1831 Sydney, Journalism: Australia’s oldest extant newspaper the ‘Sydney (Morning) Herald’ went on the streets. It succeeded beyond the expectations of the founders and they sold it to John Fairfax in 1846. It remained in the Fairfax family until an MBA took over. The word ‘Morning’ was added in 1842 to distinguish it from rivals that appeared later in the day.
1916 Paris, Literature: Edith Wharton was made a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honour for her war work. After divorcing money bags she was in Paris on vacation when war came, and unlike many others, she stayed. Used some of the dosh to open a workroom for women to make clothing for soldiers. As the Germans neared, many fled but she stayed to house Belgian refugees. She began a letter writing campaign to raise money for hospitals. To raise the profile of the Great War in the United States she made a car trip to the front lines in 1915 with a photographer, leading to publication in ‘Scribner’s Magazine’ and later as a book. Her novels are exquisite observations of social life.
1924 New York City, Games: Simon & Schusters published the first book of crossword puzzles. Never have so many wasted so much time thanks to so few. Cruciverbalist, rejoice!
1936 Honolulu, Aviation: The Pan Am clipper began regular passenger flights between Honolulu and San Francisco. Charlie Chan was soon to be on board.
1969 Fredericton, Politics: New Brunswick enacted legislation to make the province bilingual, the first and only province to do so. About a third of the total population of 750,000 are Francophone who remained even after the expulsion of Acadians (Le grand Dérangement) in 1755 when 15,000 French settlers were forcibly removed to the southern United States, a story burned into my memory with ‘Evangeline’ by Henry Longfellow (whose name graced my primary school). It is an epic poem and that word ‘epic’ refers to endurance required of the auditor for there was no exit from the forest of words primeval, nor from the poem itself.
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