World Book Day – 23rd April
To find out what book takes the title of the most published and read book ever we can go to our trusty friends at Guinness World Records. They nominate the Bible as the best-selling book of...
ANZAC – Gibraltar- Field-Marshal Montgomery
A thin-faced man with a trim moustache stepped out of the car and was quickly ushered out of sight. But not quite quickly enough. The visitor was seen by a Nazi spy who happened to be visiting the colonial secretary at that very moment. What did this have to do with the war?
Arthur Stace – “Mr Eternity”
On New Year’s Eve 1999, an estimated 2 billion television viewers around the world watched Sydney’s spectacular millennium celebrations. Sydney was to host the Olympic Games in 2000 and the city was the centre...
Jesus of History
If one googles ‘the most significant person in world history’, the name of Jesus comes up in numerous searches. He is recorded in the sacred writings of the Hindu, Muslim and the Christians, who represent nearly 70% of the world’s population. Why?
Pearl Harbour – Captain Mitsuo Fuchida
The Japanese commander who led the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Darwin had six crashes into the sea. On board after an appendectomy, the ship was bombed, both his legs were broken. He wondered why he was the sole survivor of the seven Air Commanders and the thirty-two squadron leaders who took part in these attacks
Father’s Day – Sonora Dodd
Have you ever wondered why and how Father’s Day became such an important celebration in our calendar? The events in the life of a sixteen-year-old caused her to be the chief advocate for this special day.
ANZAC – ‘Banjo’ Paterson
‘Banjo’ Paterson, one of Australia’s and the English-speaking world’s most famous poets is immortalised on our ‘new’ ten dollar note. His role with the Anzac battalions in the Middle East 100 years ago is one of the lesser known parts of his life. His horses became the real heroes of the famous Light Horse charge.
ANZAC – Fromelles
At Fromelles the 19-year-old sergeant led his men into a water-filled ditch. He inadvertently raised his head a bit too high, he was shot in the face. On his recovery he returned to active service. His wounding did not dampen his faith and caused him to organise a Bible Circle to encourage others to deepen their faith.
ANZAC – Gallipoli – Andrew Gillison
“I am being eaten alive by ants,” cried the wounded soldier. Two Chaplains and another soldier, crawled towards the wounded soldier. A Turkish sniper opened fire. Andrew died the same day and the other Chaplain a week later. Why do Chaplains do this?
Five Dollar Note – Queen Elizabeth ll
Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II, had two ceremonies to mark the beginning of her public office? Both took place during the Coronation but the public were not invited to one of them.
NAIDOC
Before the 1960s, Australia’s indigenous people were not allowed to vote, not counted in the census figures and didn’t have the same rights as white people. They were like nobodies in their own country. That’s something that’s very hard for those who are part of the majority to imagine. But these men acted.
Old Five Dollar Note
“The richest and most powerful Government of the world, master of India and a million men, failed in the colony, where a single woman succeeded through her force of character and vigour of soul. Without fortune or help she did more for Australia than all the emigration societies and the British Government put together
Kristallnacht
Why does William Cooper have a memorial plaque at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel? An Academic Chair, worth 1 million dollars, as well as seventy Australian trees being planted as a tribute to him. What did he do to deserve all this acclamation?
Prison Reform
In a dark, crammed room, the dampness rises like an invisible oppressive enemy, piercing every joint and bone. Fear replaces sleep, as convicted murderers share this misery alongside petty thieves and children.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge was his most famous achievement, opened at the height of the Great Depression and now a priceless relic. He also oversaw the design and construction of Sydney’s railway system. Bradfield ranks as one of Australia’s finest-ever engineers and involved in many significant Australian projects.
Mother’s Day
Ann Jarvis, who had the idea for our modern Mother’s Day celebration, had eleven children and only three reached adulthood. One of Ann’s surviving children, Anna following her mother’s funeral wanted to publicly celebrate her mother’s life. The modern Mother’s Day was born.
William Dampier
The dark-skinned Aboriginals could not believe what they were seeing. They look human but they look so pale, so ghost like, they are so white. Where do they come from? What are they doing here? What do they want?
The First Fleet
Arthur Phillip laid a humane foundation to the colony with his declaration that ‘there can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves’. His humanity extended to the Aboriginal people: he ordered that there was to be no pay-back when he himself was speared at Manly by an Indigenous warrior.
Safe Work Australia
Did you know that the 2000-year-old words of Jesus, as recorded by a tax collector, had a major impact on safety in Tasmanian mining? These same principles form the driving force for best practice safety management in Australia today.
Cadbury Chocolates
During the Industrial Revolution, John Cadbury was fighting against the use of children being used as chimney sweeps. Meanwhile mine owners were recruiting 9 and even 6 yr old children to work in their mines, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for about $2 a week. What was the difference between Cadbury and the mine owners?
The Pocket Testament League – Helen Cadbury
It wasn’t easy carrying a Bible in the playground so Helen and her friends had pockets made in their dresses for carrying a Bible or a New Testament. When Helen was 16, the group was called ‘“The Pocket Testament League’ “and it had a membership of 60 girls, now there are over 370,000 members world-wide.
David Jones Department Stores
David Jones converting a large section of their Sydney city store into a Club for servicemen and women!! Is David Jones, the oldest department store in Australia and the oldest department store in the world, still trading under its original name, really going to open a club for servicemen and women in their city store
World Teacher Day Week
His dream was to be a surgeon so he started studying Medicine at Melbourne University but became very ill with typhoid. He recovered, but the typhoid left him with shaky hands and he realised they would never be steady enough to operate. What was he going to do? His dreams were crushed...
Terra Australis
Many Europeans were not sure if Australia really existed. There were stories and myths about a great big continent somewhere in the vast southern oceans. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, born in Portugal, was brought up with a deep belief in God and he believed that he was divinely chosen to find this mysterious Southland.
Captain James Cook
He was standing at the water’s edge facing advancing Hawaiian warriors. Unfortunately, at that crucial moment some of his men started shooting from the boats as he turned to stop them from firing he was fatally stabbed in the back.
Explorer Charles Sturt
Death seemed imminent. Confronting them on the bank were nearly 600 Aboriginals, painted, armed and making menacing gestures to their war-song. Reluctantly he picked up his double barrel shot gun. He levelled his gun at the closest native with his finger on the trigger.
The Twenty Dollar Note
By the 1950’s, the Royal Flying Doctor Service was acknowledged by former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies as “perhaps the single greatest contribution to the effective settlement of the far distant country we have witnessed in our time.”
The Fifty Dollar Note – David Unaipon
He patented an improved hand tool for sheep shearing, and invented a centrifugal motor, a multi–radial wheel and a mechanical propulsion device. He considered the ‘helicopter’ before it was invented. He wrote poetry and authored several books.
Labour Day
Perhaps the greatest trade union organizer in Australian history, William Guthrie Spence. In 2003 the head office of the AWU in Melbourne was also named after him. The AWU secretary called him, “the founding father of not only our union, but unionism as a whole in this nation”.
ANZAC – Battle of Beersheba
On 31 October 1917, another history-making moment had arrived. Men from the youngest nation on earth at the time had drawn their horses up outside the Turkish-held stronghold of Beersheba. Smarting from the defeat of Gallipoli, they were keen to engage the Turks on a new battleground.
The Father of the Nation – Alfred Deakin
He was the 2nd, 5th and 7th Prime Minister of Australia, the first the first Attorney General. He was the architect of the High Court, the Public Service, the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and the Australian Navy. He was highly esteemed by all.
SAO – Arthur Smith Arnott
Salvation Army Offering (SAO) whether truth or fiction, one thing is certain: the then twenty-one-year old manager of the Arnott Biscuit factory, Arthur Smith Arnott, walked in one morning with a Salvo jacket on to the bewilderment of the staff.
