AUSTRALIA 100 THINGS YOU DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS COUNTRY FOR EXAMPLE AREA IS 32 TIMES BIGGER THAN UK

AUSTRALIA 100 THINGS YOU DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS COUNTRY FOR EXAMPLE AREA IS 32 TIMES BIGGER THAN UK

OUR LAND

What we are

Australia’s land mass is about 7,692,030 sq km – 32 times bigger than the UK. The country is the world’s biggest island and its smallest continent. The current population is about 23 million. Australia’s capital is Canberra in the ACT.

Biggest desert

Just over one third of Australia receives so little rain it is considered a desert. The biggest is the Great Victoria Desert, which covers about 350,000 sq km. It spans more than 700km from the Eastern Goldfields in the west to South Australia’s Gawler Ranges in the east. Not surprisingly, there is little plant or animal life.

Highest mountain

Mount Kosciuszko, located in NSW’s Snowy Mountains, is our highest mountain. It stands at 2228m and was named by Polish explorer Paul Edmund Strzelecki in 1840 because it reminded him of Kościuszko Mound in Kraków.
Steep Point the westernmost point of Australia.

The points

The furthest points in Australia are Queensland’s Cape York to the north, Cape Byron in NSW to the east, South East Cape in Tasmania to the south and WA’s Steep Point in the west.

Biggest lake

Our biggest lake is Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre in the centre of SA’s Lake Eyre Basin. It is a salt lake and has only filled completely three times in the past 100 years. When full, its size is 9690 sq km. It was named Lake Eyre in honour of Edward John Eyre, who was the first European to see it in 1840. Kati Thanda was added in 2012 to recognise its indigenous name. Native title over the lake and surrounding region is held by the Arabana people.

Longest river

Australia’s longest single river is the Murray River, which stretches 2508km across NSW and South Australia. It forms part of the 3672km combined Murray-Darling river system, which drains most of inland Victoria, NSW and southern Queensland. It also makes up much of the border between Victoria and NSW.
Golden Wattle

National flower

The golden wattle is Australia’s national floral emblem. The shrub or small tree – which has a scientific name of Acacia pycnantha – grows in SA, Victoria, NSW and the ACT. It normally reaches a height of 8m, has leaf stalks instead of leaves and produces small, bright-yellow flower globes.

National animal

Australia doesn’t officially have a national animal, but unofficially it is shared by the red kangaroo and the emu. The red kangaroo is the biggest of the species and found across the country. The emu, a flightless bid, can also be found across most areas of mainland Australia. It is the country’s biggest bird. Both appear on Australia’s coat of arms.
Harvey, the Big Red Kangaroo at Dreamworld.

National gem

The precious opal is Australia’s national gem. It takes a combination of special conditions for a precious opal to form, with the Australian desert one of the few places in the world where this occurs. Australia produces about 95 per cent of the world’s precious opal.

How hot is it?

If one characteristic represents Australia’s weather more than anything else, it’s the heat. Marble Bar in WA’s Pilbara region has the highest average monthly maximum temperature. It averages 41.5C in December. However, the small SA town of Oodnadatta in the Simpson Desert holds the record for the hottest day. On January 2, 1960, the mercury reached 50.7°C.
MAJOR EVENTS
Cathy Freeman lights the Olympic Flame in Sydney 2000.

The First Australians

The original inhabitants are the indigenous Australians, who arrived from Africa up to 125,000 years ago. The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands, a group of more than 250 small islands at the top of Queensland near Papua New Guinea. The term “Aboriginal” is applied to the indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia and Tasmania. The term “indigenous Australians” is used when referring to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. There is a lot of diversity among different indigenous communities in Australia, each with its own customs and languages.

January 26, 1788

January 26 marked the arrival of the First Fleet, a group of 11 ships from Great Britain, arriving at Port Jackson, or Sydney Harbour, in 1788. The fleet was led by Captain Arthur Philip, who established the Colony of New South Wales and the country’s first penal colony. As early as 1808, January 26 was celebrated as “Foundation Day” and in 1838 it became Australia’s first public holiday. By 1946, January 26 was Australia Day in all states. However, the public holiday was moved to the Monday nearest to January 26 to create a long weekend. Not all Australian states were founded as penal colonies, WA and SA were founded as free-settler colonies.

The Gold Rush

Australia’s population trebled in the 1850s when gold was discovered in NSW and Victoria. Over the next decade, Australia would provide one third of the world’s gold. WA’s gold rush occurred a bit later, in the last decades of the 19th century. Irish immigrant Paddy Hannan’s discovery at Kalgoorlie in June 1893, and the early discoveries at Coolgardie, sparked a major change in WA’s population and the recognition it was given by other Australian states.

The Eureka Stockade

In 1854, a group of Victorian gold miners in Ballarat revolted against the colonial authority of the United Kingdom. The Battle of the Eureka Stockade was fought between miners and the Colonial forces of Australia on December 3. At least 27 people died – mostly rebels. The public support for captured rebels after the battle forced the introduction of the Electoral Act 1856, which gave all white males the right to vote in elections for the lower house of the Victorian Parliament.

The Great Depression

When the centre of the stock market world, New York’s Wall Street, crashed in October 1929, it created a time of extreme hardship in Australia that would last, for many people, until the end of the World War II in 1945. At its peak, unemployment in Australia reached 32 per cent. The impact on families was devastating. Governments used big public building projects to keep people in jobs, the greatest example being the Sydney Harbour Bridge in NSW.

The Australian Olympics

In 1956, Melbourne became the first Australian city to host the summer Olympics. It was the first time the Games had been held in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2000, Sydney would become the second Australian city to host the summer Olympics. The Sydney Games received universal acclaim and are often described as the greatest ever. Without doubt the highlight of the Sydney Olympics was when our track star Cathy Freeman won gold in the 400m in front of 112,000 live spectators and nine million Australians watching on TV.

Cyclone Tracy

This tropical cyclone devastated Darwin in the Northern Territory on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 1974. Tracy killed 71 people and destroyed more than 70 per cent of the city’s buildings, including 80 per cent of its houses. Then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam remarked in the aftermath that “Darwin had, for the time being, ceased to exist as a city”.
The Boxing Day tsunami.

The Bali bombings

The Indonesian island of Bali is a holiday favourite for Australians. But on October 12 in 2002 in the popular tourist district of Kuta, a terrorist attack targeting nightclubs killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Several members of a violent Islamist group, known as Jemaah Islamiah, were convicted in relation to the bombings. Three were sentenced to death.

The Boxing Day tsunami

On Boxing Day 2004, an earthquake in Sumatra caused a tsunami that led to the deaths of more than 230,000 people. Among the death toll were 26 Australians, mostly killed in Thailand. Fourteen countries were affected and the disaster left millions homeless. The aid package from Australia would eventually reach $1 billion.

Black Saturday

The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria on February 7 are our nation’s worst-ever natural disaster. The fires occurred during extreme weather conditions and resulted in the deaths of 173 people. Another 414 people were injured. The fire razed more than 2000 houses and cruelled 1.1 million acres of land. At the height of the disaster more than 400 individual fires were recorded, with winds exceeding 100km/h spreading the flames.
Victorian bushfire.
POLITICS

The Stolen Generations

From the late 1800s to the 1970s, many indigenous Australians were forcibly removed from their families. The laws adopted across the country allowed for authorities to remove children without needing to consider welfare concerns. The children were sent either to institutions or adopted by non-indigenous families and were mostly not permitted to have visits from their relatives. In 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission condemned the policy. The Federal Government officially apologised on behalf of Australia on February 13, 2008. Then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called the Stolen Generations a “blemished chapter in our nation’s history”.

The Father of Federation

Australia became an independent nation on January 1, 1901. It couldn’t have happened without the “Father of Federation”, Sir Henry Parkes, a master politician who was elected premier of NSW five times. He established a Federal Convention in 1891 that brought all states together as one country and set the foundations for our present system of government. On January 1, 1901, the British Parliament passed legislation allowing the six Australian colonies to govern in their own right as part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Our first Prime Minister

Edmund Barton was always the smartest kid in the classroom. An early graduate of Sydney University, Barton entered NSW Parliament at a young age. Like Henry Parkes, he believed that federation was Australia’s destiny, coming up with the slogan “A nation for a continent and a continent for a nation”. He travelled extensively across the nation during 1898 and 1899 campaigning for the cause and after Federation was rewarded by becoming Australia’s first Prime Minister. He served from January 1, 1901 to September 1903 before becoming a founding justice of the High Court of Australia.

The White Australia policy

This was one of the lowest points in Australia’s history. After Federation in 1901, one of the first things the new nation did was pass a racially exclusive and draconian Immigration Act. This was part of the White Australia policy, designed to keep out any prospective migrants who were not from Europe. The policies were progressively dismantled between 1949 and 1973. In 1975, the Whitlam Government passed the Racial Discrimination Act, which made racially based selection criteria unlawful.

The Minimum Wage

In 1907, the Harvester Judgement established in Australian law the principle of a male worker’s right to a basic, or minimum, wage. The Judgement overturned the concept that an employer had the right to pay an employee “what they could afford to pay” or what they judged the work to be worth. Sadly, women had to wait until 1972 to gain equal pay with men.
Sir Robert Menzies

The longest-serving Prime Minister

Sir Robert Menzies won eight elections and spent a collective 18 years in power. The political colossus was responsible for a number of reforms during a prosperous post-World War II period, including expanding migration from Europe, giving indigenous Australians the vote and introducing university scholarships. Menzies believed his two greatest achievements were forming the Liberal Party (from the remnants of the United Australia Party) and building a strong coalition with the Country Party. He was knighted in 1963 and died peacefully at age 83.

Indigenous voting rights

After Federation, new laws were enacted that restricted Aboriginal voting rights in federal elections. In the following decades, these restrictions would be varied from state to state until 1962, when the Menzies Government amended legislation to enable all Aboriginal Australians to enrol to vote in federal elections.

The Dismissal

Gough Whitlam is the only Australian Prime Minister to be dismissed from office. The Labor leader came to power in 1972 on a wave of social change. After a double dissolution in 1974, he was left with a slender majority in the House of Representatives and a Senate controlled by the Opposition. A battle of constitutional brinkmanship ensued, which reached its climax in 1975, when the Opposition refused to pass bills required to finance the government. At the Opposition’s urging, Mr Whitlam was controversially dismissed by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr. Although he was Prime Minister for less than three years, Mr Whitlam was responsible for implementing a raft of reforms, including abolishing university fees, equal pay for women and introducing a new (and current) national anthem.

Mabo and Aboriginal land rights
Eddie Mabo at Brisbane Supreme Court in 1986.

When the British arrived in Australia in the late 18th century, they declared the country “terra nullius” – no-one’s land. They claimed whatever territory they wanted as they pleased. In 1936, an Aboriginal boy was born on Murray Island in the Torres Strait who would change that forever. Eddie Mabo used to listen to his parents tell stories about their timeless connection with the land. When he was working as a gardener at James Cook University, he met a lawyer who offered to help him make a case challenging the claim of “terra nullius”. After a 10-year battle, Eddie lost, even though he was convinced he was right. So he took his claim to the High Court. Weary from fighting and riddled with cancer, he died in January 1992, aged just 55. Five months later, the High Court ruled in his favour. Apart from changing the law, Eddie Mabo’s public showdown with authorities also educated many Australians about the true spiritual bond the indigenous people have with the land.

Our first female Prime Minister

Much maligned during her reign, Julia Gillard ensured herself a spot in Australian history when she became our first female Prime Minister. Ms Gillard was the country’s 27th Prime Minister and held the position from June 2010 until June 2013. She became Prime Minister after the Labor Party dumped then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd while he was still in office because of poor polls. Ironically, Mr Rudd would replace Ms Gillard in the same way in 2013.
WAR

Gallipoli

It was meant to a brilliant British plan to end World War I early with a victory for the Allies. Instead, it was a tactical disaster that killed thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops, known as Anzacs. The idea was for Anzac troops to take control of the Gallipoli Peninsula and the Dardanelles waterway while the war was raging on other fronts. From there, the Allies could take down Germany’s important ally, Turkey. The Australians landed at what became known as Anzac Cove on April 25, 1915. They were met by daunting terrain and Turkish defences they would never be able to break. The Gallipoli operation would cost nearly 9000 Australian lives, with another 26,000 injured. Even though the campaign was a failure, Gallipoli became a household name in Australia for the soldiers’ indomitable spirit and created the Anzac tradition.
Trench warfare. Photo: Australian War Memorial

The Western Front

A series of trenches stretching from the Swiss border to the Belgian coast known as the Western Front was where the majority of World War I fighting took place. After Gallipoli, most Australian troops were sent there. Life in the trenches was hell. Dead bodies, terminal diseases, lack of food and water, freezing temperatures and the constant sound of artillery shells. Australian troops were involved in several major Western Front battles – including Fromelles and Somme. More than 295,000 Australians served on the Western Front - of those, 46,000 lost their lives and 132,000 were wounded.

Conscription

In the first few years of World War I, men from all over Australia rushed to enlist. However, as the dramatic death toll became apparent, the enthusiasm waned. Under Prime Minister Billy Hughes, the country held two referendums on conscription, which would have force men to go to war. The no-vote won by a slim margin both times, first in 1916 and again a year later. Conscription was later introduced in World War II and as a birthday ballot during the Vietnam War.
With the Diggers' Prime Minister William (Billy) Hughes. Photo: National Library of Australia

A man born to lead

After thousands of Diggers were slaughtered in the first year of World War I, an Aussie - Lt-Gen John Monash - was finally put in charge of the Australian Imperial Forces. Almost instantly, the mood changed. Monash had fought at Gallipoli, he knew his troops and was confident in his strategies for success. Using revolutionary tactics including planes, troops and tanks, he won the Battle of Hamel in 93 minutes (three minutes more than he had planned). He went on to command 200,000 Allied troops in a series of successful encounters with the enemy. Monash returned to his hometown of Melbourne after the war and throughout the 1920s was considered the greatest living Australian.

Australia at Versailles after WWI

Prime Minister Billy Hughes ensured Australia had a place among the global powers which gathered in the French city of Versailles to determine the terms of peace after the November 1918 armistice. The League of Nations (the forerunner to the United Nations) was established at the conference and Australia was a founding member.

Our greatest Prime Minister
John Curtin, former prime minister of Australia.

A pacifist, West Australian John Curtin found himself Prime Minister of Australia during World War II. He was sworn in on October 7, 1941 and rose to the occasion. Just two months later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Australia, for the first time, independently declared war on a foreign power. Realising Britain was more engaged in the northern hemisphere, Curtin delivered a famous New Year’s message: “I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free from any pangs as to our traditional links with the United Kingdom”. Shortly afterwards, Japanese bombs started crashing into Darwin. In March 1942, American General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia and US and Australian troops fought side-by-side to repel the Japanese invasion. But stress and cigarettes were taking their toll. In November 1944, Curtin suffered a coronary occlusion forcing him in and out of hospital. On July 5, 1945, he died. Forty days later, the Japanese surrendered.

The Kokoda Track

Along a rugged track in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, Australian troops battled Japanese forces in one of our country’s most important World War II battles. The Japanese landed during July 1942 with the goal of capturing Port Moresby, Australia’s main base in New Guinea. Over the next four months, Australian troops repelled them on the Kokoda Track until the exhausted Japanese withdrew. More than 600 Australians were killed and some 1680 wounded.

A haunted hero

Born with an insatiable curiosity, Marcus Oliphant was behind two major World War II inventions. The first was a radar device called the magnetron, which gave the Allies a huge advantage tracking down enemy planes and ships. The second was the nuclear bomb. The Adelaide scientist was a pivotal member of The Manhattan Project that created the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Though seen as a hero, his discovery haunted him. When one bomb destroyed Hiroshima, he said: “Proud that (it) worked, and absolutely appalled at what it had done to human beings.” After the war, he helped establish the Australian National University in Canberra and was appointed Governor of South Australia in 1971.

Weary Dunlop
Sir Edward Dunlop.

A revered figure in history, prisoner-of-war Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop stood tall against his Japanese captors, protecting his severely ill and malnourished men who were forced to build the notorious Thai-Burma railway. A surgeon who played two Rugby union Tests for Australia before World War II, he was tortured for protecting those he considered too sick to work on the railway. After the war, he devoted his life to community service. He died aged 85 in 1993.

The Iraq War

Under Prime Minister John Howard, Australia supported the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The coalition of US, UK and Australian troops overthrew the Saddam Hussein dictatorship within weeks. However, Australia’s involvement in post-war “nation building” would keep troops in Iraq for more than a decade. The Australian military contribution was relatively small compared to the troops committed by the US and the UK. However, the invasion was controversial and heavily opposed by big sections of the country.
TRAIL BLAZERS

A tough woman with a compassionate calling
Edith Cowan

Born in Geraldton in 1861, Edith Cowan was only seven when her mother died and just a teenager when her father was hanged for killing his second wife. After leaving school, she became a pioneer advocate for women’s and children’s rights. In 1921, she won the seat of West Perth in the WA election, the first woman in Australia to enter Parliament. Two of her most important legacies were giving women financial security after a divorce and setting up the Children’s Protection Society, which was the precursor of the Children’s Court. Her portrait is on the $50 note.

The most important man ever born in Australia

Born in Adelaide in 1898, Howard Florey went on to study medicine and latched on to the findings of a Scottish professor who discovered that mould produced a natural antibiotic. Florey was convinced this mould, called penicillin, could be used to stop infections and cure the injured. In 1940, he successfully tested his theory on eight mice. Penicillin was soon being used on wounded Allied soldiers in World War II, saving countless lives. His discovery is estimated to have saved 82 million people worldwide. Florey was awarded a Nobel prize for his work. When he died in 1968, then Prime Minister Robert Menzies noted: “In terms of world wellbeing, Florey was the most important man ever born in Australia”.
Sir Douglas Mawson

Antarctic explorer

He had the brilliant brain of a scientist but is remembered for making one of the most courageous solo journeys by any Australian adventurer. In 1911, fascinated by the bottom of the world, Sir Douglas Mawson headed south to chart the Antarctic coastline. During the trek, one of his partners plummeted down an ice crevasse and the other died from physical exertion. Mawson was left alone 850km from base camp. For 30 days, he battled frostbite and hunger as the whipping wind tried to break his spirit. Finally he reached supplies and waited in a cave for a week before stumbling on to meet explorers from the original expedition party. His miraculous escape from an icy grave became news around the world and he was knighted in 1914.

Master of the media

Born with ink in his blood, Rupert Murdoch built News Corporation into an international media empire. He is currently worth about $12.6 billion. Starting with The News in Adelaide in 1953, he went on to buy newspapers in every state, including The Sunday Times in Perth, before launching the national broadsheet The Australian in 1965. His empire spread to the tabloids in England and then Fox Movies in the US and pay-TV in Europe. As digital platforms evolved in the 21st century so did Murdoch’s determination to keep pace, launching online, iPad and cyberspace experiences for the reader and even branching into social media himself.

Kerry Packer

He was only 37 when he inherited the Australian Consolidated Press magazine group and the Nine TV network after his legendary father, Sir Frank Packer, died. For decades, Kerry Packer would wield extreme influence and power. He was known for his lavish gambling (although he was a teetotaller) and bitter clashes with the Australian Taxation Office. In the 1970s, he created World Series Cricket, which transformed the game by introducing limited overs, day-night matches and coloured clothing. In 1987, he pulled off what is considered the greatest business deal in Australia history when he sold Nine to Alan Bond for $1.05 billion. Three years later, he would buy it back for just $250 million.
Media magnate Kerry Packer.

Australia’s saint

Mary MacKillop started the Sisters of St Joseph in an empty stable in outback SA looking after orphaned children and local Aborigines. The order spread throughout Australia and NZ. In 1961 and 1993, two women with terminal diseases prayed to Mary MacKillop and were cured. These events were the two miracles needed to be verified for her to be considered for sainthood. She was canonised in 2010 during a public ceremony in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

Lang Hancock and his daughter, Gina Rinehart

West Australian Lang Hancock was the first Australian to believe and act upon our potential to be a great explorer of minerals. As the legend goes, in 1952 Lang was flying his light plane above the Hamersley Ranges in WA’s remote Pilbara region when he noticed something unusual in the rust-red scenery. He returned to take mineral samples, which confirmed he had found the world’s biggest deposit of iron ore. He fought for a decade for the government to lift an embargo on iron ore exports. Mr Hancock died two decades before iron ore would become Australia’s most valuable export commodity. His heir, Gina, is now Australia’s richest person, having used her business acumen to make the most of her father’s discoveries. Ms Rinehart’s “mega” mine project, Roy Hill, is on target to ship its first iron ore in September 2015.
Lang Hancock with his daughter Gina in 1992.

Aid abroad

Fred Hollows was a straight-shooter. A specialist in treating the eye disease trachoma, he stomped through the Outback helping Aborigines keep their sight. Between 1974 and 1976, his teams screened 100,000 people. After giving sight to indigenous Australia, he did the same in Africa. The wild colonial boy of Australian medicine with the gruff voice and tender touch was probably the first doctor to give life to the “aid abroad” crusades that have become a calling for medicos with a conscience. Hollows died in 1993 of cancer, but the sight he gave others lives on forever.
Professor Graeme Clark with world's first commercial multi-channel Cochlear Implant.

Hearing is believing

While studying at Sydney University in the 1960s, Graeme Clark stumbled on a scientific paper describing how electrical stimulation had enabled a deaf person to experience sensations of hearing. After that, he knew his destiny was to develop an implantable hearing device translating these sensations. In 1978, due to his determination, the recipient of the first cochlear implant heard decipherable speech. The cochlear implant is now considered the most significant milestone in the management of profound deafness.

Barry Marshall

Barry Marshall put his own health on the line to prove a theory others wouldn’t believe. In doing so, he won a Nobel prize with his fellow researcher Robin Warren. In 1984, to prove stomach ulcers weren’t caused by stress or spicy food but were rather a bacterium, he swallowed a glass of the concoction (Helicobacter pylori). When he became sick and developed gastritis, which leads to ulcers and cancer, he treated himself with antibiotics and cured himself. Millions of people suffer from stomach ulcers and now it can be easily treated.
SPORT

Aussie Rules – our game
Polly Farmer.

In July 1858, a Melbourne journal published a letter by a prominent cricketer calling for the formation of a “foot-ball club” to keep cricketers fit during winter. Many consider this the birth of Australian rules football. Played with an oval ball on an oval-shaped field, it has the highest spectator attendance of all sports in Australia. Most historians consider Aboriginal ruckman Graham “Polly” Farmer from Western Australia or Victorian Leigh “Lethal” Matthews the greatest players of all time.

Our first Olympian

The first modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896 and Australian runner Edwin Flack won the hearts of the locals by winning the 800m and 1500m gold medals. The Greeks were pleased to see someone interrupt the domination of American athletes at the event. Flack’s efforts in attending the event ensured Australia’s unbroken involvement in the Olympic Games.

Phar Lap

“Big Red” was the horse that inspired a nation. During the Depression, Phar Lap just kept winning – chalking up 36 victories in 41 starts at one stage, including the 1930 Melbourne Cup. Phar Lap then went to the US and won its biggest race before mysteriously dying 16 days later. An autopsy revealed his heart was 3kg heavier than that of a normal horse. The stuffed version of Phar Lap is Museum Victoria’s most popular exhibit.
Sir Donald Bradman

The Don

Sir Donald Bradman was the most dominant sportsman the world has ever seen. His story is Australian folklore - a country boy whose first makeshift bat was an idle cricket stump.

For hours each day he’d hit a golf ball against a corrugated-iron water tank, honing his skills as the ball fired back from every angle. He made his debut for NSW at 19 and hit a century. The next season, he stepped out for his first Test against England scoring 18 and 1. Dropped for the second match, he returned for the third and chalked up 79 and 112 to become the youngest player to score a Test century. He would go on to make 6996 Test runs at an average of 99.94 - bowled for a duck in his last innings when he needed only four runs for a triple-figure average. Born in 1908, “The Don” lived until 2001.

The best male tennis player ever

The term Grand Slam in tennis has become a little corrupted. It used to refer to the incredible feat of winning all four major tournaments - the French Open, Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open – in the same year. Now each of these tournaments is called a Grand Slam. Australian Rod Laver won the real Grand Slam – twice – in 1962 and 1969. Diminutive in stature at only 172cm, he had a left arm like Popeye, which gave him the power to ace most of his rivals. He was world number one from 1964 to 1970 and is acknowledged as the greatest tennis player in history.

Harada v Rose

Japanese bantamweight boxing champion Fighting Harada reigned supreme between 1963 and 1968. Then a shy Aboriginal boxer from the outskirts of Melbourne got his chance against the unbeatable Harada. Lionel Rose, with his sweet smile and sorrowful eyes, boarded a plane and flew to Tokyo aged just 19. Over 15 relentless rounds in front of a screaming local crowd, the cagey Aussie kept coming forward taking it up to the champ. When the judges made their call, it was Rose whose hand was raised high into the air – Australia’s first indigenous world boxing champ.
Lionel Rose defeats Fighting Harada in Tokyo to win the world bantamweight title in 1968.

The “Golden Girl”

With her mouth wide open and arms blazing, Betty Cuthbert won four Olympic track gold medals. The first three - 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay - came at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. Injury ruined her 1960 chances but she amazingly came back to win the 400m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics – the only athlete in history to win g100m, 200m and 400m golds.

The best female tennis player ever

Margaret Court won 24 major titles from 1960 to 1973, including a Grand Slam of all four opens in 1970. Her closest rivals are Steffi Graf (22) and Serena Williams (19). After travelling the world as a tennis star, she gave up the racquet for a higher calling, becoming the reverend Dr Court at Perth’s Victory Life Centre, where she preaches the word of God, feeds the poor and helps the homeless.

The birth of State of Origin

The State of Origin series between Queensland and NSW is now the biggest thing on the National Rugby League calendar. But, the State of Origin concept was conceived on the other side of the country and in another code. WA Australian Rules fans had long been sick of seeing local champions wearing the Big V of Victoria in interstate games. Subiaco Football Club marketing manager Leon Larkin came up with the idea of a game between WA and Victoria where players who started their careers in the WAFL and were now playing in the VFL would play for WA (and vice versa). The game was played at Subiaco Oval on October 8, 1977 and WA won by 94 points.

The larrikin champ

Dawn Fraser calls herself a larrikin. Others, including boxing legend Muhammad Ali, call her “the greatest athlete of the 20th century”. At the 1956 Olympic Games, she won the 100m freestyle in world-record time. She claimed gold again in the same Olympic event in 1960 and 1964 – the first swimmer to do so.
Greg Norman in 1995.

Earlier in 1964, Fraser had been seriously injured in a car accident that killed her mother. After her events had finished, Fraser was charged with stealing a flag from outside the Emperor’s Palace in Tokyo. The charges were dropped and the police later presented Fraser with the flag. The Australian Olympic Committee banned her for 10 years. The ban was later lifted but Dawn Fraser’s swimming career was over. The 1968 winner swam half a second slower than “Our Dawn’s” 1964 time. A larrikin? Yep. A champion? No doubt whatsoever.

The Shark

With his blond hair and broad shoulders, Greg Norman became a golfing icon in the 1980s, inspiring young Aussies to pick up a club and stalk the fairways. On 29 occasions, he finished in the top-10 placings of a major. In 1986, he led all four majors, the Grand Slam, after three of four rounds, but managed to win only the British Open. However, it was his 1996 meltdown in the US Masters that will never be forgotten. After three rounds, The Shark led by six shots but ended up losing by five to Nick Faldo – an 11-shot turnaround. But with every defeat he kept his dignity, never spitting the dummy or losing his cool despite the rage that must have been ripping his insides apart.

CULTURE

Banjo Paterson
Australian author and poet Andrew Barton (Barty) Paterson, best known as Banjo Paterson, 1864-1941, author of Waltzing Matilda.

Andrew “Banjo” Paterson was the bush poet whose words have been intrinsic to shaping Australian identity. Born near Orange in country NSW in 1864, Paterson went to school in Sydney, studied law and worked as a solicitor. But he loved poems and stories. He offered his work to The Bulletin under the name Banjo (a favourite horse from the family’s farm) and his craftwork soon became popular. He is well-known for The Man from Snowy River, the story about a stranger who outrode the best horsemen in the land. But Waltzing Matilda lifted him to legendary status. Written in 1895, the simple story about a swagman rolling the dice and losing it all has become Australia’s unofficial anthem. He was on the front line as a correspondent in the Boer War in 1899 and then signed on for World War I, where he was promoted to captain. After the war, he continued in journalism and writing until struck down by illness in 1940. He died peacefully on February 5, 1941.

Down on His Luck

The Heidelberg School, active in the late 1880s, was the first significant art movement in Australia. It sparked an era of painters intent on depicting the Australian landscape. Among those artists was Frederick McCubbin. Born in 1855, McCubbin sold his first painting in 1880. Within a few years, he was a darling of the critics. His 1889 painting Down On His Luck is his most famous and our most iconic depiction of bush life. It portrays an unlucky gold prospector brooding over a campfire. McCubbin continued to paint through the first two decades of the 20th century. He died of a heart attack in 1917.

Norman Lindsay

One of our most creative souls, Lindsay could turn his hand to etching, sculpting, painting, drawing cartoons and writing. Born in Melbourne in 1879, Lindsay was kept indoors by his mother until he was six because of a skin ailment. During this time, he learnt to draw. One of his first jobs was as cartoonist for The Bulletin in Sydney, working with Banjo Paterson. From there, he became famous for his propaganda war posters, drawing the Germans as dark, threatening monsters and the Allies as children of the light. He wrote the iconic kids’ book The Magic Pudding in 1918 and then turned to canvas. His paintings of fleshy, female nudes attracted controversy at every gallery in which they were hung. In 1994 the movie Sirens was based on Lindsay, starring Sam Neill and Elle Macpherson.

Aboriginal art pioneer

When artist Rex Battarbee travelled to Central Australia in 1936 to paint the MacDonnell Ranges, local Arrernte man Albert Namatjira accompanied him as a guide. For two months, Namatjira watched and learnt the craft. With Battarbee’s help, he started painting and soon became famous for his watercolour landscapes. Throughout the 1940s his work was hung in galleries all over Australia and he also held solo exhibitions. The Queen presented him with a coronation medal in 1954 and his work gave the world a glimpse of the raw creativity of our indigenous people.
Model Jean Shrimpton at Flemington for Melbourne Cup in 1965. Picture: Supplied

The Hills Hoist

This rotary clothes-drying line that can be raised and lowered by hand was invented by Lance Hill in his backyard in Adelaide soon after World War II. It quickly became a familiar sight in Australian suburban backyards and continues to be used today. Hills Industries celebrated the sale of its five millionth hoist in 1994.

Jean Shrimpton and that dress

When British supermodel Jean Shrimpton turned up to the Spring Racing Carnival in 1965 in a mini-dress, it caused a sensation that changed the fashion scene in Australia thereafter. Shrimpton’s bare legs, caught on camera, caused the Lady Mayoress of Melbourne to remark that if she wanted to wear skirts “four inches above the knee in London, that’s her business, but it’s not done here”. The 22-year-old said she had no idea Australia “placed such heavy emphasis on conformity”. At a time when women didn’t leave the house without wearing a hat, her outfit sparked a fashion revolution which would define the Swinging Sixties.

The Female Eunuch

Germaine Greer captured the world’s attention with the The Female Eunuch in 1970. The book challenged women’s traditional role in society and encouraged females to take control of their lives. The original print run of 5000 sold out on the first day and the book is still in print. At times controversial – but always thought-provoking – Greer is Australia’s most important feminist voice of the 20th century.
Ita Buttrose.

Ita Buttrose

In 1972, Sir Frank Packer made Ita Buttrose the founding editor of a new women’s magazine called Cleo. She would use the magazine to break new ground and raise issues about female sexuality that were not even spoken about within the household at the time. A few years later, Buttrose was made editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Decades later, she is still on the front lines of social issues affecting Australia. Buttrose, now 73, currently helps anchor a daily chat show on TV’s Channel 10 and was named Australian of the Year in 2013.

Peter Carey

A polarising Australian who now lives in New York, Peter Carey caused a stir with his 2010 condemnation of the dumbing down of Australian culture. Yet, the Victorian remains among our finest writers. In 1981, his debut novel Bliss, a surrealist trip about adman Harry Joy, won Carey the first of three Miles Franklin Literary Awards. In 1998, his novel Oscar and Lucinda won the Man Booker Prize. He won again in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang.

Cloudstreet

The modern working-class Australian family has never been captured so well as in this 1991 novel by Fremantle writer Tim Winton. Cloudstreet depicts the trails of two clashing rural families who move to the city and live under one roof from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. Key themes include drunkenness, adultery, death and marriage. The narrative also refers to many key historical moments – including World War II and serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke. Cloudstreet won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1992 and was voted by the Australian Society of Authors as their favourite novel.
SCREEN AND SOUND

Film first

The first full-length feature film in the world, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was made in Australia in 1906. The movie traces the life of the infamous outlaw and bushranger Ned Kelly. It was written and directed by Charles Tait and its running time was just over an hour.
1906's The Story Of The Kelly Gang

Oh, Errol!

He died aged 50, but doctors who examined his body said it bore the physical ravages of a 75-year-old.
Errol Flynn in the 1938 film 'Adventures of Robin Hood'.

That sums up the life of Errol Flynn, the Tasmanian devil who lived life in the fastest lane. Joan Crawford dubbed him “the most beautiful man who ever lived” and he became Hollywood’s highest-paid star in the 1930s, playing the leading man in almost any movie involving a sword fight or swinging from a chandelier. His appetite for women, from leading ladies to teenage girls, inspired the phrase“in like Flynn”. Rock band Australian Crawl paid homage to the silver-screen star in their hit 1981 song, Errol.

Game-show guru

Reg Grundy kept Australian families stuck on the couch watching prime-time TV for decades. He started as a radio commentator in the 1950s and went on to build a TV production empire. His first success was taking the Wheel of Fortune show from radio to TV. He later developed dramas such as The Young Doctors, Prisoner and Neighbours.

AC/DC

The Australian band has been producing high-voltage rock ‘n’ roll since 1973. More than 40 years later, they’re still selling out shows around the world. From Jailbreak to TNT to Let There Be Rock, the mega-hits have fans headbanging at their concerts or singing along to the car radio, whether it be tuned to FM or the ABC. When Fremantle-born Bon Scott died, the baton was passed to Brian Johnson and the band never missed a beat. Rock on.

Khe Sanh

This Cold Chisel anthem is one of the most-loved songs in Australian musical history - yet it only peaked at No. 41 on our charts. Most radio stations chose not to play the song in 1978 due to the lyric “their legs were often open, but their minds were always closed”. Don Walker wrote the song about an Australian Vietnam veteran dealing with life outside of wartime. It’s the song Walker is most protective of, despite countless offers to use the song in advertising campaigns.

Whispering Jack

The career of one of Australia’s most famous singers, John Farnham, was in such a lull that his manager, Glenn Wheatley, had to remortgage his house for 1986 album Whispering Jack. It went on to become the most successful album in Australian history, sitting at the No. 1 sport for 25 weeks. Without doubt, the biggest single of the album is the anthem You’re the Voice. After securing Pressure Down from a UK writer, more songs were requested from Britain. You’re the Voice was in a batch sent over; Farnham himself decided to add the bagpipes, a nod to his love of AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top.

The Great Dame

Dame Edna Everidge is known for having the sharpest tongue in Australian entertainment. The creation of Barry Humphries, her much-loved stand-up shows have tickled worldwide audiences for almost 40 years. While the Dame’s “hello possums” generates a warm welcome, her acerbic put-downs – “I’m trying to think of a word to describe your outfit . . . affordable” - are what litter 90 per cent of her performances, leaving audiences aching with laughter. Humphries is also the man behind Sir Les Patterson and the Barry McKenzie movies of the 1970s.

Crocodile Dundee
Crocodile Dundee.

It’s the movie that propelled Paul Hogan onto the world stage and created a character still synonymous with all things Australian. The 1986 comedy sees Hogan star as Mick “Crocodile” Dundee, the rugged Aussie charmer who wrestles crocs and always carries a big hunting knife. Dundee travels from the outback to New York City with sassie journalist Sue Charlton. Although it is a work of fiction, “Crocodile” Dundee is based on the true life exploits of NT buffalo hunter Rodney Ansell, who survived seven weeks stranded in crocodile-infested terrain. Made on a budget of less than $10 million, Crocodile Dundee is the highest-grossing Australian film ever with takings to the tune of $47.7 million here and $328m around the world.

The ultimate rock star

As the frontman of INXS, Michael Hutchence blazed across the world in the 1980s and 1990s singing hit after hit in packed stadiums from Sydney to London to Los Angeles. With his brooding dark looks and the best melodic scream since The Doors’ Jim Morrison, Hutchence soon had audiences crying out for more. Along the way beautiful women such as Helena Christensen and Kylie Minogue fell into his arms. Born in Sydney in 1960, he linked up with the Farriss brothers in high school and they formed INXS. The band went on to record classics such as Don’t Change, New Sensation and the mournful anthem Never Tear Us Apart. To finish the script, he also died a rock star. At the tender age of 37, he was found hanging from the back of a Double Bay motel room door, later adjudged by the coroner to be an accidental suicide.
INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence. Photo: Phil Hillyard

Cate Blanchett

Our greatest thespian, it seems whatever role Cate Blanchett takes on she captivates audiences. From Queen Elizabeth I to film icon Katharine Hepburn, her range is almost unrivalled. To her credit, even after becoming a famous Hollywood star she has divided her time between the big screen and the Australian stage. Born in Melbourne in 1969, Blanchett studied acting after high school at the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. Over the years, she has received several major awards for her performances, including two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She is the only Australian to win two acting Oscars.
LANDMARKS
Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

Sydney Opera House

Its unmistakable profile and stunning setting on the edge of Sydney Harbour make this Australia’s most recognisable man-made structure. Danish architect Jørn Utzon won an international design competition in 1957 but his grand vision for an iconic performance venue made from a series of concrete “shells” was not completed until 1973. The shells are made from concrete and the entire structure is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk up to 25m below sea level. Today, the venue hosts more than 1500 performances attended by about 1.2 million people a year, and is home to Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Great Barrier Reef

It goes head to head with Uluru as Australia’s most famous natural attraction and is so massive it’s visible from space. The Great Barrier Reef off Queensland’s northern coast is the world’s largest coral reef system, made up of almost 3000 individual reefs and some 900 islands stretching more than 2300 kilometres. A World Heritage site and divers’ paradise, the reef is home to more than 1500 fish species and 30 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Bondi Beach

Famous for its ever-present sea of sizzling flesh, few would argue that Bondi Australia’s most famous landmark beach. The 7km strip of sand, which stars in the TV show Bondi Rescue, was named after the Aboriginal word “boondi” meaning water breaking over rocks or noise of water breaking over rocks.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground

The MCG - known simply as “The G” - is the home of sport in Australia. There’s a saying in Melbourne that you only have to turn the lights on at the ground for spectators to start flooding in. Located in Yarra Park, it has a capacity of just over 100,000, making it not only the biggest stadium in Australia but also the southern hemisphere. The G hosts the AFL Grand Final, international cricket’s Boxing Day Test and a packed schedule of other sporting clashes every year.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge

After taking six years to build, the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in March 1932. It is the world’s biggest steel arch bridge and, with its harbour location, has become an international symbol of Australia, especially with its popular bridge-climbing tours and views across Sydney Harbour to the Sydney Opera House.

Kings Park

The four square kilometre jewel in the crown of Perth is a sprawling park comprising a mix of grassed parkland, botanical gardens and natural bushland set atop Mount Eliza. With stunning panoramic views of the Swan and Canning rivers, Perth’s CBD and the Darling Range, it’s a favourite for morning joggers, picnickers, romantics and tourists. Kings Park is home to more than 300 native plants and 80 bird species. It is one of the biggest inland parks in any capital city in the world.

The Snowies

Australia’s highest mountain range - the Snowy Mountains in NSW - is one of the few places in the country to receive, as the name suggests, large natural snowfalls every winter. The range contains Australia’s highest mountain, the towering 2228m Mount Kosciuszko, as well as the next four highest peaks on the Australian mainland, all which reach a height more than 2100m above sea level.
Uluru. Photo: Gordon Fellows.

Uluru

Uluru - also known as Ayers Rock - is a sandstone formation 335km south-west of the NT’s Alice Springs that ranks as one of the nation’s top natural attractions. Famous for changing colour at different times of the day and year - most notably when it glows red at dawn and sunset, it stands 348m high with a total circumference of 9.4km, though most of its bulk actually lies beneath the surface. Surveyor William Gosse first observed the rock in 1873 and named it after Sir Henry Ayers. It is now also known by its traditional Pitjantjatjara name, Uluru.

Monkey Mia

A popular tourist destination and World Heritage site 900km north of Perth, Monkey Mia is a safe haven for dolphins which are handfed by thrilled punters every day. Pods of bottlenose dolphins have been coming close to shore at the reserve near Denham in the Shark Bay Marine Park for more than 50 years. Local wildlife workers know individuals by sight and have names for the majestic marine mammals.

Daintree Rainforest

Spanning 12,000km, the Daintree in Tropical North Queensland is the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest in the country. It was named after Richard Daintree, an Australian geologist and photographer who studied the ecosystem and died in 1878. Scientists says the Daintree’s ecosystem is among the most complex on earth, with plant diversity unrivalled anywhere in the country. It is also the last pocket of flora found throughout Australia millions of years ago, when much of the nation’s climate was humid with plenty of rainfall. Some plant species living today are the descendants of ancestors dating back 110 million years.
UNIQUELY AUSTRALIAN

The boomerang

A traditional hunting weapon used by Aborigines, boomerangs were made of wood or bone and have been dated back 10,000 years in Australia. Today, they’re used for sport and are made from hi-tech compounds including aircraft plywood, plastics, polypropylene or carbon fibre. A boomerang flies in a curve instead of a straight line thanks to the rapid spinning of its two “arms”. Despite the common belief that all boomerangs return to the starting point, originally they were designed to be retrieved rather than return to the thrower. The biennial Boomerang Festival will be held in NSW’s Byron Bay this October.

Vegemite

The country’s unofficial national spread, the yeast extract was developed in 1923 by businessman Fred Walker and his chemist, Cyril P. Callister, as the local answer to the UK’s Marmite. With its high vitamin B content, Vegemite was included in World War II rations. It became immortalised in the famous 1954 radio and TV jingle ‘Happy Little Vegemites’.
Vegemite

Bogans

This Australian term, which regularly confuses new arrivals, is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a “depreciative term for an unfashionable, uncouth, or unsophisticated person, especially of low social status”. Meanwhile, Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary defines a bogan as a “person, generally from an outer suburb of a city or town and from a lower socio-economic background, viewed as uncultured”. WA’s mining boom has given rise to a new kind of bogan – the CUB, or cashed-up bogan. Although it is considered a new term, a study by the Australian National Dictionary Centre found the earliest use of the word was in a September 1985 issue of the surfing magazine, Tracks.

The national anthem

Advance Australia Fair became the national anthem in 1984, more than a century after it was composed by Scottish-born Peter Dodds McCormick and first performed in 1878. It replaced Britain’s God Save the Queen as Australia’s national song. The quest for a new anthem with “distinction” began under the Whitlam Government, which held a competition to find one. A 1977 referendum chose Advance Australia Fair, which was instated as the new anthem by Prime Minister Bob Hawke seven years later.

Pavlova

This delicious dessert, made by beating egg whites to a stiff consistency before folding in caster sugar, is claimed as an invention of both Australia and New Zealand. Debate continues to rage about its origins, but researchers and bakers agree the meringue-based dessert was created in honour of the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova on one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The crisp crust and fluffy interior usually comes topped with liberal lashings of cream and fresh fruit, making it a hit in summer. Try passionfruit for extra zing or strawberries for traditional sweetness.

Waltzing Matilda

The bush ballad - written by poet Banjo Paterson - is widely regarded as Australia’s unofficial national anthem. Waltzing is Australian slang for travelling on foot carrying your belongings, while Matilda is slang for a swag slung over your back to sleep on. Penned in 1895, the ballad tells the story of an itinerant worker who is making tea at a bush camp when he’s surprised by a sheep that he decides to kill and eat. But when the owner arrives with three policemen to arrest him, he leaps into a waterhole and commits suicide.

The Holden

The country’s most renowned automaker was actually founded in 1856 as a saddlery manufacturer. But in 1908, Holden moved into the automotive field and became the darling of the Australian auto industry. Its most famous model, the Commodore, hit the nation’s streets in 1978. But the company has struggled in recent times and Holden announced in 2013 that car production in Australia would cease by 2017.
Lamingtons.

Lamingtons

These dainty, bite-sized cakes coated in chocolate and rolled in shredded coconut are heavenly with a cup of tea and claimed by Australia as the nation’s most iconic snack. They were created by a maid-servant working for Lord Lamington, who was Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901.

Deadly animals

Koalas might be the favourite animal for tourists to cuddle but Australia is more famous for its arsenal of deadly critters, from the redback spider to dugites slithering in long grass and great white sharks patrolling the depths off our coast. Don’t forget the nasty and potentially deadly sting of the box jellyfish or the blue-ringed octopus. Australia officially has more deadly species than any other country.

*** Compiled with the help of a range of academics from Curtin University **

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