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Don Dunstan (1926–1999) was a South Australian politician. He was first elected as Member for Norwood in 1953 and rose to prominence in the late 1950s for campaigning against the death penalty. He became the attorney-general of South Australia in 1965 and premier on 1 June 1967. After resigning in 1968, he returned as premier after the 1970 election, the first of four successive election wins. His administration was socially progressive, enacting anti-discrimination laws, expanding voting rights, and increasing the public service sector. However, the economy began to stagnate and the burgeoning public service generated claims of waste. His popularity decreased in 1978 when unsubstantiated rumours of corruption and personal impropriety began, and he was accused of improperly interfering with a judicial investigation. In 1979 he collapsed from ill health and resigned from the premiership shortly afterward. He continued to campaign for progressive social policy until his death in 1999. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

"Deliberation", from Charles Turzak's Abraham Lincoln: A Biography in Woodcuts

... that Charles Turzak's book of woodblock prints presenting the life of Abraham Lincoln (example pictured) was the first ever such life of a historic figure presented only in images?
... that Clayton Weishuhn set the New England Patriots single-season record of 229 tackles in 1983, a record that still stands?
... that the Carib Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica, was the British West Indies' first building to offer air conditioning upon its opening?
... that "What do you hope to achieve with this?" were the last words of the Nigerian college student Deborah Yakubu while being lynched for alleged blasphemy?
... that the Astor family's plans for 200 Madison Avenue were delayed for years because of J. P. Morgan Jr., who lived across the street?
... that Japanese voice actress and singer Sora Amamiya's song "Jōnetsu no Te Amo" was heavily influenced by Latin music, including the use of a Spanish guitar?
... that the Anglo-Saxons may have used a mixture of garlic, another Allium, wine, and bovine bile as an eye medicine?
... that Darien, Connecticut, was once home to a train station built inside a cemetery?

In the news

Marcus Ericsson

In auto racing, Marcus Ericsson (pictured) wins the Indianapolis 500.
In association football, Real Madrid beat Liverpool to win the UEFA Champions League Final.
An Indian court sentences Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik to life in prison.
In the United States, nineteen children and two teachers are killed in a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

On this day

June 1

Mary Dyer being led to the gallows

1660 – Mary Dyer (pictured) was hanged in Boston for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1676 – Scanian War: The Swedish warship Kronan, one of the largest ships in the world at the time, sank at the Battle of Öland with the loss of around 800 men.
1861 – The first land battle of the American Civil War after Fort Sumter took place in the village of Fairfax, Virginia.
1942 – World War II: The crews of three Japanese submarines scuttled their vessels and committed suicide after entering Sydney Harbour and launching a failed attack.
2015 – The river cruise ship Dongfang zhi Xing capsized in the Yangtze, resulting in 442 deaths in China's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

Marguerite Porete (d. 1310)
Lady Clementina Hawarden (b. 1822)
Parveen Kumar (b. 1942)

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Today's featured picture

Desolation is the fifth in a series of five oil-on-canvas paintings entitled The Course of Empire, created by the American artist Thomas Cole between 1833 and 1836. The series, now in the collection of the New-York Historical Society, depicts the growth and fall of an imaginary city, situated at the lower end of a river valley. In this painting, the remains of the city are depicted decades after its destruction by invaders, with the landscape beginning to return to wilderness.

Painting credit: Thomas Cole

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