‘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.
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.
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.
New Year’s Eve, January 1, 2000, an estimated 2 billion people around the world were transfixed on Sydney, soon to host the Olympic Games. There was an unprecedented response when the bridge was lit up with the word Eternity. The audience around the foreshores, applauded as one. What could have caused this response?
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?
Ann Jarvis, who had the idea for our modern Mother’s Day celebration, had eleven children and only three reached adulthood. Her daughter Anna made it happen. How and when did this happen?
The nineteen-year-old sergeant led his men into a water-filled ditch which had at one time passed for a German trench. Then, as he inadvertently raised his head a bit too high, a bullet quickly found its mark. Shot in the face. Read more to find out what happens next?
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.
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?
First Australian Chaplain to die at Gallipoli – Andrew Gillison Our History and the Christian Connection The convoy of nervous soldiers sailed towards ANZAC Cove. The plan was to storm the peninsula and defeat...
The Japanese commander who led the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Darwin. He 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
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.
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.
“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
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?
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.
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?
NATIONAL CHILDREN’S WEEK Our History and the Christian Connection HISTORY In 1954 the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed Universal Children’s Day as a day to promote friendship and understanding among children of the world....
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.
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.
The Cadbury family were giving free education to the workers children. The mine owners were recruiting nine-year-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?
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.
World Teacher Day Our History and the Christian Connection Thomas Shadrach James. A most unlikely man was engaged in education in the early days of Australian schooling. Even more improbable is the fact that...
Europeans were not sure if Australia 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 Our History and the Christian Connection 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....
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.
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.”
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.
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”.
