or released, it is still considered by some as Mickey Mouse’s true debut. “Steamboat Willie” was the first sound-synchronised animated cartoon, and a complete success.
World History
Saturday, November 18, 1978. : Over 900 people mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, South America.
Jim Jones, born on 13 May 1931, was the American founder of the People’s Temple, a cult which initially had its roots in San Francisco. After an investigation began into the church for tax evasion, Jones and most of the 1,000 members of the People’s Temple moved to a camp deep in the jungle of Guyana, South America. The settlement was named Jonestown.
Relatives and people who had left the organisation told of brutal beatings, murders and a mass suicide plan but were not believed. Allegations of human rights abuses perpetrated by Jones caused US Congressman Leo Ryan to lead a fact-finding mission to Jonestown in November 1978. After spending a couple of days interviewing residents, Ryan and his crew left hurriedly on November 18 when an attempt was made on Ryan’s life. As they reached the nearby airstrip to depart Jonestown with about twenty cult members who wished to escape, gunmen from the compound arrived and began firing on the planes. Five people were killed, including Ryan, three media representatives, and one of the former cult members. Shortly after this, 914 cult members, including 276 children, drank soft drink laced with cyanide and sedatives in order to commit mass suicide. Jones himself died from an apparently self-inflicted bullet wound to the head.
World History
Wednesday, November 18, 1987. : 31 people are killed when a fire breaks out in the London Underground.
The London Underground is a metropolitan railway system in London. With 12 lines and 275 stations, it is one of the largest urban rapid transit systems in the world.
On 18 November 1987, a fatal fire broke out in King’s Cross St. Pancras, in the London Underground railway network. The fire was believed to have been caused when a discarded match from a smoking passenger ignited oil, grease and papers in a machine room beneath an old wooden escalator. Smoke was first noticed coming from the escalator at 7:32pm. The London Fire Brigade arrived on the scene at 7.42pm, and three minutes later the flames erupted in a fireball. Station Officer Colin Townsley, who remained in the ticketing hall at the top of the escalator shaft, was killed trying to help passengers escape. Another 30 people were killed in the blaze.
Later investigations uncovered the discarded match. They also revealed that numerous other fires had been ignited in the same way, around the wooden escalators, but had never progressed to the same degree. Other conditions exacerbated the quick ventilation and progression of the fire: among these was a particular combination of draughts, caused by an eastbound train arriving at the station while a westbound train was leaving.
Special Days
Monday, November 18, 1985. : Today is Calvin and Hobbes Day, marking the debut of the comic strip.
Calvin and Hobbes is a cartoon strip by cartoonist Bill Watterson. It features a six-year-old boy, Calvin, whose mischievous nature is the bane of everyone around him, and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, which only Calvin sees as real and alive. The characters are named after 16th-century French Reformation theologian John Calvin, and Thomas Hobbes, an English political philosopher from the 17th century. The cartoon’s creator intended the naming to be “an inside job for poli-sci majors”. Watterson graduated from Kenyon College in 1980 with a degree in political science, and became a political cartoonist for the Cincinnati Post, which then fired him after just three months.
Watterson continued drawing cartoons and experienced numerous rejections for his work. He was encouraged by some interest shown in one of his minor characters who was the younger brother of the main subject: this character became Calvin. The strip was picked up by Universal Press Syndicate, and first published on 18 November 1985.
Calvin and Hobbes enjoyed an immensely successful run, earning Watterson the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society, in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year category, in both 1986 and 1988. He was also awarded the Humor Comic Strip Award for 1988. Despite his success, Watterson reached the point where he felt he could not develop the strip or the characters according to syndicate constraints any further and, fearing a stalemate, ended Calvin and Hobbes on a high, with the final cartoon being published on 31 December 1995. At this point, the cartoon was appearing in more than 2400 newspapers. Many newspapers around the world continue to run the strip as a weekly feature.