1892 The Bulletin Debate: In The Bulletin, Australian poet Henry Lawson (pictured) opened the Lawson/Paterson debate with a poem that decried the country. It was called 'Borderland',  later re-titled 'Up the Country' when it was republished in Lawson's 1896 edition of In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses.

Two weeks later, Andrew 'Banjo' Paterson retaliated with 'In Defence of the Bush', and soon all around Australia readers were waiting for the next instalment in the popular magazine. Bulletin publisher-editor JF Archibald ran the poetic joust for several months, with other 'Bully' regulars such as John LeGay Brereton, Edward Dyson, Bulletin literary editor AG Stephens and Joseph Furphy joining in, but brought it to an abrupt close, either when he finally realised it had started with collusion between Lawson and Paterson, or because the contest had become vicious and personal, with both of the main protagonists seeming to have forgotten the original purpose.

By this stage, the two poets were satirising each other's poetic style to great effect, but the poverty-stricken Lawson (who had been born in a tent or hut on the goldfields) did not have the cushioning of Paterson's patrician lifestyle and would have been particularly stung by Banjo's mockery, particularly of his addiction to alcohol.

Lawson was one of the few who knew the identity of 'The Banjo' at this stage. Paterson later said that the contest was Lawson's idea, to raise a few pounds. Henry Lawson fared better in the debate, but posterity has awarded the "win" to Banjo as the city lawyer poet presented a rosier view of the bush. Note that Lawson had never been "way out west" at this stage, and had not recently been very far out in the country at all, although he was 'back o' Bourke' by the time the last literary shots were fired.

Henry Lawson, who is generally believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder and was never emotionally strong, harboured resentment over Paterson's poetic sarcasm for years. On June 28, 1896, in Truth magazine (a scandal rag) was published, anonymously, Lawson's 'The Man from Waterloo', a parody of Paterson's successful 'Man from Ironbark' which had appeared in The Bulletin as far back as December 17, 1892. Lawson had to wait this long for publication, which he was able to achieve in the rush of popularity of Paterson's first volume of verse, The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, which made a sensation. Lawson did not claim authorship of his poem until four years later, including it in Verses Popular and Humorous. Roderick (Roderick, Colin, Henry Lawson: a life, Angus and Robertson. Sydney, 1991) says that a full twenty years passed and Lawson still showed hurt when he wrote 'In the Height of Fashion' ...

1856 Tesla: almost-forgotten genius

Nikola Tesla (d. January 7, 1943), the Serb-American electrical engineer, inventor of the alternating current (AC) motor, was born on this day at Smiljan, Lika, "at the stroke of midnight" with lightning striking during a summer storm. The midwife commented, "He'll be a child of the storm," to which his mother replied, "No, of light."

He was a great genius whose luck was not as great as his abilities, and for many years his name was almost completely lost to public knowledge.

The unit of magnetic flux in the metric system is the 'tesla', as another unit is the 'faraday'. His Tesla Coil supplies the high voltage for the computer monitor you are looking at. The electricity for your computer comes from a Tesla-designed AC generator, is sent through a Tesla-invented transformer, and gets to your house through 3-phase Tesla power. The electric power of Niagara was harnessed through his inventions.

During Tesla's lifetime, the US Patent Office recorded 111 utility patents ...