Born on this day

Tuesday, October 22, 1811. :   Hungarian piano virtuoso and composer, Franz Liszt, is born.

Franz Liszt was a composer of the Romantic Era, the period of European classical music which encompassed the early 1800s to the beginning of the 20th century. He was born Franz Joseph Liszt on 22 October 1811, in Sopron, Hungary. A virtuoso on the piano, his compositions comprised fantastic technical challenges and dramatic expression. He was a generous performer, who freely gave of his time and money to help orphans and victims of disasters. He often taught students for free.

Liszt’s piano compositions include his Piano Sonata in B minor, two piano concertos, and numerous piano transcriptions of operas, famous symphonies, and Schubert Lieder (songs). He also originated the concept of the symphonic poem, or tone poem, which was a piece of orchestral music in one single movement (as opposed to the three movements of a standard symphony), in which some extra-musical programme provided a narrative or illustrative element. It was commonly based on a poem, novel, painting or nationalistic ideal. His style served to influence contemporary composers such as Chopin, Berlioz, Bruckner, Mahler, Dvorak and Wagner.

Australian Explorers

Friday, October 22, 1824. :   Hume and Hovell convert a bullock cart into a boat in order to cross the flooded Murrumbidgee River.

Hamilton Hume was an Australian-born settler with excellent bush skills. He was interested in exploring south of the known Sydney area in order to open up new areas of land, but could not gain Government support for his proposed venture. William Hovell was an English immigrant with little bush experience, a former ship’s captain who was keen to assist Hume’s expedition financially, and accompany him. The expedition was set up, and Hume and Hovell departed Hume’s father’s farm at Appin, southwest of Sydney, on 3 October 1824.

When they reached the Murrumbidgee River, it was 36m wide, in full flood, and still rising. After spending several days trying to find a way around the river, on 22 October 1824, they found a unique solution to making the crossing. They converted the body of one of the carts into a boat, sealing it with a tarpaulin, and placing their supplies inside. Hume and an assigned convict swam across the river with a length of fishing line in their teeth, which in turn hauled a rope. Reaching the opposite side, they tied the rope around a tree and used it to guide the boat across. About 9 trips were required to ferry all the supplies across, and the horses and bullocks were swum over without incident. This was a method the men used several times to cross rivers on their journey.

Australian History

Sunday, October 22, 1854. :   Around 10,000 miners converge near Bakery Hill in Victoria to discuss their grievances for more rights on the goldfields.

The Battle of the Eureka Stockade was the 1854 miners’ uprising on the goldfields of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Conditions on the Australian goldfields were harsh. The fields were crowded and unsanitary, and troopers dealt unfairly with minor offences. The main source of discontent was the miner’s licence, which cost a monthly fee of 30 shillings and permitted the holder to work a 3.6 metre square “claim”. Licences had to be paid regardless of whether a digger’s claim resulted in the finding of any gold. Frequent licence hunts were conducted, during which the miners were ordered to produce proof of their licences, and this added to the increasing unrest.

On 22 October 1854, approximately 10,000 miners gathered at Bakery Hill directly across the flat from the Government Camp, on the road to the mainly Irish encampment of Eureka. In a non-violent campaign, they attempted to air their grievances, but were met with complete inaction. The lack of interest in the miners’ plight was the precursor to the Eureka Stockade which occurred over a month later near Ballarat (see December 3).

Australian History

Tuesday, October 22, 1872. :   The first overseas telegraph messages are received in Adelaide via the newly constructed Overland Telegraph Line.

The Overland Telegraph Line was a major feat of engineering, which connected Australia to the rest of world via a single wire. The motivation for building the Overland Telegraph Line came from the fact that a submarine cable already reached from England to Java, and the British-Australian Telegraph Company was prepared to lay a submarine cable from Java to Darwin. It remained only to connect Darwin to the rest of Australia.

The line was to connect first with Adelaide, as Adelaide was the closest point linking to the major centres of Melbourne and Sydney. Thanks to the influence of Charles Todd, superintendent of telegraphs and government astronomer in South Australia, the South Australian government agreed to build the necessary 3200-kilometre overland telegraph line connecting Darwin with Port Augusta, north of Adelaide. The line closely followed the route charted by explorer John McDouall Stuart on his final expedition in 1862. Scottish bushman John Ross marked out the trail prior to the construction of the line. 36 000 wooden poles were cut and transported, mainly from Wirrabara Forest (formerly Whites Forest) on the eastern slopes and foothills of the southern Flinders Ranges.

Begun on 15 September 1870, the Overland Telegraph Line was completed on 22 August 1872, when the northern and southern sections were joined. This meant that, instead of letters taking up to three months to travel from Australia to England, messages could be conveyed by telegraph in seven hours. The first telegraph messages from overseas were received in Morse code in the GPO building in Adelaide on 22 October 1972.

Australian History

Monday, October 22, 1917. :   Australia’s first transcontinental passenger service, the Great Western Express, departs Port Augusta for Kalgoorlie.

As Australia’s colonies moved towards the prospect of federation towards the end of the 1800s, Western Australia held back, with Premier and former explorer John Forrest wanting to ensure the economic security of the state, given its distance from the more highly populated eastern states. The promise of a transcontinental railway line linking the west with the eastern states influenced Western Australians to vote ‘yes’ in Forrest’s July 1900 referendum regarding joining the other colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. By Federation, the eastern states had an extensive network of railway lines, while the western railway line extended east from Perth to the goldfields. There remained a 1996 km span across the continent to connect the west to the east.

Legislation for the Trans-Australian Railway route to be surveyed was passed in 1907. Once the survey was completed in 1909, the recommended route was from Port Augusta at the head of Spencer Gulf in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in the central goldfields east of Perth. The track would utilise 530 km of existing track of the Adelaide-Oodnadatta line to Tarcoola before branching westwards. In 1911, then-Prime Minister Andrew Fisher’s government authorised construction of the 1711km track, at a cost of approximately 4,045,000 pounds. Despite the eastern and western ends being narrow gauge, the line was to be constructed at the standard gauge of 1435 mm.

Construction began in September 1912 with the first sod turned at Port Augusta on 14 September 1912. Two teams worked from either end: one commenced from Kalgoorlie in the west, while the other started from Port Augusta in South Australia. During construction, approximately 2.5 million hardwood sleepers and 140,000 tonnes of rail were used, while the project employed over 3400 workers. On 17 October 1917, the two teams met to complete the track near Ooldea, a small siding on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain, about 1170km west of Adelaide and 1520km east of Perth. The following week, on 22 October 1917, the first westbound passenger service known as the Great Western Express departed from Port Augusta. The journey to Kalgoorlie took 42 hours and 48 minutes.

The line between Ooldea and Loongana boasts 478km of completely straight track, the world’s longest such stretch. Early travellers were required to change trains five times due to the differences in gauge. Conversion to standard gauge of the entire intercity route began in 1969: upon completion in 1970, the service was renamed the Indian Pacific. Australia is currently the only continent that can be crossed east to west in a single train.

World History

Monday, October 22, 1990. :   The Royal Geographical Society declaims irrigation as one of the causes of the world’s worst ecological disaster around the Aral Sea.

The Aral Sea lies in central Asia, between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south. In 1960 it was the world’s fourth-largest lake, with an area of approximately 68,000 km², about the size of the Republic of Ireland. By 1998, it was only eighth-largest, and had shrunk to 28,687 km². During the 1980s, the water level fell so low that the sea split into two bodies of water, the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea. The artificial channel which was dug to connect them had disappeared by 1999, as the two bodies of water continued to shrink.

On 22 October 1990, the Royal Geographical Society claimed the area had suffered the world’s worst ecological disaster. The devastation was largely due to the Soviet construction of irrigation channels to divert the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the northeast. The irrigation channels were poorly constructed, allowing water to leak out or evaporate, resulting in wastage of between 30 and 70%. This situation has never been rectified.

Whilst there is some attempt to resurrect the North Aral Sea, the South Aral has continued to shrink, leaving behind vast saltpans which, together with the higher concentration of pesticides in the area, has resulted in severe health problems for the area’s four million inhabitants. The fishing industry has been decimated and the climate has changed, with short, dry summers and long, cold winters. The incidence of cancer has increased tenfold, and death from lung disease is among the highest in the world, as the result of salt and toxic chemicals being picked up by winds and dumped as toxic dust on surrounding areas.