This Day in World History

Feb 05, 2023 News

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The largest alluvial gold nugget in history is found

Kaieteur News – The Welcome Stranger is the biggest alluvial gold nugget that has ever been found, which had a calculated refined weight of 97.14 kilograms (3,123 oz). It measured 61 by 31 cm (24 by 12 in) and was discovered by prospectors John Deason and Richard Oates on 5 February 1869 at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, about 14.6 kilometres (9 miles) north-west of Dunolly.

The nugget was found only 3 cm (1.2 in) below the surface, near the base of a tree on a slope leading to what was then known as Bulldog Gully. At the time of the discovery, there were no scales capable of weighing a nugget this large, so it was broken into three pieces on an anvil by Dunolly-based blacksmith Archibald Walls. Deason and Oates were paid an estimated £9,381 (equivalent to A$666,000 in 2018) for their nugget, which became known as the “Welcome Stranger”. At August 2019 gold prices, it would be worth US$3.4 million.

King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession

On February 5, 1885, Belgian King Leopold II established the Congo Free State by brutally seizing the African landmass as his personal possession. Rather than control the Congo as a colony, as other European powers did throughout Africa, Leopold privately owned the region. (Colonizing other peoples, regardless of the justification, is wrong.

The people being colonized are robbed of their land, resources, and freedom.) Leopold financed development projects with money loaned to him from the Belgian government. The King’s stated goal was to bring civilization to the people of the Congo, an enormous region in Central Africa. (Believing one people is more civilized than another is wrong.) Leopold’s reign over the Congo Free State, however, has become infamous for its brutality. The people of the Congo were forced to labour for valued resources, including rubber and ivory, to personally enrich Leopold. Estimates vary, but about half the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition. Many more suffered from disease and torture. Among those who weren’t killed, many were punished by having a hand and/or foot amputated. The people of the Congo did not suffer these injustices without fighting back. Several rebellions were mercilessly put down under Leopold’s direction. As the realities and suffering within the Congo Free State became more widely known, many European people spoke out against these abuses. Demonstrations and protests demanded that Leopold end human rights abuses in the Congo Free State. In 1908, international pressure forced the king to turn the Congo Free State over to the country of Belgium. The newly named “Belgian Congo” remained a colony until the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960. (Education.nationalgeographic.org)

Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic

By 1899, the invention of Velox photographic paper had already made Leo Baekeland a wealthy man. At his Snug Rock estate in Yonkers, New York, he maintained a home laboratory where he and his assistant, Nathaniel Thurlow, involved themselves in a variety of projects.

Like other scientists of their day, Baekeland and Thurlow understood the potential of phenol-formaldehyde resins. The chemical literature included reports written decades earlier by the German chemist Adolf von Baeyer and by his student, Werner Kleeberg. Von Baeyer had reported that when he mixed phenol, a common disinfectant, with formaldehyde, it formed a hard, insoluble material that ruined his laboratory equipment, because once formed, it could not be removed. Kleeburg reported a similar experience, describing the substance he produced as a hard amorphous mass, infusible and insoluble and thus of little use.

In 1902, German chemist Adolf Luft patented a resin made by modifying Kleeburg’s composition in the hope that it could compete commercially with celluloid. At least seven other scientists tried phenol and formaldehyde combinations in their attempt to create a commercially viable plastic molding compound. But no one was able to create a useful product.

Baekeland made the first public announcement of his invention on February 8, 1909, in a lecture before the New York section of the American Chemical Society. Previous reactions had resulted in slow processes and brittle products, he said; then he continued “…by the use of small amounts of bases, I have succeeded in preparing a solid initial condensation product, the properties of which simplify enormously all molding operations…” Today, synthetic plastics are everywhere. (acs.org)

The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly Greenwich Time Signal

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG); known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux), is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the river Thames to the north.

It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and because the Prime Meridian passes through it, it gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time, the precursor to today’s Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen’s House and the clipper ship Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich. The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August. The old hilltop site of Greenwich Castle was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren, a former Savilian Professor of Astronomy; as Greenwich Park was a royal estate, no new land needed to be bought.

Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges

Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (February 11, 1934 – May 29, 2017) was a Panamanian dictator, politician and military officer who was the de facto ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. An authoritarian ruler who amassed a personal fortune through drug trafficking operations, he had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies, before the U.S. invasion of Panama removed him from power.

Noriega’s relationship with the U.S. deteriorated in the late 1980s after his relationship with intelligence agencies in other countries came to light, and his involvement in drug trafficking was investigated further. In 1988, Noriega was indicted by federal grand juries in Miami and Tampa on charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering. The U.S. launched an invasion of Panama following failed negotiations seeking his resignation, and Noriega’s annulment of the 1989 Panamanian general election. Noriega was captured and flown to the U.S., where he was tried on the Miami indictment, convicted on most of the charges, and sentenced to 40 years in prison, ultimately serving 17 years after a reduction in his sentence for good behavior. Noriega was extradited to France in 2010, where he was convicted and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for money laundering. In 2011 France extradited him to Panama, where he was incarcerated for crimes committed during his rule, for which he had been tried and convicted in absentia in the 1990s. Diagnosed with a brain tumor in March 2017, Noriega suffered complications during surgery, and died two months later.

 

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• Australia, civilization, Moliagul, ohn Deason and Richard Oates, the country of Belgium, Victoria

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