Aus History: Recent Episodes
Aus History
Coolamine Homestead is a wonderful example of a heritage homestead and it can be found on the Cooleman Plains in Kosciuszko National Park.
It is a rare, surviving example of a permanent pastoral outstation that retains hand built slab buildings and yards.
National Parks info - https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/historic-buildings-places/coolamine-homestead
Artisans of Australia, film about the restoration work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcoTnER4Efg
All modern photographs of the site © Andrew Hennell, used with permission.
6029 is a four-cylinder, simple, non-condensing, superheated, articulated 4-8-4+4-8-4 Garratt steam locomotive, of the AD60 class, built by Beyer, Peacock and Company, Manchester, England, for the New South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR).
Australia's Wonderland officially opened on 7 December 1985. Over the next 18 years it grew to be one of Sydney's most popular and loved attractions, before the new owners simply closed it. Find out how and why, and leave a comment if you ever visited Australia's Wonderland.
In late May and early June 1942, during World War II, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines made a series of attacks on the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.
Visit Australian War Memorial - https://www.awm.gov.au/visit
Royal Australian Navy Naval Heritage Centre - https://www.navy.gov.au/ran-heritage-centre
Fort Scratchley - https://www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au/fort-scratchley/fort-scratchley-home
More information
Navy - https://www.navy.gov.au/history/feature-histories/japanese-midget-submarine-attack-sydney-harbour
Sea Museum - https://www.sea.museum/2017/06/14/midget-submarine-attack-on-sydney-31-may-1-june-1942
ANZAC Memorial - https://www.anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/our-stories/our-stories/japanese-submarines-sydney-harbour
Woolahra council - https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/library/local_history/world_war_2/stories_from_woollahra/shelling_of_the_eastern_suburbs
A brilliant book on the subject is ‘A Very Rude Awakening - The Night The Japanese Midget Subs Came To Sydney Harbour’ by: Peter Grose - https://amzn.to/3HrFJy0
The CSIRO's Parkes Radio Telescope was commissioned on a former sheep farm in 1961. It was the most advanced radio telescope on the planet at the time, with many innovative features that have since become standard in all large-dish antennas, and it has maintained it’s cutting edge technology and research ever since.
Based in part on an article by John Sarkissian, CSIRO, first published in The Conversation, and on our own research.
Visitors Centre - https://www.csiro.au/en/about/facilities-collections/atnf/parkes-radio-telescope/parkes-observatory-visitors-centre/hours-location
How the Parkes dish works - https://research.csiro.au/pulseatparkes/parkes-radio-telescope/
Parkes shire visitors centre - https://www.parkes.nsw.gov.au/tourism
The 2003 Canberra bushfires caused severe damage to the suburbs and outer areas of Canberra, the capital city of Australia, during 18–22 January 2003. Almost 70% of the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) pastures, pine plantations, and nature parks were severely damaged, and most of the Mount Stromlo Observatory was destroyed. After burning for a week around the edges of the ACT, the fires entered the suburbs of Canberra on 18 January 2003. Over the next ten hours, four people died, over 490 were injured, and 470 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, requiring a significant relief and reconstruction effort.
With actual video of firefighters dealing with the firestorm as it hit.
12 July 1979, the burning wreckage of a space station the size of a three-bedroom house hurtled towards the west coast of Australia.
The Commonwealth Boomerang was designed and built in Australia in response to the impending Japanese invasion of the Australian mainland. It’s main issue was that it sucked as a fighter! But it could attack the ground, and found a use in the war.
Martha Rendell (10 August 1871 – 6 October 1909) was the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia, for the murder of her de facto husband's son, Arthur Morris, in 1908. She was also suspected of killing his two daughters, Annie and Olive, by swabbing their throats with hydrochloric acid.
The crash of TAA flight 538 near Mackay Queensland changed the way aviation accidents are investigated world-wide. Find out what this change was, and how the crash and loss of 29 lives made flying safer for everyone.
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A brief history of Australia's famous steam locomotive the 3801, and the 38 class, along with plenty of shots of her in action.
Australia had several women bushrangers, and their stories are only now being told. Jessie Hickman (1890-1936) - also known as McIntyre, Bell, Hudson, and Murray, was one such outlaw. We've pieced together a brief account of her life.
Dulcie May Markham was variously known in the media as The Angel of Death, The Black Widow, Pretty Dulcie, Australia's most beautiful bad woman, Bad Luck Doll, and The One-Way Ticket. You see, of Markham’s lovers five were shot dead, while two were stabbed with one dying from those injuries.