Left to Right, Edsel Ford, Henry Ford, Henry Leland, and Wilfred Leland
On this day, June 1st 1917
Henry Leland, the founder of the Cadillac Motor Car Company, resigned as company president on this date in 1917. Ever since William Durant had arranged for General Motors (GM) to purchase Cadillac, Leland and Durant had endured a strained relationship. But Leland's electric starter had made Cadillac so successful early on that Durant had avoided meddling with the autonomy of his company. Leland's next great achievement at Cadillac was his supervision of his son's proposal that Cadillac should introduce a V-8 engine.
June 1st 1934
The Tokyo-based Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha (Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in English) takes on a new name: Nissan Motor Company.
Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha had been established in December 1933. The company's new name, adopted in June 1934, was an abbreviation for Nippon Sangyo, a "zaibatsu" (or holding company) belonging to Tobata's founder, Yoshisuke Aikawa. Nissan produced its first Datsun (a descendant of the Dat Car, a small, boxy passenger vehicle designed by Japanese automotive pioneer Masujiro Hashimoto that was first produced in 1914) at its Yokohama plant in April 1935. The company began exporting cars to Australia that same year. Beginning in 1938 and lasting throughout World War II, Nissan converted entirely from producing small passenger cars to producing trucks and military vehicles. Allied occupation forces seized much of Nissan's production operations in 1945 and didn't return full control to Nissan until a decade later.
In 1960, Nissan became the first Japanese automaker to win the Deming Prize for engineering excellence. New Datsun models like the Bluebird (1959), the Cedric (1960) and the Sunny (1966) helped spur Nissan sales in Japan and abroad, and the company experienced phenomenal growth over the course of the 1960s.
The energy crises of the next decade fueled the rise in exports of affordable, fuel-efficient Japanese-made cars: The third-generation Sunny got the highest score on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's tests of fuel economy in 1973. Success in the United States and other markets allowed Nissan to expand its foreign operations, which now include manufacturing and assembly plants in as many as 17 countries around the world. Today, Nissan--which dropped the Datsun name in the mid-1980s--is the third-largest car manufacturer in Japan, behind first-place Toyota and just behind Honda. After struggling in the late 1990s, the company turned itself around by building an alliance with French carmaker Renault; overhauling its luxury car line, Infiniti; and releasing the Titan pickup truck as well as revamped versions of the famous Z sports car and mid-size Altima sedan.
June 1st, 1964
It was on this day that Ford offered the now legandary 289 Hi-Po engine for the Mustang. The history behind this special engine started long before it was ever made famous by the Ford Mustang.
Beginning with Ford's Dearborn division introduction to European rally competition in 1963, Ford released the 289 High Performance (Hi-Po) engine which produced 271 HP @ 6000 RPM. With this engine a variety of Ford products ambushed continental racing of all sorts in following years. Ford's "Total Performance" was targeted at European racing.
Early versions of this engine were in the Ford Falcon’s that were being raced in the “Rally” circuit in Europe including the prestigious Monte Carlo Rally were the Falcon finished first in class.
In early 1964 the 289 Hi-Po powered Mercury Comet's made its mark on the world when it finished first in class on the world toughest course "The African Safari". The 289 Hi-Po also set record lap times at Le Mans in GT40's. This engine also powered Shelby Cobras and Daytonas to World Championships.
Monday, June 1, 1829
Today is Foundation Day for Western Australia.
The first recorded sighting of Australia's western coastline came in 1611, when Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. As the route became more popular, the Dutch began to refer to the land as "New Holland".
Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh named the Swan River in 1697 because of the black swans he saw in abundance there. In 1826, Edmund Lockyer was sent to claim the western half of the Australian continent for Britain. He arrived at King George Sound on Christmas Day in 1826, and established a military base which he named Frederick's Town (now Albany). However, this is not regarded as Western Australia's Foundation Day.
In 1829, Captain Charles Fremantle was sent to take formal possession of the remainder of New Holland which had not already been claimed for Britain under the territory of New South Wales. On 2 May 1829, Captain Fremantle raised the Union Jack on the south head of the Swan River, thus claiming the territory for Britain.
Western Australia's Foundation Day is considered to be 1 June as, on 1 June 1829, Western Australia's first non-military settlers arrived in the Swan River Colony aboard the Parmelia. The colony of Western Australia was then proclaimed on 8 June 1829, and two months later, Perth was also founded.
June 1, 1962.
Adolf Eichmann, 'Chief Executioner of the Third Reich', is hanged for his war crimes.
Adolf Eichmann was a member of the Austrian Nazi party in World War II. After his promotion to the Gestapo's Jewish section, he was essentially responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews during the war. He is often referred to as the 'Chief Executioner' of the Third Reich. After the war Eichmann escaped to Argentina in South America, but was located and captured by the Israeli secret service in 1960.
Eichmann's trial in front of an Israeli court in Jerusalem started on 11 April 1961. He faced fifteen criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and war crimes. As part of Israeli criminal procedure, his trial was presided over by three judges instead of a jury, all of which were refugees from the Nazi regime in Germany. Eichmann was protected by a bulletproof glass booth and guarded by two men whose families had not suffered directly at the hands of the Nazis. Eichmann was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death on 15 December 1961. He was hanged a few minutes after midnight on 1 June 1962 at Ramla prison, the only civil execution ever carried out in Israel.
June 1, 1850.
The first convicts arrive in Fremantle, Western Australia, to help populate the waning Swan River colony.
The Swan River colony, established on Australia's western coast in 1829, was begun as a free settlement. Captain Charles Fremantle declared the Swan River Colony for Britain on 2 May 1829. The first ships with free settlers to arrive were the Parmelia on June 1 and HMS Sulphur on June 8. Three merchant ships arrived 4-6 weeks later: the Calista on August 5, the St Leonard on August 6 and the Marquis of Anglesey on August 23. Although the population spread out in search of good land, mainly settling around the southwestern coastline at Bunbury, Augusta and Albany, the two original separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the Western Australian capital city of Perth.
For the first fifteen years, the people of the colony were generally opposed to accepting convicts, although the idea was occasionally debated, especially by those who sought to employ convict labour for building projects. Serious lobbying for Western Australia to become a penal colony began in 1845 when the York Agricultural Society petitioned the Legislative Council to bring convicts out from England on the grounds that the colony's economy was on the brink of collapse due to an extreme shortage of labour. Whilst later examination of the circumstances proves that there was no such shortage of labour in the colony, the petition found its way to the British Colonial Office, which in turn agreed to send out a small number of convicts to Swan River.
The first group of convicts to populate Fremantle arrived on 1 June 1850. Between 1850 and 1868, ultimately 9721 convicts were transported to Western Australia. The last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868.