Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated Darwin, Australia, on 24-25 December, 1974. It was recorded by The Age as being a "disaster of the first magnitude... and without parallel in Australia's history." It killed 65 people and destroyed over 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, leaving over 20,000 people homeless. Most of Darwin's population was evacuated to Adelaide, Whyalla, Alice Springs and Sydney and many never returned to Darwin. The town was subsequently rebuilt with newer materials and techniques. Cyclone Tracy, due to its severity, has entered into Australian popular culture in a way that no other meteorological event had before, or has since.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Tracy

Today's selected anniversaries:

1009 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church now within the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was destroyed by the "mad" Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre)

1851 "Moby-Dick", a novel by Herman Melville, was first published as "The Whale". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick)

1922 The British Broadcasting Company was founded by a consortium to establish a network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service in the United Kingdom. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC)

1954 Texas Instruments introduced the first transistor radio. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio)

1977 German Autumn: a national crisis revolving around the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer in Cologne and the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane to Somalia by the Red Army Faction (RAF) came to an end when various RAF members committed suicide in prison and Schleyer was executed in France. The German government later stated that it would never again negotiate with terrorists. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction)

Wikiquote of the day:

"Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try." ~ "Yoda" in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Wars)