Australian Explorers
Thursday, October 13, 1836. : One of Mitchell’s men drowns as his expedition returns from the successful ‘Australia Felix’ discovery.
Major Thomas Mitchell was born in Craigend, Scotland, in 1792. He came to Australia after serving in the Army during the Napoleonic Wars, and took up the position of Surveyor-General of New South Wales. He undertook four expeditions into the NSW interior. His third expedition is regarded as his most successful. His instructions were to follow the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers to the Murray, then on to the junction with the Darling River. He was then to follow the Darling upstream as far as Menindee to confirm that it was the same river he had initially followed south from northern New South Wales.
Discouraged by the desolate country around the southern end of the Darling, Mitchell decided to return to the Murray to explore its more fertile surrounds. Crossing the Murray near the Murrumbidgee junction, he passed through the rich farming country of western Victoria, naming it “Australia Felix”, or “Happy Australia”. After continuing down to the southern coast, he turned in a north-easterly direction back towards Sydney. It was during this stage of his journey that he suffered his only loss of one of his team. On 13 October 1836, whilst scouting out a suitable crossing site on the Broken River, an ex-convict named James Taylor fell off his horse and drowned.
Australian History
Friday, October 13, 1933. : Australia’s first traffic lights begin operating in Sydney.
The world’s first traffic light was operating in London, England, even before the advent of the automobile. Installed at a London intersection in 1868, it was a revolving gas-lit lantern with red and green signals. However, on 2 January 1869, the light exploded, injuring the policeman who was operating it. It was not until the early 1900s that Garrett Morgan, an African American living in Cleveland, Ohio, developed the electric automatic traffic light. Originally based on a semaphore-system, traffic lights gradually evolved through the years to become the red-amber-green lights they are today.
Sydney’s first set of traffic lights was installed on 13 October 1933. It was another 32 years before the nation’s capital, Canberra, received its first two sets of traffic lights, on 23 October 1965.
World History
Thursday, October 13, 1307. : King Philip IV of France arrests all the Knights Templars, spawning the superstition which surrounds Friday the 13th.
The order of the Knights Templar was founded around 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade. The order was recognised at the Council of Troyes in 1128 and confirmed by Pope Honorius III. The order grew to become one of the most powerful in Europe. The Knights Templar started lending money to Spanish pilgrims who wanted to travel to the Holy Land, and they gained wealth as the Church showered blessings and money on the order; but with the wealth came power and corruption. Pope Clement V urged Philip IV of France to find some means to extinguish their presence and power.
Thus it was that on 13 October 1307, Philip IV ordered the arrest of the entire order of Knights Templar in France, and had their possessions confiscated. This act served as the origin of the superstition which regards Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. The knights were put on trial and were tortured to extract confessions of sacrilegious practices, including heresy and witchcraft. Many were burnt and tortured, and under duress, admitted to a variety of heresies. These admissions were later retracted as being forced admissions. The leader of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was executed on 18 March 1314, by which time the Templars had been virtually hunted out of existence
World History
Saturday, October 13, 1792. : The cornerstone is laid for the White House in Washington DC.
The newly independent United States Government under the Constitution commenced in New York City on 4 March 1789. In 1790, the capital was moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The city was only ever intended to be a temporary capital while preparations were made for the new US Capital in a more central location. George Washington helped select the site for the new Capital, positioned along the Potomac River. The states of Maryland and Virginia ceded land around the Potomac River to form the District of Columbia: hence the capital is known as Washington DC.
Labour began on the new capital city in 1791, and on 13 October 1792, the cornerstone was laid for the new Presidential Palace. The building’s white Virginia freestone, set amongst the red brick of surrounding buildings, soon earned it the name of the “White House”.