On This Day June 16, 1869

Captain Charles Sturt, one of Australia's great explorers, dies.

Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Drawing on the skills of experienced bushman and explorer Hamilton Hume, Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling.

Pleased with Sturt's discoveries, Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. On this expedition, Sturt discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume), as did the Darling. By following the Murray in a collapsible whaleboat, Sturt found that it flowed to the southern ocean, emptying out at Lake Alexandrina on the south coast. The expedition was valuable for opening up Australia's inland waterways to the transportation of people and goods.

Sturt led further expeditions into Australia's interior to determine conclusively whether there was an inland sea, but found only the desert and harsh conditions, completely unsuitable for settlement. In 1851, Sturt returned to England, where he died on 16 June 1869. He is commemorated by the City of Charles Sturt and suburb of Sturt in Adelaide, Charles Sturt University in regional New South Wales, and the Sturt Highway from Wagga Wagga to Adelaide.

On This Day June 14, 1789

Captain William Bligh, after being cast adrift following the mutiny on the 'Bounty', arrives at Timor.

William Bligh was born in Plymouth, south-west England, on 9 September 1754. He was only 8 when he first went to sea. At age 22, he was chosen to join Captain Cook's crew on the 'Resolution', and became commander of the 'HMAV Bounty' eleven years later.

The famous mutiny on the Bountry occurred after Bligh left Tahiti on his way to the Caribbean. For reasons undetermined by historical records, Master's Mate Fletcher Christian led the mutiny, with the support of a small number of the ship's crew. Theories have abounded, foremost among them being Bligh's stern discipline and tendency to push his crew very hard. Bligh and his own supporters were provided with a 7m launch, a sextant and enough provisions to enable them to reach the closest ports, but no means of navigation. Bligh chose not to head for the closer Spanish ports, which would have slowed down the process of bringing the mutineers to justice, but instead completed a 41 day journey to Timor. From here, he stood a better chance of communicating quickly to British vessels which could pursue the mutineers.

After navigating some 5,600km from memory of Cook's charts and voyages, Bligh and his surviving crew arrived at Timor on 14 June 1789. After recovering in Timor and being tended to by the inhabitants of the Dutch colony, Captain Bligh finally returned to England, arriving there on 14 March 1790. His men had suffered starvation, scurvy and dehydration. Whilst some of the died from the ravages of the journey, many of them survived to serve in the Royal Navy once more.

On This Day June 10, 1770

Captain Cook's "The Endeavour" runs aground and nearly sinks on the Great Barrier Reef.

Following Captain James Cook's observations in Tahiti of the transit of Venus across the sun, he sailed southwest, where he explored and mapped the coastline of New Zealand. He then continued west, making the first European sighting of Australia's eastern coast in April 1770. Claiming the continent for England, Cook sailed up the coast, charting and naming points of interest as he went.

Cape Tribulation, in far North Queensland, was so named by Captain Cook after his ship, the "Endeavour" struck the reef and nearly sank. The Endeavour managed to stay afloat for another week whilst the crew sought desperately for land, eventually sighting the harbour formed by the Endeavour River. The ship was landed on 10 June 1770, and Cook spent almost two months repairing it, thus giving rise to the fledgling township of Cooktown.

The harbour was originally named the Charco, but Cook renamed it Endeavour when he departed on 4 August 1770. At that stage, the town had developed into nothing more than a tent village. The spot where Cook beached his damaged ship is marked by a stone monolith, called Cook's Pillar, on the banks of the Endeavour River.

On This Day June 8, 1856

The first free settlement is established on Norfolk Island.

Norfolk Island lies approximately 1,500 km northeast of Sydney, and along with two neighbouring islands forms one of Australia's external territories. The first European to discover Norfolk was Captain Cook, on 10 October 1774. Cook's reports of tall, straight trees (Norfolk pines) and flax-like plants piqued the interest of Britain, whose Royal Navy was dependent on flax for sails and hemp for ropes from Baltic sea ports. Norfolk Island promised a ready supply of these items, and its tall pines could be utilised as ships' masts. Governor Arthur Phillip, Captain of the First Fleet to New South Wales, was ordered to colonise Norfolk Island before the French could take it.

Following the arrival of the First Fleet in New South Wales, Lieutenant Philip Gidley King led a party of fifteen convicts and seven free men to take control of the island and prepare for its commercial development. They arrived on 6 March 1788. Neither the flax nor the timber industry proved to be viable, and the island developed as a farm, supplying Sydney with grain and vegetables during the early years of the colony's near-starvation. More convicts were sent, and many chose to remain after they had served their sentences. The initial Norfolk Island settlement was abandoned in 1813, but a second penal colony was re-established in 1824, as a place to send the very worst of the convicts. The convicts were treated accordingly and the island gained a reputation as a vicious penal colony. It, too, was abandoned in 1855, after transportation to Australia ceased.

The third settlement was established by descendants of Tahitians and the HMAV Bounty mutineers, resettled from the Pitcairn Islands which had become too small for their growing population. The British government had permitted the transfer of the Pitcairners to Norfolk, which was established as a colony separate from New South Wales but under the administration of that colony's governor. On 8 June 1856, 194 Pitcairn Islanders arrived to form the first free settlement. After the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, Norfolk Island was placed under the authority of the new Commonwealth government to be administered as an external territory. Norfolk Island was granted self-government in 1979.