Born on this day
Wednesday, October 9, 1940. : Singer, songwriter and former member of “The Beatles”, John Lennon, is born.
John Lennon was born John Winston Lennon on 9 October 1940. His father walked out on his mother when Lennon was very young, leading his mother to hand the young Lennon over to her sister to care for. Lennon lived with his Aunt Mimi at Mendips throughout his childhood and adolescence, though his mother taught him to play the banjo, retaining an interest in her son’s life until she was killed in an accident in 1958.
Lennon was a non-conformist who dropped out of school to devote his time to developing his musical talents. He joined up with Paul McCartney and George Harrison to form a band, taking the name “Johnny and the Moondogs”, followed by “The Silver Beetles”, which was later shortened to “The Beatles”. Lennon is considered to be one of the most influential singer-songwriter-musicians of the 20th century, profoundly affecting the direction of rock ‘n’ roll music.
Lennon was assassinated by a deranged fan on 8 December 1980, as he and his wife Yoko Ono returned to their apartment in New York City.
Australian History
Sunday, October 9, 1803. : Lieutenant-Governor Collins arrives in Port Phillip Bay on Australia’s southern coast to establish a new settlement.
Long before John Batman made his treaty with the Aborigines to lease land at Port Phillip for a new settlement, the British Government instructed Lieutenant-Governor David Collins to establish a settlement on the southern coast. The purpose was to offset French interests in the region. At that stage, the area was still part of New South Wales. Two ships, the HMS Calcutta and the Ocean, carried around 300 convicts, 50 marines, 17 free settlers, 12 civil officers, and a missionary and his wife.
On 9 October 1803 Collins and his expedition entered Port Phillip Bay. After several days of seeking a suitable site, Collins ordered the Calcutta to land at Sullivan Bay, the site where Sorrento now stands on the Mornington Peninsula. The Governor of New South Wales at the time, Phillip Gidley King, was unaware of the expedition or of the British Government’s orders.
The settlement was not a success, as fresh water was in short supply. The local timber was unsuitable for many uses, and the treacherous entrance to Port Phillip Bay made the site unusable as a whaling base. Hearing of better land and timber in Van Diemen’s Land, Collins moved most of the settlement across Bass Strait. Unimpressed with Lieutenant Bowen’s choice of a site at Risdon Cove, Collins established Hobart on the Derwent River early in 1804.
Australian History
Friday, October 9, 1908. : The Yass-Canberra area is named as the site for the new Federal Capital Territory of Australia.
On 1 January 1901, federation of the six colonies in Australia was achieved and the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. With the establishment of a new nation came the need to build a federal capital. It was decided that the national capital would not be one of the existing state capitals, in order to prevent rivalry between the cities. It would, however, be positioned between Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. Section 125 of the Constitution of Australia provided that:
“The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.
Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefore. The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meets at the seat of Government.”
Numerous sites were evaluated by members of Parliament. The site for the national capital could not be on the coast, as this could cause it to be susceptible to enemy bombardment. The necessity for a naval port was satisfied by the acquisition of federal land at Jervis Bay. The climate needed to be “bracing”, to ensure clear minds for political decision-making. There could be no established urban development or industry already, and access to sufficient water was a necessity. It needed to be in an elevated position, preferably surrounded by picturesque mountains.
Locations raised for consideration were Albury, Armidale, Bathurst, Bombala, Dalgety, Delegate, Goulburn, Lake George, Lyndhurst, Orange, Queanbeyan, Tumut, Wagga Wagga and Yass. Bombala was the choice selected by a ballot in the House of Representatives in 1903. Following a change of government in 1904, Dalgety was named as the site of Australia’s future Federal Capital Territory. When the government changed again in 1905, the question of the most suitable site was resurrected yet again, and in 1906, the choice was narrowed down to Dalgety, Yass-Canberra and Lake George. Another ballot was held on 9 October 1908, and the Yass-Canberra site won by six votes. The territory was defined as a triangle, with Yass in the top corner, the Murrumbidgee River forming the western border and Lake George being in the east. The land was formally transferred from New South Wales in January 1911.
Australian History
Wednesday, October 9, 1957. : The final major British atomic bomb test is conducted at the remote South Australian site of Maralinga.
Australia’s remoteness made it a choice for Britain to conduct testing of its atomic weapons in the 1950s. In October of 1952, the Montebello islands, off north-west Western Australia, became the site for testing of the first British atomic bomb. This was followed a year later by Britain’s first atomic test on the Australian mainland, at Emu Field, in the Great Victoria Desert of South Australia. Further tests of nuclear weapons at the site were not undertaken, as it was considered too remote an area.
Maralinga is a remote area of South Australia, and was the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal group. “Operation Buffalo” involved four open-air nuclear test explosions at Maralinga, and commenced on 27 September 1956, continuing through to October 22. The next series of tests at Maralinga was codenamed “Operation Antler” and involved three tests the following year. The final major test at Maralinga was conducted on 9 October 1957. However, many more minor tests were carried out in complete secrecy at Maralinga, up until 1963.
The tests at Maralinga left a legacy of radioactive contamination. Clean-up operations were insufficient to combat radiation poisoning among Australian servicemen and Aborigines who were at Maralinga during the tests. The site was formally handed back to the Maralinga people under the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act in 1985. In 1994, the Australian Government made a compensation settlement of $13.5 million with Maralinga Tjarutja, in relation to the nuclear testing.
World History
Monday, October 9, 1769. : Explorer James Cook first sets foot on New Zealand.
Captain James Cook was not the first to discover New Zealand, as he was preceded by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He was, however, the first to circumnavigate the coastline when he was sent to observe the transit of Venus across the sun from the vantage point of Tahiti. The transit of Venus occurs when the planet Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, and its unlit side can be seen as a small black circle moving across the face of the Sun. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, eight years apart, approximately once every 120 years. Cook’s ship, the ‘Endeavour’, departed England, on 25 August 1768. Cook reached Tahiti in time for his crew and scientists to set up their instrumentation necessary to observe and report on the transit, which occurred on 3 June 1769.
After observing the transit of Venus, Cook went on to search for Terra Australis Incognita, the great continent which some believed to extend round the pole. It was shortly after observing the transit of Venus that Cook came across New Zealand, which had already been discovered by Abel Tasman in 1642. Early in October 1769, a 12-year-old cabin boy named Nicholas Young first sighted New Zealand, and two days later the ‘Endeavour’ anchored in Poverty Bay, which Cook originally named as Endeavour Bay. The next day, 9 October 1769, Cook and two botanists, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, went ashore at the future site of Gisborne.
Cook went on to spend some months in New Zealand, charting the coastline. His initial encounters with the people of New Zealand was marred by incidents which resulted in the deaths of several Māori, but he was later able to establish friendly trading relations with them.
World History
Wednesday, October 9, 1799. : The ‘HMS Lutine’ is wrecked, killing 270, and spawning a legend of Lost Gold.
The ‘HMS Lutine’ was a warship at a time when tensions were high between the Dutch and the British, and there was constant fear of invasion and plundering from either side. The Lutine was commissioned by a group of London merchants, concerned with the unsettling conditions in Europe, to ship a cargo of between half a million and £2 million in gold and silver to the European continent. On the night of 9 October 1799, exceptionally rough weather caused the ship to crash on a sandbank off the Dutch coast, and 269 lives were lost.
Despite many attempts, the valuable cargo of the Lutine has never been recovered. It was insured by Lloyd’s of London underwriters who took an enormous loss and paid the claim in full. In 1858, the bell of the Lutine was recovered and installed at Lloyd’s of London, where it is now rung for ceremonial occasions and before important announcements.