by Juliana Byers | May 3, 2024 | ANZAC Day, Australian History, Gallipoli, Military History, Political History, Social History, World War 1
Ah, taxes, one of the only two things they say are certain in this world, the other (of course) being death. So perhaps it is appropriate that it was recently revealed that a bunch of Victorian MPs, thirteen, to be exact, and one federal MP, used taxpayer funds to...
by Juliana Byers | Apr 26, 2024 | ANZAC Day, Australian History, Gallipoli, Memorials, Military History, Passchendaele, Post-1900, The Somme, World War 1
Today is the 25th of April, and the 109th anniversary of the catastrophic failure that was the Gallipoli invasion. Oops! Sorry Twitter-lynch mob, I meant today is the 109th anniversary of the greatest day in Australian history, where we became a nation, baptized in...
by Juliana Byers | Apr 24, 2024 | Australian History, Ballarat, Newspapers, Podcast, Political History, Pre-1900, Social History, The Eureka Stockade
In April 1855, four months after the violent clash at the Eureka Stockade and following on from thirteen highly publicisesd high treason trials, an open letter appeared in the popular Melbourne newspaper The Argus. It’s author was none other than Peter Lalor,...
by Juliana Byers | Apr 14, 2024 | Australian History, Colonisation & Invasion, Indigenous Australia, Memorials, Military History, Museum, Pre-1900, Redcoats, Social History, The Australian Wars, True Crime, War Crime
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are warned that the following post contains references to colonial-era atrocities. The names of individuals who have died do not appear in this post. In February of 2023, the current chair of the Australian War Memorial...
by Juliana Byers | Apr 14, 2024 | Australian History, Celebrations, Social History
Having grown up in New Zealand and lived for the last twenty years in Australia, I have known nothing except a summer Christmas. Shorts, sunhats, trips to the beach, barbecues, and icy cold drinks on the 25th of December have been the norm for me all my life. I’m yet...
by Juliana Byers | Apr 14, 2024 | Australian History, Ballarat, Books, Burke & Wills, Colonisation & Invasion, Conspiracy Theories, Exploration, Non-Fiction, Social History, The Eureka Stockade
I’ve recently got stuck into Otto English’s “Fake Heroes” (the not-quite-sequel to “Fake History”) and a recent chapter on Captain Robert Scott entitled ‘How to be Heroic, even in Failure’ got me thinking about Australian history. Anyone who has listened to my podcast...
