Add Your Piece of History… 11th August

• On this day in 1897.  British children’s author, Enid Blyton, is born.  Enid Blyton was born in East Dulwich, England on this day.  Blyton became a prolific writer of children’s books, and many of her titles have been translated into 40 different languages.  It is estimated that she wrote over 600 titles, many under the same series, such as the Secret Seven, Famous Five, Magic Faraway Tree and Adventure series.

•  On this day in 1877.  American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars.

• On this day in 1896.  Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain.

• On this day in 1934.  Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, received federal prisoners for the first time.

Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

Asaph Hall, discoverer of the two Martian moons. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Add Your Piece of History… 10th August

• On this day in 1990.  The Magellan spacecraft arrives at Venus to begin mapping the planet’s surface.  The Magellan spacecraft was named after the 16th century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.  Magellan remained in orbit around Venus for 4 years before it lost altitude and crashed on the planet’s surface in October 1994.

• On this day in 1844.  Charles Sturt sets out on his final expedition to search for an inland sea in Australia.

Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

Diagram of the Magellan Venus Orbiter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Charles Sturt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Add Your Piece of History… 9th August

• On this day in 1173.  Construction begins on the Tower of Pisa, which is later to become the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.  The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the bell tower, or campanile, of the cathedral in Pisa’s Campo dei Miracoli (field of Miracles).  The tower took nearly 200 years to complete, being finished in 1372.

• On this day in 1945.  The United States drops a second atomic bomb, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.  On the morning of 6 August 1945, the “Enola Gay”, an American B-29 Superfortress dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.  Another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki 3 days later, killing 74,000 immediately.  However the real death toll from the impact and the effects of the bomb was closer to 150,000, no including the effects on generation to come.  Nagasaki was targeted as it was one of Japan’s most important ports providing vital access to and from Shanghai.  The destruction was limited to about 6.5 square kilometres as Nagasaki is surrounded by mountains.  President Truman issued the order to drop the bombs after Japan failed to act upon the Potsdam Declaration.  The declaration had been issued 10 days previously, calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan.  Japan surrendered to the Allies on 14 August 1945.

Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

The Leaning tower of Pisa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mission map for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6 and August 9, 1945. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Add Your Piece of History… 8th August

• On this day in 1963.  The Great Train Robbery in England occurs, in which £2.6m is stolen in used, untraceable bank notes.  For 125 years, The Post Office train, known as the Up Special, had run its nightly service.  On this day the train was carrying over 26 million pounds ($AU75.5 million) in used, untraceable bank notes destined for burning at the Bank of England, when it was stopped by a red light at 3:15am local time in Buckinghamshire.  Police investigators found that the signals had been tampered with and the telephone wires had been cut.  After the train was stopped, thieves attacked driver Jack Mills, 58, with an iron bar, uncoupled the engine and front two carriages and drove them to Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore.  There they load 120 mail and money bags into a waiting truck.  13 of the thieves were caught and tried 6 months later.  Ronnie Biggs became the best known of the criminals when he escaped from prison and headed for Brazil, remaining free for 28 years.

• On this day in 1988.  Princess Beatrice, the first child of Prince Andrew and his wife Sarah, is born.  Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice of York (Beatrice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor), the Queen’s fifth grandchild was born on this day.  Princess Beatrice was born at Portland Hospital in London.  Her birth was greeted with 41 gun salutes at Hyde Park and Tower Green.  (8/8/88)

Please feel free to add a piece of history (something personal or general history).

Bridego Bridge, Buckinghamshire, England. The scene of the 1963 Great Train Robbery (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Add Your Piece of History… 5th August

• On this day in 1962.  Famous actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her bed.  Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortensen on 1 June 1926, in Los Angeles, California.  Monroe was found dead of a sleeping pill overdose on 5 August 1962.

• On this day in 1930.  Neil Armstrong was born on this day in Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S.  Neil Armstrong is best known as the first person to set foot on the Moon in 1969.

Please feel free to add a piece of history (something personal or general history).

Cropped screenshot of Marilyn Monroe from the trailer for the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

American astronaut Neil Armstrong (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Add Your Piece of History… 4th August

• On this day in 1929.  The first passenger train departs Adelaide on the Ghan railway line to Alice Springs.  The original Ghan train was called the Afghan Express, a name which was soon shortened to just “The Ghan”.  It was named The Ghan because it followed the tracks of the Afghan camel teams which used to make the trek across central Australia.  The first train trip of the Ghan pulled out of the Adelaide station on 4 August 1929 with 120 passengers on board.  The train now travels through the centre of Australia, between the cities of Adelaide and Darwin, a total journey of 2979km.

 

• On this day in 1961.  Barack Obama celebrates his birthday today.  Barack Hussein Obama II was born in  Honolulu, Hawaii, United States.  Barack is the 44th and current President of the United States. 

 

• On this day in 1901.  Louis Armstrong was born on this day in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.  Considered the father of Jazz, he replaced the Beatles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “Hello, Dolly!” when he was 63 years old.

 

Please feel free to add a piece of history (something personal or general history).

 

The Ghan waiting at Alice Springs station before continuing north to Darwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Louis Armstrong, jazz trumpeter. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Add Your Piece of History… 3rd August

• On this day in 1978.   The Queen opens the 11th Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada.

 

• On this day in 1914.  Germany declared war on France. The next day World War I began when Britain declared war on Germany.

 

• On this day in 1933.  The Mickey Mouse Watch was introduced for the price of $2.75. Produced by the Ingersoll-Waterbury Watch Company.  The watches were introduced just 5 years after Mickey Mouse made his debut in Steamboat Willie.  Over 11,000 of the original Mickey Mouse watches were sold on the first day of release.

 

Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

 

 

 

 

Add Your Piece of History… 2nd August

• On this day in 1870.  Tower Subway, the first tube railway in the world, is opened under the Thames River in London.    The London Underground is a public electric railway system that runs underground in central London and emerges above ground in the city’s suburbs.

• On this day in 1997.  After three days, skiing instructor Stuart Diver is pulled alive from the rubble of the collapsed Thredbo resorts.  For three days after the collapse of the Alpine Way in Australia’s high country, Stuart Diver, 27, lay trapped between two concrete slabs, under mud, rubble and snow.  1350 volunteers and specialists in rescue operations worked in shifts around the clock to clear the rubble and find survivors.  Diver had been buried for 66 hours and was suffering severe hypothermia and poor circulation.  When Diver was finally lifted from his concrete and rubble prison on 2 August 1997, a resounding cheer rang across the mountainside.

• On this day in 1922.  Scottish inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, dies.  Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 3 March 1847.  It was whilst living in Canada, from 1870, that Bell pursued his interest in telephony and communications.  On 7 March 1876, he was granted US Patent Number 174,465 for “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically …. by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound” – the telephone.  Bell an others formed the Bell Telephone Company in July 1877.

  Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

Tower Subway, showing tubular construction with segmental cast-iron rings, 1870 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Portrait of Alexander Graham Bell  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bell on the telephone in New York (calling Chicago) in 1892 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Add Your Piece of History… 1 August

• On this day in 1831.    New London Bridge is opened, replacing the 600-year-old London Bridge.  Engineer John Rennie started construction in 1825 and finished the bridge in 1831.  It was opened by King William the fourth, accompanied by Queen Adelaide on 1 August 1931.  A necessary widening process 70 years later weakened the bridge’s foundations to the point where it began sinking an inch every eight years.  In 1968, it was auctioned and sold for $2,460,000 to Robert McCulloch who moved it to Havasu City, Arizona, where it was rebuild brick by brick, and finally opened and dedicated on 10 October 1971.  The current London Bridge was completed in 1972 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973.  It was build in conjunction with the careful dismantling of the previous bridge, so that a river crossing was maintained in use at the site at all times.

• On this day in 1873.  The world’s first cable car is installed in San Francisco.  The Californian city of San Francisco is notable for its steep streets.  Horse-drawn carriages could become dangerous in wet conditions, as the cobblestone roadways provided insufficient grip for the horses’ hooves.  In 1873, British inventor Andrew Smith Hallidie devised a system for overcoming the problem of public transport in the hilly city.  Using wire ropes, pulleys, tracks and grips, he invented the first cable car, based on a system he had already implemented in cable drawn ore cars for use in mines.  On 1 August 1873, the first cable car cruised down Clay Street, San Francisco, and was able to return back up the steep grade, a distance of 853 metres, rising 93 metres.

Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

Opening of the new London Bridge in 1831 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Andrew Smith Hallidie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Add Your Piece of History… 31 July

• On this day in 1942.  The town of Mossman in far north Queensland is bombed by the Japanese.   In WWII, the first real attack of the Japanese on an Australian base occurred with the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942.  That attack was the first of about 90 attacks that occurred at various places in and around Australia during the war.  Shortly after this initial attack, the northwest coastal towns of Broome and Wyndham also came under fire, followed by Derby a few weeks later.  It is less well known that the town of Mossman, near Cairns, was also bombed.  On the night of 31 July 1942, Sub Lieutenant Mizukura dropped eight bombs, thinking that the lights he saw were Cairns.  In fact it was Mossman, and while the other seven bombs have never been recovered, one fell on a sugar cane farm near Saltwater, Mossman.  It caused a crater that measured 7 metres wide and a metre deep, and sent flying shrapnel through the window of a nearby farmhouse.  Farmer Felice Zullo’s two and a half year old daughter was wounded in the head from shrapnel which entered the house while she was in her cot at the time.

• On this day in 1947.  J.K. Rowling celebrates her birthday today.  Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born in Chipping Sodbury, England.  J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books.  The use of J.K. Rowling was the publisher’s decision to stop boys from being discouraged by the story’s author being female.

Please feel free to add your piece of history (something personal or general history).

Author J.K. Rowling reads from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at the Easter Egg Roll at White House. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)