25 years ago,there were tears and fond farewells when,after 112 years,the last conductor rode the last tram out of Malvern depot. The machines had won.
Sixty years ago,Donald Campbell’s tilt at the world land speed record in his Bluebird CN7 was sabotaged by conditions at Lake Eyre.
Sightings at Werribee Sewerage Farm of two orange-bellied parrots wearing leg bands in 1993 lifted hopes that one of Australia’s rarest birds could be saved from extinction.
A construction worker was killed when a bulldozer crashed through 10 floors of a building under demolition in the city centre.
In 1978,Charlie Chaplin’s body was recovered after it was stolen from his grave 10 weeks earlier and ransom demands were made of his family.
Eighty years ago,Operation Chastise saw the RAF’s 617 squadron drop “bouncing bombs” on the dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley.
In 1983,South Australian claims that a local team should be admitted to the VFL after their state’s 56-point clobbering of Victoria were shot down by the VFL president,Allen Aylett.
Brother against brother,father against son,Cockroach against Cane Toad. On the eve of the State of Origin,the Herald visited the deeply divided town of Mungindi.
In 1993,Melbourne’s midnight-to-dawn crowd had few ways of getting home until NightRiders,a new bus service,made its debut.
In 1963,seafaring couple Peter and Pat Fenton successfully recovered their stolen yacht Cythera. But returning her to Sydney was another adventure altogether.
In 1997,Australian marathon swimmer Susie Maroney became the first person to swim the 179-kilometre Straits of Florida from Cuba to the United States.