Rupert Murdoch was 27 when he met Kandiah Kamalesvaran, a sensitive young Tamil on the dodge from the immigration authorities. Born in Malaya, Kamalesvaran had arrived in Adelaide in 1953, five years earlier, to complete his matriculation. He was now …

Mark Oliphant was a physicist on a mission. It was 1941 and the Nazis were building, it was believed, a weapon of incredible power. For Britain to beat them to it, American help was essential. But the United States was neutral and its key scientists …

On 4 July 1918, in just 93 minutes, at a cost of a mere 1060 casualties, Australian soldiers drove German troops from their positions overlooking the British line and took the town of Le Hamel, fighting in combination with aircraft and artillery. This …

When it came to ruining cutlery, Uri Geller was the world champion. By the early 1970s, the former Israeli paratrooper had become internationally famous for his ability to bend spoons using only the tips of his fingers and his unique powers of telekinesis. …

He’d been a drover, a shearer, a roo shooter, a timber cutter, a fisherman and a boundary rider. He could surf, write poetry and paint watercolours. But when John William Pilbean Goffage began to be noticed as an actor, he though he should get himself …

On the face of it, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Joh Bjelke-Petersen had very little in common. One was an arrogant despot who ruled without regard for democracy or the law, his regime buttressed by a corrupt elite and a brutal police force. The other was …

By 1982, ten years since his leading role in pitching the Tent Embassy, Gary Foley had flung himself into the fight for Aboriginal self-determination everywhere from the National Black Theatre in Sydney’s Redfern to the Aboriginal Health Service …

It was to be the fairytale wedding of 1990. The groom was Lorenzo Montesini, Prince Giustiniani, Count of the Phanaar, Knight of Saint Sophia, Baron Alexandroff. The bride-to-be was Primrose “Pitty Pat” Dunlop, heiress to the empress of Australian …

Rex Connor had a dream. Like the man himself, it was a big one. Huge. Visionary. He imagined a rich, independent Australia built on mining, modern technology and a skilled workforce. And when he was appointed minister for minerals and energy, he thought …

When peace briefly erupted between England and France in March 1802, Matthew Flinders was sailing east along the “Unknown Coast” of southern Australia in the sloop HMS Investigator, making maps. He was 28 years old, lithe in build, …

When Peter Cook was lured to Melbourne in 1987 to launch the town’s new comedy festival, he set only one condition. At some point in the week’s program, adequate time should be set aside for him to repeatedly hit a small white ball, or series …

Enquiries had been made into the background of members of the “pop group” intending to arrive in Australia in February, Immigration Department officials advised the minister. As British subjects of European race, the visitors would not require …

As mobster murders tend to go, it lacked any vestige of glamour. A couple of violent thugs plugged each other in the back bedroom of a slum boarding house. They were both nasty pieces of work and there were more sighs of relief than tears of grief at …

Both were champion swimmers. Both made a splash in show business. “My God, I wish I could meet her,” thought Esther Williams when she was shown a photograph of Annette Kellerman, the woman she was set to play in the 1952 MGM aqua-musical …

Prime Minister Menzies did not think very highly of Egyptians. “These Gyppos are a dangerous lot of backward adolescents, full of self importance and ignorance,” he recorded in his diary. He was just the man, in short, to head a diplomatic …