Australian History
Wednesday, October 4, 1797. : The first flock of Spanish Merinos, upon which Australia’s wool industry was founded, arrive in Sydney.
In the early years of settlement, the colony of New South Wales struggled to achieve self-sufficiency. The convicts were not skilled in farming, and unwilling to work hard in the intense heat and humidity of Australia. British farming methods, seeds and implements were unsuitable for use in the different climate and soil, and the colony faced near-starvation in its first two years. An industry suited to Australia’s harsh conditions needed to be established.
John Macarthur arrived in New South Wales in 1790. In 1793, Macarthur was given a land grant of 100 acres which he cleared and improved, assisted by convict labour. After receiving another land grant, he and his wife Elizabeth worked hard to improve and develop the land, eventually planting 120 acres of wheat, and numerous fruits and vegetables.
On 4 October 1797, the first flock of Spanish merino sheep arrived in Australia. They had been bought in South Africa by British officers Henry Waterhouse and William Kent, who then sold some of them to the Macarthurs. The Spanish Merino was a hardy sheep which was tolerant of Australia’s extreme conditions. Unlike other settlers, Macarthur did not try to cross-breed the sheep with other breeds, which only resulted in sheep with coarse wool of a lower quality. By 1803, the Macarthur flock numbered over 4000. The Macarthurs had improved the bloodline and strength of the flock by purchasing merinos from flocks in different regions, thus limiting inter-breeding of similar bloodlines. For this reason, John Macarthur is often regarded as the founder of the wool industry in Australia.
Australian History
Friday, October 4, 1935. : The Hornibrook Highway, Australia’s longest road bridge for many decades, is opened, allowing faster access to the Redcliffe Peninsula.
The city of Redcliffe, Queensland, Australia, was the site of the first European settlement in Moreton Bay. Oxley and Settlement Commandant Lieutenant Miller, together with a crew and 29 convicts, sailed on the ‘Amity’ from Sydney and arrived at Redcliffe on 13 September 1824 to establish the new colony. Abandoned as a convict colony less than a year later when the main settlement was moved 30km away to the Brisbane River, it was eventually reclaimed by free settlers, becoming a popular seaside resort in the 1880s. Originally, day trippers would travel to the Redcliffe Peninsula by steamer, whilst those planning for a longer stay would travel the inland route from Brisbane, via Petrie.
The area’s increasing popularity necessitated the building of a bridge across the mouth of the Pine River at Hayes Inlet, which separates the Brisbane suburb of Brighton from Redcliffe. On 4 October 1935, the 2.8km two-lane Hornibrook Highway was opened, reducing Redcliffe’s isolation. Still Australia’s longest road bridge, it has a single central arch where the channel of the river runs, allowing for fishing craft to pass underneath. Deterioration of the bridge through the years necessitated the building of a new bridge, and a replacement three lane bridge, the Houghton Highway, was opened in 1979. The Hornibrook Highway was, for many years, used only for pedestrians and cyclists. Until it was dismantled in 2011, it remained a popular fishing spot.
On 11 July 2010, yet another new road bridge was opened, 30 metres east of the Houghton Highway. The ‘Ted Smout Memorial Bridge’, built 4 metres higher than the Houghton, features 3 traffic lanes and a pedestrian and cycle path, as well as a fishing platform near the Pine River channel.
The Hornibrook Highway lost its status as Australia’s longest road bridge in 2013, with the opening of a new bridge over the Macleay River in New South Wales.
World History
Thursday, October 4, 1883. : The Orient Express commences its first run.
The Orient Express is the name of a long-distance passenger train, the route for which has changed considerably in modern times. The first run of The Orient Express was on 4 October 1883. The train travelled from Paris to Giurgiu in Romania, via Munich and Vienna. At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Ruse in Bulgaria to pick up another train to Varna. From here they completed their journey to Istanbul by ferry.
The Orient Express reached the height of its popularity in the 1930s, when three parallel services ran. These included the Orient Express, the Simplon Orient Express, which took a more southerly route via Milan, Venice and Trieste, and also the Arlberg Orient Express, which ran via Zurich and Innsbruck to Budapest, with sleeper cars running onwards from there to Bucharest and Athens.
World History
Sunday, October 4, 1931. : The comic strip “Dick Tracy” makes its debut.
The comic strip “Dick Tracy” revolves around the investigations of a character by the same name, Dick Tracy. Tracy is an exceptionally intelligent police detective, classic in his 1930s attire, and forced to match his wits against a variety of strange-looking and unmitigatingly evil villains. These criminals invariably have names to match their grotesquely deformed features. Such characters include “Flattop” Jones and the Nazi spy Pruneface.
“Dick Tracy” was originally created by cartoonist Chester Gould, and made its debut on 4 October 1931. Gould drew Dick Tracy up until 1977 when he retired, but his work was continued by Max Allan Collins and long-time Gould assistant Rick Fletcher, who in turn was succeeded by editorial cartoonist Dick Locher. The modern strips have incorporated new villains keeping up with modern technology, such as the video pirate named Splitscreen.
Dick Tracy is easily one of the world’s longest-running comic strips. It enjoyed a fourteen-year run as a radio serial, and has formed the basis for numerous television programmes, feature films, and a major 1990 film starring Warren Beatty.
World History
Friday, October 4, 1957. : The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
Germany is credited with initiating the Space Age, when it became the first country to launch a rocket into outer space, doing so in 1942. However, serious development of the Space Age commenced in 1957, when the Soviet Union became the first to launch an artificial satellite into orbit around the Earth, on 4 October 1957.
The Sputnik spacecraft, meaning ‘companion’ or ‘fellow traveller’, weighed 83kg and was about the size of a basketball. It orbited the Earth approximately every 98 minutes at a speed of 32,000km per hour, 800km above the earth. Sputnik was launched from Kazakhstan, and stayed in orbit for three months, plunging to Earth on 4 January 1958. The development and launch of Sputnik is regarded as the beginning of the Space Race between the USA and the USSR.
World History
Sunday, October 4, 1992. : An Israeli Boeing 747 cargo plane crashes into an apartment building in Amsterdam, killing 47 people.
On 4 October 1992, shortly after departing Amsterdam, Netherlands on a flight to Tel Aviv, Israel a cargo plane carrying four passengers crashed into an apartment complex in the suburb of Bijlmereer on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Fifty flats in the nine-storey complex were directly hit by the plane when it fell, killing a total of 43 people on the ground.
The accident happened after the number three engine and pylon separated from the wing and collided with the number four engine, causing the number four engine and pylon to separate. Part of the leading edge of the right wing was damaged, and several other aircraft systems were affected. The crew attempted to turn back for an emergency landing, but were unable to maintain control of the aircraft.
A subsequent inquiry into the crash found that metal fatigue had probably damaged the engine mountings, which had then torn away. Interestingly, the investigation also led to later claims of a cover-up. In 1998, it was revealed that the plane had been carrying at least one of the ingredients needed to make the nerve gas, sarin. For many years after the crash, occupants of the district exposed to the plane’s explosion suffered from depression, listlessness and respiratory problems. The government was censured in 1999 for failing to thoroughly investigate the crash and to initiate health checks.