Australian History
Monday, October 5, 1789. : Australia’s first ferry service begins operation.
Australia was colonised by the English in January 1788, and the colony of Sydney quickly grew. Although remote and isolated from the rest of the world, life in New South Wales promised new opportunities for people who had lost employment in England’s industrial revolution. As business, farms, trades and the population expanded, so did the need for efficient transportation of goods and people. The roads were well-utilised, but the Parramatta River was also a useful avenue for transportation.
During the first eighteen months of the colony, water transport comprised small rowboats from the First Fleet vessels. In response to the need for better water transport, the first locally-built ferry was launched, on 5 October 1789. The “Rose Hill Packet”, commonly known as ‘the Lump’, was Australia’s first ferry service. A wooden hoy, ‘the Lump’ weighed 12 tons and could navigate the journey from Sydney Cove to Rose Hill (now Parramatta) in just 2 days.
Australian History
Monday, October 5, 1857. : The first leg is opened of what later becomes the Adelaide to Darwin transcontinental railway line.
Victoria is generally accepted as the first place in Australia to have had a completed railway line. The first steam train in Australia made its maiden voyage on 12 September 1854, running between Flinders Street and Sandridge, now Port Melbourne. However, the first railway ever to run in Australia was in South Australia.
South Australia was the only Australian state to remain completely convict-free, and it quickly grew, fed by immigrants and free settlers in search of a better life or escaping religious persecution. South Australia was the site where Australia’s first paddle steamer was launched. It was the site from which both the first east to west crossing and successful south to north crossing of the continent was undertaken. It was also the first colony to implement a railway.
South Australia began operations of horse-drawn trains in May 1854. The line ran from Goolwa, on the Murray River, to the harbour at Port Elliot, and was used to move supplies between craft navigating the Murray River, and coastal and ocean-going vessels. From these humble beginnings, greater things grew. In 1856, the first steam-train ran between Adelaide and Port Adelaide. The following year, the first track was lain of what would ultimately become the Adelaide to Darwin transcontinental railway line, or the Ghan. Opened on 5 October 1857, this line ran the 30km from Adelaide to Gawler, and served the agricultural and mining industries of the area.
World History
Tuesday, October 5, 1582. : Pope Gregory decrees that October 5 will become October 15.
The Gregorian calendar, widely adopted in the western world, was initially decreed by Pope Gregory XIII on 24 February 1582. The Gregorian calendar was first proposed by Aloysius Lilius because the mean year in the Julian Calendar was slightly long, causing the vernal equinox to slowly advance earlier in the calendar year.
On 5 October 1582, the Gregorian calendar was actively adopted for the first time. It required an adjustment to correct 11 accumulated days from the Julian calendar. The day following Thursday, 4 October 1582 was Friday, 15 October 1582, effective in most Catholic countries such as Italy, Poland, Spain and Portugal. Non-Catholic countries such as Scotland, Britain and the latter’s colonies still used the Julian calendar up until 1752, and some Asian countries were still using the Julian calendar up until the early twentieth century.
World History
Saturday, October 5, 1889. : Inventor Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.
Thomas Alva Edison was born on 11 February 1847 in Milan, Ohio, USA. Childhood illness meant that he was a slow starter and easily distracted in his schooling. After his teacher described him as “addled”, his mother, a former schoolteacher herself, took charge of her son’s education, stimulating his curiosity and desire to experiment.
He began selling newspapers on the railroad at age 12, and learned how to operate a telegraph. In 1868, his first invention was an electric vote-recording machine. The invention which first gained Edison fame was the phonograph in 1877, but in 1876 he had moved his laboratory to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he invented the first prototype of a commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb, in 1879.
By the late 1880s he started experimenting with moving pictures. In his laboratory he produced the Kinetograph, a motion picture camera, and the Kinetoscope, which was a peephole motion picture viewer. On 5 October 1889, he showed his first motion picture. Edison was a prolific inventor, and he became known as “The Wizard of Menlo Park”.
World History
Saturday, October 5, 1974. : American David Kunst completes his circumnavigation of the world on foot.
Thirty-year-old American David Kunst left the town of Waseca, Minnesota, on 20 June 1970, to set out on his round-the-world journey by foot. Two of David’s brothers accompanied him at different times on his journey. Initially he was joined by his 23-year-old brother John, but John was killed and David wounded by thieves in Afghanistan in 1972. David only survived by playing dead.
Kunst returned to his home town to recover before resuming his journey back in Afghanistan with his brother Peter. Kunst completed his circumnavigation on 5 October 1974, having trekked across four continents. His journey covered more than 23,000km.
World History
Thursday, October 5, 1989. : The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fourteenth Dalai Lama. He was born Lhamo Thondup on 6 July 1935 in the village of Taktser which is in the north-eastern province of Amdo, Tibet. He came from a humble farming family, and began his monastic education when he was only 6 years old.
As well as being Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama is also the Head of State. In this position, he appealed to the United Nations to improve Tibet’s relations with China, after China encroached upon Tibetan territory in the 1950s. The Dalai Lama’s aim was to gain China’s respect for the human rights of Tibetans and their wish to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structure free from outside influence. In the 1980s, he proposed a Five-Point Peace Plan at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held in the USA in 1987. This plan cemented his further proposals for Tibetan autonomy from Chinese influence and domination. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 5 October 1989.