On 2 February 1899, the Australian colonial Premiers’ Conference agreed (a) that the nation’s new capital would be in NSW but at least 100 miles from the NSW capital Sydney; and (b) that the nation’s first parliament would meet in the colonial but soon to be state Victorian capital of Melbourne. The nation’s new capital, Canberra, would be founded in 1913.
Of the six premiers at the conference, only two had been alive in 1837 when Queen Victoria succeeded to the throne. The queen’s funeral took place two years later, on 2 February 1901.
Mourners at the funeral included the Crown Prince of Siam, who has the curiously cross-cultural notoriety of being origin of the Chinese stereotype “the Jews of Asia”. In 1914, the by now king published an article in a Thai newspaper headed “The Jews of the East” in which Chinese immigrants were described as having too much “racial loyalty and astuteness in financial matters”.
Given what else would start in 1914, it is odd to realise that other mourners included the German Emperor and the man whose assassination would change a world, Archduke Ferdinand. It makes me want to sing “The Way We Were”, but Ms Streisand’s song wouldn’t reach number one until 2 February 1974.