On this day in 1969, the Apollo 11 lunar module carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin lands on the surface of the moon, with the pair to walk on the moon several hours later. The event was watched by billions of television viewers worldwide – and was also to spark decades of conspiracy theories.
In Australia on this day in 1851, the South Australian goldrush got underway with the official discovery of gold at Mt Alexander, about 60km northeast of Ballarat, close to the town of Bendigo.
The discovery was made by John Worley and Christopher Thomas Peters at Specimen Gully.
Gold had been discovered in Australia back in the 1830s, but news of the discoveries was suppressed for fear of sparking unrest among Australia’s convict population.
With this formal declaration on 20 July 1851, the NSW government sought to encourage golf finds in an effort to limit the number of people leaving Australia for the prosperous Californian gold fields.
Within a year, tens of thousands of prospectors had arrived at the Mt Alexander goldfields. It was also the first Victorian goldfield to attract large numbers of Chinese miners.
Moving forward to 1994, on 20 July, former NFL running back and actor, OJ Simpson offered a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson’s killer. Not surprisingly for some, no breakthrough in the case was made as a result of the reward on offer.
And celebrating their birthdays today are American-born Australian songbird, Marcia Hines, who turns 67, and Terri Irwin, 56, the widow of the much-loved Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin.
