Australian History
Monday, September 3, 1855. : All property of the Sydney Railway Company is transferred to the New South Wales government.
The Sydney Railway Company, established for the purpose of constructing the first railway line, was incorporated on 10 October 1849. Work began on the first railway line from Sydney to Parramatta, a distance of 22km, early in July 1850.
Almost from the very beginning, the Sydney Railway Company experienced numerous obstacles and setbacks. Land required to complete the Sydney-Parramatta line became too expensive to purchase, and the company was already experiencing financial difficulties. Furthermore, the goldrush resulted in a shortage of labour as men left their jobs in droves in the hope of striking it rich. There was a shortage of timber and iron, too, as business owners took their goods to the goldfields. There, they established very profitable trading outposts where men were willing to pay more, being unwilling to travel back to the cities for supplies.
Due to the many difficulties, the construction of the Sydney to Parramatta railway line was put on hold until taken over by the New South Wales colonial government. All property owned by the Sydney Railway Company was handed over to the New South Wales government on 3 September 1855. This allowed for further development of the Sydney suburban rail network.
Australian History
Monday, September 3, 1894. : The Cambus Wallace runs aground off Stradbroke Island in southern Queensland in the first of two events which cause the island to be broken into North and South.
North Stradbroke and South Stradbroke are two islands located in Moreton Bay, off southeast Queensland. In the late 1800s, the two islands were still one, joined by a narrow neck of sand known as Jumpinpin, approximately 100m wide. That changed due to a series of events between 1894 and 1896.
The Cambus Wallace was a 75 m iron hulled steamer weighing around 1 650 tonnes, carrying a load of whiskey and dynamite. It ran aground off Jumpinpin in the early morning of 3 September 1894. The ship began to break apart, six crew members were drowned, and much of the cargo was washed up on the sand. During the cleanup afterwards, the explosives were piled in a hollow between the sand dunes and detonated, blowing several craters in the sand and destabilising the dune structure in an explosion that was heard as far away as Cleveland. Over the next two years, natural forces continued to erode the seaward side of the bar. During Autumn 1896, the gale-force winds of a late-season cyclone caused the final breakthrough, creating a passage through Stradbroke Island. By 1898, the passage had increased from about 6 metres to 1500 m in width, although the depositing of sand over time has reduced that.
The breakthrough changed the nature of the southern Moreton Bay area permanently. Tidal inundation increased erosion on farmland around the mouth of the Logan River, and farmers were forced to dig canals to prevent land loss, while the oyster industry was heavily affected. Jumpinpin Channel is now a well-used fishing and boating channel, though still precarious to negotiate.
Australian History
Tuesday, September 3, 1901. : The Australian flag is flown for the first time.
Following the proclamation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901, the Commonwealth government held a design competition for a new national flag. There were 32,000 entries in the competition, and most featured the Union Jack, the Southern Cross, or native animals.
Five almost identical entries were selected to share the 200-pound prize. The entries belonged to Ivor Evans, a fourteen-year-old schoolboy from Melbourne; Leslie John Hawkins, a teenager apprenticed to an optician from Sydney; Egbert John Nuttall, an architect from Melbourne; Annie Dorrington, an artist from Perth; and William Stevens, a ship’s officer from Auckland, New Zealand. On 3 September 1901, the new Australian flag flew for the first time from the top of the Exhibition Building in Melbourne. The flag was simplified, and approved by King Edward VII in 1902.
Australian History
Sunday, September 3, 1939. : Australian Prime Minister, Robert Gordon Menzies, announces that Australia is at war with Germany.
Robert Gordon Menzies entered politics in 1928 after being elected to Victoria’s Legislative Council for East Yarra. After six years in Victorian state politics as Attorney-General and Minister for Railways (1928–34), he was elected to federal parliament as member for Kooyong. In 1938, Menzies unsuccessfully challenged Lyons for the leadership of the United Australia Party. After he was defeated, Menzies resigned as a minister and as Deputy leader of the UAP. In April 1939, however, he was elected leader of the party following the death of Joseph Lyons, and became Prime Minister on 26 April 1939, entering into a tumultuous situation on the world stage.
Following increased aggression by Hitler’s forces and the German invasion of Poland, Great Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. Without consulting Cabinet, not all of whom shared his views, Menzies immediately announced Australia’s support of Britain. The Australian government sent Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) aircrews and several Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ships to fight for Britain, as well as raising a volunteer force, the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF). In the speech he made on 3 September 1939 Robert Gordon Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, announced:
“Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement.”
World History
Friday, September 3, 1976. : U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 lands on Mars to take the first close-up photographs of the planet’s surface.
Each Viking mission to Mars consisted of an orbiter and a lander. Viking 1 was the first to arrive on the surface of Mars, on 20 July 1976, making history as the first time a robotic spacecraft touched down on the planet. Viking 2 was launched on 9 September 1975 and entered the orbit of Mars on 7 August 1976. The Viking 2 Lander touched down at Utopia Planitia a month later, on 3 September 1976.
The Viking landers contained instruments for examining the physical and magnetic properties of the soil and for analysing the atmosphere and weather patterns of Mars. They transmitted images of the surface, took surface samples and analysed them for composition and signs of life, and deployed seismometers. The Viking 2 Lander operated on the surface for 1,281 Mars days and ended communications on 11 April 1980 when its batteries failed.
World History
Friday, September 3, 2004. : A siege in a Russian school ends, leaving 335 dead, mostly children.
The siege at Beslan’s School Number One, in the Russian republic of North Ossetia, began during a celebration marking the first day of the school year. On the morning of 1 September 2004, a group of masked men and women stormed into the school, opening fire in the courtyard where staff, students and parents had gathered. Over one thousand people were herded into the sweltering gym as hostages, and children used as human shields in windows. The hostages were given no food or water after the first day. Unidentified security sources claimed that the hostage-taking was the work of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who had al Qaeda support. The attackers are alleged to have demanded the release of fighters seized in nearby Ingushetia in June during a raid.
Two days later, on 3 September 2004, Russian commandos stormed the building in a bungled rescue attempt. Militant Chechens set off bombs or fired as children ran to escape, and one woman suicide bomber blew herself up in the middle of the crowded gym. When the dust finally settled after the siege, 335 were confirmed dead, mostly children, and another 180 were listed as missing. The Russian government, whilst blaming foreign enemies for the attack, admitted mistakes had been made during the rescue attempt.