1817 HMSC Mermaid was commissioned on this day ; the Mermaid was the infamous boat in which Phillip Parker King surveyed and chartered the coastline of Oz - and which he managed to drive and crash into a boab tree at what he named as Careening Bay on the Kimberley coast.
Nary a drink or drugs tester in sight.
THEN he had the sheer cheek to carve it into history by carving 'HMC Mermaid 1820' into the aforementioned boab tree.
Hmph, some people...!
1849 On the Cape York Peninsula Barbara Thompson had been a castaway who'd lived with the local Kaurareg for 5 years before being rescued by HMS Rattlesnake at Evans Bay on this date when she could finally get some decent shoes.
1852 T'was a sunny Sat'dee arvo when bushrangers progressively bailed up and robbed 19 people, all within a few hours, on that little sandy track now known as Brighton Road, St Kilda, at approx. the spot where the Elsternwick Hotel now squats (oh, the tales I could tell about that establishment...!).
She was also, briefly, hitched in unholy matrimony to Breaker Morant in 1883 but this must have slipped her mind when she wed, bigamously, a second time to John Bates in 1885.
Oops.
She arrived at Mangere Aerodrome 10.5 hours after leaving Sydney, with the whole journey from England taking her 11 days and 45 mins.
1944 The blokes held a wild tea party at which they voted to rebrand their whole bag o' tricks under the name The Liberal Party of Australia.
1975 Balibo Five -
1982 At a national federal conference (a wild tea party, perhaps?) the peeps voted to change the brand name of their own bag o' tricks from National Country Party of Australia to just National Party of Australia.
Contrary to popular opinion many did not change their clocks or their socks at the same time.
