Forgotten Australia

Up in the Queensland, a murderer and a robber break out of prison, while down in Canberra our Federal Parliament puts a couple of newspaper blokes behind bars for breaching privilege. Meanwhile, a veteran Aussie journo at Le Mans witnesses history’s worst motor racing disaster. Plus: Hollywood celebrities come Down Under - and turn one Sydney beauty’s life upside down.

To read Andrew Moore’s presentation on the Fitzpatrick-Brown...

Following the verdict, Ronald Griggs has one last trick up his sleeve to amaze Australia. 

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Want more original Australian true crime and history? Check out my books!

They’ll Never Hold Me:

https://www.booktopia.com.au/they-ll-nev...

Having already been convicted by the newspapers, Ronald Griggs stands trial for the murder of his wife. If he’s found guilty, he’ll be sentenced to death.

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Want more original Australian true crime and history? Check out my books!

The...

In the first week of June 1930, America was on the brink of economic apocalypse with its Smoot-Hawley tariffs – and their effects would be felt terribly Down Under and around the world. In this very same week, Aussies set in motion a process that'd further guarantee we suffered horribly in the Great Depression. At least in good news, Sydney welcomed heroic aviatrix Amy Johnson in what was the first example of modern celebrity hyste...

After Lottie Condon’s shock confession, Ronald Griggs becomes infamous overnight when Truth newspaper publishes every sordid detail of his scandalous love life. But with his wife’s body exhumed and the true cause of her death established, public shame is soon the least of the embattled Methodist minister’s problems.

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Following the mysterious death of his wife in the mountain town of Omeo, rumours about Methodist preacher Ronald Griggs reach a fever pitch — and a veteran detective is sent from Melbourne CIB to investigate.

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Nearly a century before Erin Patterson was put on trial in the mushroom murder case, Australia was scandalised by allegations that a young preacher from country Victoria had poisoned his wife, Ethel, the mother of his baby girl, so he could be with his mistress, Lottie, the daughter of one of his most faithful churchgoers.

In this five-part mini-series, we delve deep into the life of holier-than-thou hypocrite Ronald Griggs, who sha...

In London this week, the Aussie suffragist Nellie Martel explains to English women how they can win the vote, while back at home pioneering feminist Louisa Lawson’s publication The Dawn teeters on the brink of closure. Plus: the first Empire Day; the final battles of the Russo-Japanese War mean a Nobel Peace Prize for Teddy Roosevelt; and in Sydney a ratcatching hero survives Bubonic Plague – again.

Kathy Bowrey: "The threat pos...

This week at the Cannes Film Festival, My Brilliant Career made Australian film history, while back home Rupert Murdoch became a Sydney TV mogul, setting the stage for his world-changing Fox News empire. Meanwhile, Aussies lived with limited television choices even as they remained unaware that one of their own was reshaping American screen entertainment with his cutting edge comedies and pioneering reality formats.

For free...

Pirates, sailors, mountaineers and the Abominable Snowman run riot through Sydney – a Sydney were you risk life and limb every time you catch a train. Also this week: scientists prove that the world is warming – and cite civilisation as the cause. Elsewhere, a young bloke tries to set a piano playing record, a Pommy athlete breaks through an ‘impossible’ barrier, Australian television is finally given a green light and American you...

85 years before American President Donald Trump gave unelected social media mogul Elon Musk unprecedented power with DOGE, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies gave unelected newspaper mogul Keith Murdoch unprecedented power as DGI - that is: Director-General of Information. But Rupert’s dad would overstep almost immediately and be widely criticised as an aspiring fascist dictator along the lines of Adolf Hitler – the very enem...

Just as Frank’s radio career is taking off, his private life is laid bare in a racy tabloid expose. But the sequel to this scandal is to be far more shocking and sinister. Nearly a century later, questions remain…

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Terribly wounded on 25 April 1915 at Gallipoli, AIF Private Frank Downes would be celebrated as The Blind Digger. After returning home on the first hospital ship from Egypt, he was an Anzac hero, a patriotic public speaker, a radio personality and a good husband and father. But Frank’s image was to be tainted by scandal and then shattered by a mysterious death that left Aussies wondering whether this war hero was a cold-blooded mur...

Did you have to be crazy to take on 10 cops at once? Was Percy Ramage 'perfectly insane'? The question was key but Melbourne’s best and brightest just couldn’t agree. Percy cashed in on his notoriety with a memoir and tried to go straight. But trouble was never far away – and a surprising tragedy loomed in a stormy future.

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In Melbourne and Geelong from the 1890s, Percy Ramage saw red whenever he saw the cops. Known as 'The Policeman Puncher', he was such a 'human tiger' that no-one knew where his badness ended and his madness began. But in trying to contain him, authorities would throw Percy into a gaol where prisoners were dropping like flies – with the ‘Prince of Rioters’ looking like he’d be the next to die.

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This German-born thug's misadventures included shooting his dad in the butt, taking to the bush as an escapee, doing time in a POW camp, selling cocaine in Sydney and dicing with the Razor Gangs. But his life would have an unexpected final act.

Check out my books:

They’ll Never Hold Me:

https://www.booktopia.com.au/they-ll-never-hold-me-michael-adams/book/9781923046474.html

The Murder Squad:

https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-murder-s...

A Brisbane armed robber had hit three banks in twelve months. In the second week of April 1978, the cops had laid a trap he couldn’t escape. Until he did. What followed was an extraordinary car chase and gun battle, all caught by news cameras. But after the smoke cleared, big questions remained.

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It was a big week for true crime and the Red Scare. In Sydney, Roger Rogerson’s future hero, Detective-Sergeant Ray ‘the Gunner’ Kelly, was in court and explaining how and why he’d shot another criminal dead. In London, the cops caught serial killer John Christie, which meant they’d sent an innocent man to the gallows for two murders. In a weird coincidence, a similar failure of justice was about to play out in Adelaide, where seri...

In a bumper episode brought to you by the newfangled "Electric Newspaper" of 1928, Sydney and Melbourne cops carry out spectacular public raids to save white women from the evils of cocaine and African-American jazz men – and, more broadly, to amp up the war on drugs and expand the White Australia Policy. Plus: a Sydney girl makes good in the British movie Moulin Rouge; English women get the vote for a "Flapper Election"; and the "...