The islanders talk two different languages:
There is also a language called Brokan (Broken), or Torres Strait Creole. This is a mix of different languages and islander words that started when the islanders started working on ships searching for pearls in the 1860's.
The level of the sea was much lower up to 8000 years ago. Torres Strait would not have been covered by water which means people and animals could walk between New Guinea and Australia. Some animals and birds can be found in both New Guinea and Queensland, such as the cassowary. Other animals, such as pigs, arrived in New Guinea after the sea levels rose and closed the land bridge and were not able to get to Australia.
There is evidence of people living on the Torres Strait islands for at least 2,500 years. It is likely that people were living there long before that, but rising sea levels will have covered earlier sites.
The first known European to sail through the strait was Luis Váez de Torres, a Spanish or Portuguese sailor. He was second-in-command of the Spanish led by the Portuguese Pedro Fernandez de Quirós who sailed from Peru to the South Pacific in 1605. After Quiros's ship went back to Mexico, Torres kept going to the Moluccas and then to Manila. He sailed along the south coast of New Guinea. He may have seen Cape York on the Australian mainland, but there is no evidence to prove this. Torres wrote a letter to the Spanish king about his discoveries but this was kept secret until 1762.
In 1769 the Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple, was translating Spanish letters found in the Philippines in 1762. He read Luis Váez de Torres' letter about a passage south of New Guinea. Dalrymple wrote a book, the "Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean" in 1770-1771. This book caused a lot of interest in the idea of an unknown continent. Dalrymple named the strait after Torres. This led Captain James Cook to go on another voyage into the South Pacific. Dalrymple was angry that it was Captain Cook and not him who was put in charge of the expedition which led in 1770 to the discovery of the east coast of Australia. In 1770 Cook sailed through the strait after sailing up the east coast of Australia. He landed on Possession Island and claimed all the land of Australia for Britain.
With people like James Cook, William Bligh, and Matthew Flinders exploring and making maps of the strait, many more ships started to sail through it on their way from Sydney to India or Asia. It was still hard for ships, and many were wrecked on the reefs. A Scottish woman, Barbara Thompson, was the only person saved when the ship "America" hit a reef in 1842. She was saved by the islanders and lived with them on Prince of Wales Island for five years until another ship came to take her back to Sydney.
There was an important pearling business in the strait from the 1860s until about 1970. Pearl-shelling brought many experienced divers from many countries, especially Japan.
The London Missionary Society arrived on Erub (Darnley Island) in 1871. The islanders still celebrate the coming of the missionaries as "The Coming of the Light", and it is holiday every year on the islands.
Although some of the Torres Strait islands are just off the coast of New Guinea, they were taken over in 1879 by Queensland, then a British colony. In 1978 an agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea worked out the correct position of the maritime border in the Torres Strait. The Torres Strait also has its own flag. It was designed by Bernard Namok from Thursday Island. It has a background of five stripes, green for the land, blue for the sea, and black for the people. It has a big white Dari, or headress, and a five pointed star for the five main island groups. In 1995 is was officially made a flag of Australia.
In World War II, Horn Island in Torres Strait, north of Cape York, became Australia's most northerly air base. In 1940 two big runways were built. It was used by thousands of Allied aircraft. With eight Japanese air raids in 1942, it was the most attacked place in Queensland. Conditions on the island were hard for the soldiers, with poor food, not enough water, diseases, and attacks from the Japanese. The airport is still working as the main airport for far north Queensland. It is now a tourist resort, especially well-known for its fishing.
Jules Verne wrote about Torres Strait in his novel, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". It was a dangerous place where the submarine ""Nautilus"" was stranded for a short time.
Hat-trick
A hat-trick, hat trick or hattrick in sports means that something is done 3 times. For example: goals, wickets and so forth.
There are different interpretations as to when a hat-trick is a valid one. The most common criteria is when a player has scored 3 goals in a match. Goals from penalty shootouts are not included.
A "flawless" or "German" hattrick is close to the hat-trick described above but is different since the 3 goals have to be scored within a certain period of time. Another example is the "classic" or "perfect" hat-trick which means that the player scored one goal with each foot ( 1 goal with the right-foot and one goal with the left-foot) and a header.
Occasionally Germans would award the hatrickees with 3 medals to signify their loss.
Cape Schanck, Victoria
Cape Schanck is the south end of the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia. It is a piece of land that separates Port Phillip Bay and Westernport Bay. It is a narrow headland with cliffs 84.7 metres (278 feet) high. It has a lighthouse made from limestone built in 1859. In December 1800, Cape Schanck was named by Lieutenant James Grant after Admiral James Schank.
Simpson Desert
The Simpson Desert is a very dry part of Australia. It is mainly in the Northern Territory, but also in the north of South Australia and western Queensland. It covers about 176,500 square km, about 2.3% of Australia. The Simpson Desert gets less than 150 ml of rain each year. It is made up of big red sand dunes up to high, long and about apart. At most times there is no surface water, but after rain there can be rivers which flow into normally dry lakes. Temperatures in summer can be more than 50 C, and in winter can be below 0 C.
Early explorers into the Simpson Desert were Charles Sturt 1845, J.McKinlay, W.O. Hodgkinson, C.Winneke 1883, A.Poeppel 1879. The desert was named after A.A.Simpson, President of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia in 1929. The first European to cross the desert was Ted Colson in 1936.
No proper roads cross the desert. There are many tracks that were made during the search for gas and oil during the 1960s and 1970s. These tracks include the French Line, the Rig Road, and the QAA Line. Such tracks can be driven on by well-equipped four-wheel drive vehicles which must carry extra fuel and water.
Towns close to the edge of the Simpson Desert include Oodnadatta to the southwest, and Birdsville in the east. On the western side is the Mount Dare hotel and shop. Before 1980, part of the Commonwealth Railways Central Australian line passed along the western side of the Simpson Desert. Within the Simpson people go to see the ruins at Dalhousie Springs, Purnie Bore wetlands, Approdinna Attora Knoll and Poeppel Corner (where Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory meet).
Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent (1 August 1936 – 1 June 2008) was a French fashion designer. Born Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent, in Algeria, he was "one of the greatest figures in French fashion in the 20th century" (Daily Telegraph 2/6/08).
In 1985, in her book, "Couture: the Great Fashion Designers", Caroline Rennolds Milbank wrote, "The most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years, Yves Saint Laurent can be credited both with spurring couture's rise from its Sixties ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable".