Australian History

Vegemite shares the fascinating tale of Cyril Callister, the man who invented what would become Australia's most beloved consumer product, along with the story of its rocky road to acceptance. Spanning the Gold Rush, the Depression and two world wars, it opens a window on the evolution of modern Australia. Vegemite is a great Australian story of overcoming the odds, and of how extraordinary things can happen to (almost) ordinary people.

Wearing the colour red and having the patch with the emblem of the mighty bulldog on your back was what ex-Mongrel Mob leader Tuhoe 'Bruno' Isaac called being True Red. "Because all levels of society hated us we created a new society of hatred symbolised by the bulldog. Its ferocious habits were engraved on our hearts", Tuhoe says, "If you weren't a mobster you weren't worth knowing." He lived this way for 17 years. However, constantly living for the bash, beer, prison and the possibility of dying in a pool of blood eventually saw Tuhoe search for another way of doing life.

¿Quién inventó la máquina tortilladora? ¿Por qué en México hay una tienda en cada esquina? ¿Qué hacía un japonés en la Revolución? ¿Cuál ha sido el presidente más honrado? ¿Quién fue la primera mujer gobernadora? Las respuestas a estas preguntas se encuentran en este libro, que reúne diversos hechos y personajes tan curiosos e interesantes como sólo México puede ofrecer. Cada una de estas páginas nos demuestra que la Historia no sólo está en los museos y las enciclopedias, también se encuentra en las cosas (en apariencia) más simples de la vida.

The Second Battle of Krithia has existed largely in the shadows of the bigger Gallipoli story. It is, however, one of the most poignant and tragic tales of World War I. The fascinating story has been brought to light at last by bestselling military historian Mat McLachlan, author of The Cowra Breakout.

Do you want advice on how to stand out in a crowded marketplace? Do you want to take your career to the next level and beyond? In Stand Out & Succeed, career and business strategist Christy Frank explains how the job market really works, and shows you the strategies, psychology and tactics you need to know to get a lucrative, recession-proof career you love. The biggest problem with finding a job today is that we actually have two job markets, and 95% of people don't know how to perform well in either.

The son of a struggling country butcher, Stan Savige left school at 12 to become a blacksmith’s striker. But in 1915, a passage in the Bible inspired the devout scout leader and Sunday school teacher to enlist. Soon, his abilities as a crack marksman attracted the attention of officers and he was put in charge of the sniper’s post, his job to eliminate enemy assassins at Anzac Cove. Savige succeeded and survived Gallipoli, only to be sent to the Western Front, then to Persia as part of the elite squad Dunsterforce.

Captain Matthew Flinders, returning from a voyage of discovery in 1803, was imprisoned on the Isle of France until 1810. This book tells the story of his exile there, and of the men and women who befriended him. The Napoleonic wars were raging in Europe, yet on this remote French colony, encircled by a blockading English naval squadron, threatening their safety and their very subsistence, a small group of inhabitants – and their prisoners – provided a lesson in mutual tolerance and esteem, and showed that nobility of spirit can transcend cultural and national divides.

Since publishing his critically acclaimed, Walkley Award-winning, best-selling memoir Talking to My Country in early 2016, Stan Grant has been crossing the country, talking to huge crowds everywhere about how racism is at the heart of our history and the Australian dream. But Stan knows this is not where the story ends. In this book, Australia Day, his long-awaited follow up to Talking to My Country, Stan talks about our country, about who we are as a nation, about the indigenous struggle for belonging and identity in Australia, and what it means to be Australian.

On a pitch-black night in September 1943, a daring Australian commando unit launches a covert raid on Singapore Harbour, sinking and damaging numerous Japanese ships. Operation Jaywick - an epic that passed into Australia's national legend - sets in motion a brutal crackdown by Japan's dreaded military police, the Kempei Tai. Tasked with finding the culprits of the attack, Major Sumida Haruzo intensifies his hunt for the saboteurs, weaving a deadly web that ensnares dozens of British internees in Changi Jail and countless Chinese Singaporeans.

Broadcaster Tracey Spicer had an epiphany when her young son uttered these six words. Suddenly, her life’s work fighting inequality seemed futile. What’s the point in agitating to change the present, if bigotry is being embedded into our futures? And so began a quest to uncover who was responsible and hold them to account. Who is the ultimate villain? Big Tech, whose titans refuse to spend money to fix the problem? The world’s politicians, who lack the will to legislate? Or should we all be walking into a hall of mirrors and taking a good, hard look at ourselves…?

The Korean War was a 20th Century conflict that has never ended. South Korea, a powerhouse economy and dynamic democracy sits uneasily alongside North Korea, the world’s most secretive, belligerent, unpredictable and repressive totalitarian state. Today, tensions simmer and occasionally flare into outright violence on a peninsula dense with arms, munitions and nuclear warheads. Cameron Forbes, acclaimed author of Hellfire, tells the story of the war and Australia’s involvement in it in a riveting narrative.

Blending narrative history, travelogue, and personal reminiscences, Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation is an engaging memoir as well as an insightful meditation on the realities of nation-making and international development.

Chaplains of ANZAC: New Zealand's Fallen Chaplains of the Great War tells the story of seven New Zealand Expeditionary Force chaplains who served and died during the Great War. The beautiful collection of stories in this book tell the oft-overlooked tales of the chaplains who left New Zealand and served their god, king and country on foreign fields of battle. In all, over 140 chaplains served as part of the NZEF. This book contains the stories of seven of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The west coast of Tasmania has always held true to a distinct identity that endures to this day. It is based on geography and a history of isolation from the rest of the island. The mountain ranges running down the west of Tasmania are a natural barrier to the more populated eastern regions of the island and flourished through exporting lumber and valuable minerals. Despite this, no roads existed to the east coast until 1932.

Just after Christmas 1803, convict William Buckley fled an embryonic settlement in the land of the Kulin nation (now the Port Phillip area), to take his chances in the wilderness. A few months later, the local Aboriginal people found the six-foot-five former soldier near death. Believing he was a lost kinsman returned from the dead, they took him in, and for 32 years Buckley lived as a Wadawurrung man, learning his adopted tribe's language, skills and methods to survive.

Great Australian Aviation Stories is a collection of dramatic true stories and colourful accounts of our fascinating aviation history. These stories also show the "human" side of aviation...how it changed the lives of ordinary people, workers, and travellers. Included are amazing stories of history-making flights by Kingsford Smith and Ross and Keith Smith, and accounts of the exploits of Bert Hinkler, Amy Johnson, Nancy Bird, and our early outback aviation pioneers.

It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy Gibson, roared into the night sky from their Lincolnshire base. They were on a top-secret Bomber Command mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, now regarded as one of the most dangerous and audacious bombing raids of World War II - an attack on the formidable, well-defended dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Slung beneath the belly of each aircraft was one of the war’s greatest secrets - a bouncing bomb.

Fearless, sharp-eyed and handsome, Matthew Flinders was one of the greatest of all maritime adventurers and undertook one of the most important voyages of discovery – to circumnavigate and map the famed Great Southern Land. Together with his Aboriginal interpreter and guide, Kuringgai man Bungaree, and his beloved rescue cat Trim, Flinders explored the furthest reaches of Australia and meticulously recorded its rugged coastlines on maps so accurate they are still used today.

Ask google Who discovered gold in Australia? and you'll promptly get 'Edward Hammond Hargraves'. Hargraves has for decades (and decades) received the fame, fortune and adulation from all corners of the country, but did he earn it? This is the story of an oversized layabout who received years of accolades and free lunches, despite lumbering from one embarrassment to another, and of those who spent decades trying to expose him and seek their share of the glory.

Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missing In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets.