The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis culminated on 11 November when
Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam (pictured, left)
of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as prime minister and appointed
Opposition Leader Malcolm Fraser (pictured, right) as caretaker. The
Whitlam Government had been rocked by scandals and political
miscalculations. In October the Opposition blocked bills in the Senate
financing the government, and urged Kerr to dismiss Whitlam unless he
agreed to call an election for the House of Representatives. On 11
November, Whitlam intended to call a half-Senate election instead, but
when he met with Kerr to seek his approval, Kerr dismissed him as prime
minister. Before the ALP parliamentarians knew what had happened, Fraser
and his allies secured passage of the appropriation bills and Kerr
dissolved Parliament. Fraser and his government were returned with a
large majority in elections the following month. Widely vilified by ALP
supporters for his actions, Kerr resigned early as governor-general and
lived much of his remaining life abroad.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1202:
The first major action of the Fourth Crusade and the first
attack against a Catholic city by Catholic crusaders, the Siege of Zara,
began in Zadar, Croatia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Zara>
1775:
The United States Marine Corps was founded as the Continental
Marines by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress during the
American Revolutionary War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps>
1940:
A magnitude 7.7 ML earthquake struck the Vrancea region of
Romania, the country's strongest earthquake in the 20th century.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_Vrancea_earthquake>
1945:
Indonesian National Revolution: Following the killing of the
British officer Brigadier A. W. S. Mallaby a few weeks prior, British
forces began their retaliation by attacking Surabaya, Indonesia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surabaya>
1975:
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship on North America's
Great Lakes, sank in Lake Superior with the loss of 29 lives.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
birdsmouth:
(carpentry) A notch cut into the underside of a rafter to ensure that it
does not move when resting on the wall plate running across the top of a
wall; a similar notch in other components.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/birdsmouth>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of
the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on
the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent,
wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them.
Thousands maybe.
--The Sandman
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Sandman#A_Game_of_You>