Born on this day
Saturday, October 2, 1869. : Political leader and humanitarian, Mahatma Gandhi, is born.
Mahatma Gandhi was born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, India. Gandhi was a peace-loving man who initially trained as a barrister in England, but was unsuccessful in pursuing a career in law once he returned to India. After accepting a post to Natal, South Africa, Gandhi experienced frequent humiliation and oppression commonly directed at Indians in South Africa. This caused him to then spend two decades fighting for the rights of immigrants in South Africa.
After WWI broke out, Gandhi returned to India. Here, he turned his back on western influences to embrace a life of abstinence and spirituality. Inspired by the American writer Henry David Thoreau’s famous essay on “Civil Disobedience”, Gandhi implemented his own campaign of non-violent civil disobedience to bring about change in Britain’s oppression of Indians within their own country. Although frequently jailed by the British authorities, pressure from his followers usually secured his release before he fasted himself to death. Following WWII, he participated in negotiations which eventually led to India’s gaining independence from Britain.
Gandhi advocated that all people were equal under one God. On 30 January 1948 he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who could not accept Gandhi’s assertion that Muslims had equal value to Hindus and no creed or religion was better than any other.
Australian History
Thursday, October 2, 1902. : William Gocher defies the Australian law that prohibits daylight bathing in the ocean, and sets a new precedent in surf-swimming.
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 However, he maintained his campaign against the bathing laws, and a year later, on November 3rd, the Manly Council rescinded the by-law that prohibited bathing during daylight hours. 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.
World History
Thursday, October 2, 1608. : Hans Lippershey demonstrates the first telescope.
Hans Lippershey, also known as Jan or Hans Lippersheim, was born around 1570 (exact date unknown) in Wesel, western Germany. After settling in the Netherlands, he became a maker of spectacles. Lippershey is credited with creating the design for the first practical telescope, after experimenting with different sized lenses. He demonstrated his invention before the Dutch Parliament on 2 October 1608, calling it a “kijker”, meaning “looker” in Dutch. The astronomer Galileo Galilei created a working design of the telescope in 1609 after receiving a description of Lippershey’s invention.
World History
Friday, October 2, 1942. : Ocean Liner ‘The Queen Mary’ accidentally slices through an escort ship, killing 338.
The ocean liner ‘Queen Mary’ sailed the North Atlantic Ocean as a passenger ship from 1936 to 1967, except during the years of World War II. In 1940, the Queen Mary was commissioned for use as a troop ship. In Sydney, the Queen Mary, together with several other liners, was converted into a troopship to carry Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the UK.
These ships earned a reputation for being the largest and fastest troopships, carrying up to 15,000 men in a single voyage. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, also converted, were both nicknamed ‘The Grey Ghost’. Their speed, and the fact that they often travelled out of convoy and without an escort, enabled them to elude the German U-boats, their greatest threat.
On 2 October 1942, the Queen Mary was travelling with an escort. Whilst travelling near the Irish coast, the liner accidentally sliced through its escort ship, light cruiser HMS Curacoa. The Captain was forced to continue, being under strict orders not to stop for any reason, due to the threat posed by the U-boats. Royal Navy destroyers which accompanied the ship were ordered to reverse course and rescue any survivors. 338 people were killed in the accident.
World History
Monday, October 2, 1950. : The comic strip ‘Peanuts’, by Charles M Schulz, makes its debut in seven newspapers across America.
Charles Monroe Schulz, creator of ‘Peanuts’, was born in St Paul, Minnesota, on 26 November 1922. As a teenager, he was shy and introverted, and when he created his comic strip ‘Peanuts’ he based the character of Charlie Brown on himself. Charlie Brown first appeared in the comic strip “Li’l Folks”, published in 1947 by the St Paul Pioneer Press. In 1950, Schulz approached the United Features Syndicate with his best strips from “Li’l Folks”, and “Peanuts” made its debut on 2 October 1950.
“Peanuts” ran for nearly 50 years, appearing in over 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. It ended only when Schulz’s own failing health prevented him from continuing to produce the comic strip. The final original Peanuts comic strip was written on 3 January 2000 and published in newspapers a day after Schulz’s death on February 12.