Sir Mark Oliphant dominated the front page of The Canberra Times on this day in 1962. The headline read "Sir Mark Warns On City's Heritage".
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Sir Mark, Director of the Research School of Physical Sciences in the National University, gave the Canberra Day Oration in the Albert Hall. Sir Mark admitted that his oration was a harangue of his ideas on Canberra and on the preservation of its great beauty.
He stated "objectionable backyard industries in the garden city of Canberra could make industrial slums of some of its residential areas". "There was a strange apathy about many displays of Canberra's immaturity". Sir Mark also said he regretted that Canberra Day was not Australia Day, the day when all Australians gave thought to their proud history and contemplated their nation's past, present and future.
Also on this day, the Canberra Day supplement of The Canberra Times was acclaimed widely and a reprint was undertaken to meet the demands of newsagents and public requirements.
Sales of the issue exceeded 33,000, which involved about five tonnes of newsprint, the length of which exceeded the distance from Canberra to Queanbeyan.
