Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories

Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories PDF Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1952535700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000...emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost? From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific tellers of yarns and bush tales, comes this ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten, the surprising, the truly weird and the completely inexplicable. Told with a refreshing understatement, Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories vividly evokes a vanishing Australia when anything was possible, when characters were larger than life and the bizarre and strange were normal.

Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories

Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories PDF Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1952535700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000...emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost? From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific tellers of yarns and bush tales, comes this ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten, the surprising, the truly weird and the completely inexplicable. Told with a refreshing understatement, Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories vividly evokes a vanishing Australia when anything was possible, when characters were larger than life and the bizarre and strange were normal.

Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories

Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories PDF Author: Jim Haynes (Australian author and entertainer)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781525238925
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
The ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten, and the surprising, the truly weird and the completely inexplicable. Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000 emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost? These tales vividly evoke a vanishing Australia when anything was possible, when characters were larger than life and the bizarre and strange were normal.

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits PDF Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761060538
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
The petty thief . . . who escaped Van Diemen's Land, twice, stole the government brig and set sail for Japan, where, by the Shogun's decree, all foreigners were to be executed. The world's best cricketer . . . a champion of Aboriginal people who 'invented' Aussie Rules, survived the worst massacre of white settlers in Australia's history and killed himself with a pair of scissors. The eccentric musical genius . . . who played in the greatest concert halls in the world but pushed his favourite piano stool between venues in a wheelbarrow. Over the many years Jim Haynes has spent exploring and writing about the quirkier events and people in Australia's history, he has discovered characters who have amazed, surprised and simply ba?ed him. This is a book about some of those men and women and their remarkable, out-of-the-ordinary and almost unbelievable lives. As he always does, Jim has discovered that there is more to the story than ?rst meets the eye. Who knew that the ?rst man hanged in Australia made an artefact now valued at over one million dollars? Or that an Australian swimmer was the highest-paid act on the American vaudeville circuit and the star of the ?rst million-dollar movie ever made? And that the father of the ?rst Australian woman to serve in parliament was hanged for murder? With a light touch, a wry eye and his gifts as a master storyteller, Jim shares the tales and adventures of a group of heroic, feisty, ?awed and pioneering characters who have shaped our nation and introduced Australia to the world.

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits PDF Author: Jim Haynes (Australian author and entertainer)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780369353108
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories.

World War Bloody Timor

World War Bloody Timor PDF Author: Peter O’Hanlon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1922615706
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
World War Bloody Timor gives a revealing insight into the extraordinary life of the everyday digger and service in a conflict that was far from ordinary. My name is Peter O’Hanlon, but everyone in the military, from the lowest digger to the highest officer, has always called me ‘Irish’. You won't see me, or the service men and women like me, featured in the latest blockbuster, but our service lives include drama, laughs and accounts of deep turmoil that are worth telling. I was a member of the Australian Army for 11 years and during my deployment as part of the INTERFET force, serviced three very impacting tours of East Timor. What was it like, as a 19 year to land at the Dilli Airport in Australia’s largest deployment since Vietnam? What are the little-known battles and obstacles that cause unseen scars through a deployment? What are the impacts on re-integrating into the civilian community? This is my story, an ordinary soldier; the juicy yarns, the laughs, the battles, the devastating lows, the soaring highs, the blood, sweat and tears we give in service every day. It will make you laugh and may make you cry. It's the cold hard truth about the impact of a different type of war fought by many who deployed to Timor.

Australia's Serial Killers

Australia's Serial Killers PDF Author: Paul B. Kidd
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers Aus.
ISBN: 1742627986
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Since its first publication in 2000, Australia's Serial Killers has become a true crime classic. This edition is fully updated, bringing all the cases covered up to the minute. A recognised authority on Australia's most notorious criminals, Paul B. Kidd covers in unwavering detail 33 true stories of serial murder. In this gallery of infamy are world renowned killers the likes of the Night Caller, The Granny Killer, Ivan Milat, Kathleen Folbigg and the Snowtown murderers. Sixteen years in the researching, this comprehensive and ambitious work includes psychological opinions, court-room trials, detailed confessions, and exclusive prison interviews with three of Australia's most infamous serial killers.

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits PDF Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781760877620
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories

Police Stories

Police Stories PDF Author: Vikki Petraitis
Publisher: Lake Press
ISBN: 0655219927
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
From the bizarre to the brutal to the unbelievable, truth is often stranger than fiction, as these fascinating stories testify. Vikki Petraitis has spent hundreds of hours interviewing police - sometimes even accompanying them on active duty - to complete this collection of stories from the frontline of policing. Police officers from many fields have shared some of their best stories: the ones that were out of the ordinary, the ones they'll never forget. The result is this riveting collection of real-life Australian dramas. They include: - a 'black widow' who reported her husband missing after an argument - the perilous body retrieval of a drowned diver from a sunken submarine - the capture and conviction of a man who drugged his unsuspecting victims by spiking their drinks - the disappearance of Sarah MacDiarmid. In each case the police concerned have achieved results through dedication and teamwork, and sometimes at great personal risk. We thank them for their service and understand that sometimes, the toll was too high. Vikki Petraitis is a Melbourne author who has been writing true crime since the early 1990s. Her bestselling book about Frankston serial killer Paul Denyer, The Frankston Murders, is a classic in the true crime genre.

Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia

Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia PDF Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 176118797X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Australia's most amazing characters of the convict age. 'Aussies love a good story and entertainer Jim Haynes has been telling them for decades' —Courier-Mail In Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia, our master storyteller Jim Haynes has collected a fascinating cast of characters who embody the resourcefulness, bravery, defiance, successes and tragedies of the convict era, the men and women who forged the nation we would one day become. There's Joseph Banks, the true founder of the colony; Surgeon John White, the saviour of the First Fleet; Pemulwuy, the Bidjigal freedom fighter; Mary Reiby, the horse thief who made good; Sapy Lovell, the Eora gypsy convict; John Donohue, the wild colonial boy; Lady Jane Franklin, the true leader of Van Diemen's Land – and many more! Why did transportation occur, why did it end, and what was it like living in Australia from 1788 to 1870? Skilfully researched and told in Jim's warm and witty style, Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia answers these questions and brings to life well-known and unknown figures from Australia's history as a penal settlement. This is the true story of the colonisation of Australia. 'In a year when we could all use a different perspective Jim Haynes came to the rescue with his latest sojourn into history . . . a cast of colourful characters.' —Spectator

Great Furphies of Australian History

Great Furphies of Australian History PDF Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761063219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Jim Haynes upturns some of the long-held myths of Australian history with surprising results. With all the skills of the master storyteller that he is, Jim Haynes exposes some of the great myths of Australian history. Did you know that Portuguese and Spanish explorers probably found the east coast of Australia before Captain Cook, and that the Rum Rebellion was not caused by rum? And what about Banjo Paterson writing Waltzing Matilda? As for Ned Kelly being a brave freedom-fighting rebel, in truth he was a thief, a thug and a murderer. The Ashes have nothing to do with cricket, the Ghan is not named after Afghan cameleers and Hargraves lied about discovering gold in New South Wales. Surprising, confounding, revealing and fun, Jim Haynes takes us on another great journey through Australian history and folklore.