On this day March 24 Australia 1827 - Work begins on a project to pipe water to meet the needs of the growing colony in New South Wales. John Busby, born 24 March 1765 (ironically the project began on his birthday), was a mining engineer who emigrated to New South Wales in 1824. He designed and created Sydneys first regular water supply in a project that became known as Busbys Bore or Lachlan Tunnel. The project involved tunnelling 3.6 km through largely sandstone rock from the Lachlan Swamp in what is now Centennial Park to a reservoir in Hyde Park. Other places 1882 - German scientist Robert Koch announces the discovery of the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis. 1874 - American escapologist Harry Houdini (Erik Weisz) is born in Budapest, Hungary. He died in 1926 of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix (he had no escape plan for that one) 1942 - Japanese aircraft bomb Port Moresby. The Japanese hoped to occupy the city as a base from which to debilitate shipping to Australias east. The intention was that, by capturing New Guinea, Australia would be cut off from Allied assistance. 18 heavy bombers and three fighters dropped some 20 tons of bombs on Port Moresbys military hospital and the town itself. Surprisingly, there were no casualties. 1989 - The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs aground, creating an oil slick disaster in Alaska. Exxon and its shipping company were indicted on five criminal counts. Exxon spent around 2 billion dollars cleaning up the spill with 11,000 workers, and a further $1 billion to settle civil and criminal charges related to the case.(As a result petrol prices in Australia skyrocketed. Well, the oil companies thought it a good idea at the time)
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 06:38:46 +0000
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