Index

🎨 All of the Arts 25 ▾

• 10 Films Nearly Directed by Steven Spielberg
• 11 Films Banned in Australia
• 7 Words That Originated in Movies
• 9 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Stardust’
• Adelaide’s Matchbox Car Wall
• Aurukun Camp Dogs
• Cortlandt Alley
• Grace Crowley: Pioneering Modernist
• Il Porcellino: Sydney’s Lucky Pig
• Interstellar Movie Trivia
• Monet’s ‘The Magpie
• Pepper’s Ghost
• Richard Estes: Creative Reality
• Surprising Backstories of 1970s Hit Songs
• Sybil Andrews: Machine Age Modernist
• The 8 Greatest Animal Actors
• The Age of the Cyclorama
• The Australian Government Buys a Jackson Pollock
• The Greatest TV Shows of All Time
• The History of Film in 11 Technical Advances
• The Human Exhibit at Taronga Zoo
• The Penrose Triangle and Other Impossible Objects
• The Sad Sheep Painting
• The Worst Films Nominated for an Oscar
• Watching the ‘Back to the Future’ Commentary

📅 Dates 8 ▾

• 2024: What Happened 20, 50 and 100 Years Ago
• 2025: What Happened 20, 50 and 100 Years Ago
• May Day: A History of May 1st
• The Origin of the King’s Birthday Holiday
• The Origins of Christmas
• The Origins of Christmas Tree Decorations
• The Origins of Easter
• When the Gregorian Calendar Was Introduced

🔥 Disasters 3 ▾

• Plane Crash on Mount Dandenong
• The Iceberg That Sunk the Titanic
• The Sinking of the SS Casino

🍔 Drinks and Foods 12 ▾

• Australia’s First Pizza Restaurant
• Did the Nazis Invent Fanta?
• Granny Smith Grows the First Granny Smith
• Macadamias: The Great Australian Nut
• McDonald’s Comes to Australia
• The Invention of the Lamington
• The Origins of Potato Chips
• The Origins of Tim Tams
• The Surprising History of Arnott’s Shapes
• The US National Raisin Reserve
• Who Invented the Hamburger?
• Who Invented the Pavlova?

🔧 Everyday Items 2 ▾

• The History of the Elevator
• The PB/5 Pedestrian Crossing Button

🥇 Firsts and Lasts 22 ▾

• 10 Things Invented Earlier Than You Think
• 11 Academy Award Firsts
• Australia’s First Photographer
• Australia’s First Recorded Music
• Canada’s First National Park
• Taylor Swift’s First Tour of Australia
• The First ‘House’ Music
• The First Abstract Art
• The First Australian Music Act to Top the US Charts
• The First Australian to Play in the NFL
• The First Australian to Win an Oscar
• The First Cannes Film Festival
• The First Feature Length Film
• The First Melbourne International Film Festival
• The First Metre
• The First Movie Star Dog
• The First Night Aussie Rules Game
• The First Recorded Solar Eclipse
• The First Vaccine
• The Last Thylacine
• The Original Cliffhanger
• The World’s First Video Store

🗺️ Forgotten Places 17 ▾

• Australia’s Nuclear Test Sites
• Australia’s Oldest Building
• Ball’s Pyramid and the Lost Continent of Zealand
• Before the Sydney Opera House
• New York’s Lost Buildings
• Ngorongoro Crater
• Skiing on Mount Donna Buang: The Lost Resort
• The Birthplace of Errol Flynn
• The Discovery of the Chicxulub Crater
• The Fabulous Meenakshi Temple
• The Real ‘Back to the Future’ House
• The Real ‘Stand By Me’ Bridge
• The Secret Tunnels at St James Station
• The Tabbigai Cliff Dwellers
• The Tank Stream
• Wendy’s Secret Garden
• When London Was Abandoned

🎭 Remarkable Characters 15 ▾

• Annette Kellerman: The Australian Mermaid
• Clement Wragge: The Man Who Named Storms
• Ethleen Palmer: Australia’s Hokusai
• Francoise Gilot
• Henry Fielding and the Kitten Overboard
• Lina Bryans and the Pink Hotel
• Ruth Hollick: Intuitive Pictorialist
• Sal Rees: The First Woman to Nominate in the AFL Men’s Draft
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe
• The Founder of the Archibald Prize
• The Man on the $2 Coin
• The Real Crocodile Dundee
• Trevor Turbo Brown
• William Edmondson: God Called His Name
• Yvonne Audette: Australia’s First Abstract Expressionist

🏆 Sports & Games 16 ▾

• 8 Discontinued Olympic Sports
• A History of Music at the Grand Final
• A History of the AFL Grand Final
• AFL Teams That Changed Their Name
• Australia’s First Women’s Football Matches
• Cocky Marr
• Forgotten Winter Olympic Sports
• How Queen Isabella Changed Chess
• Synthetic Test Cricket: Calling the Ashes by Telegraph
• The Birthplace of the Ashes: Sunbury
• The First Anzac Day Football
• The History of Scrabble
• The History of the Boxing Day Test
• The Last Australian Man to Win the Australian Open
• The Longest Winning Streak in VFL/AFL History
• The Mysteries of Tennis

🚋 The Melbourne Files 79 ▾

• A Guide to Melbourne Public Art
• A Video History of Fed Square
• Ada Gunn and The Loungers Club
• Alick Wickham and His Amazing World Record Dive
• Australia’s First Movie Screening
• Before Federation Square
• Before Melbourne Central
• Camp Murphy: Troops at the MCG
• Cliveden: Melbourne’s Largest House
• Cole’s Book Arcade
• Dolly Parton at Belgrave Station
• Elvis Costello at Flinders St Station
• Foy’s Rooftop Funpark
• Guns n Roses at Calder Park
• Holt’s Matrimonial Agency
• Hotel Hell: A History of The Gatwick
• How the Yarra Changed Its Course
• Impressionists At The Beach
• Jack the Ripper in Melbourne
• Liardet’s Beach
• Marshalite Clocks and the First Melbourne Traffic Lights
• Mazu: The Heavenly Queen of the Maribyrnong
• Melbourne’s Lost Buildings
• Melbourne’s Most Unusual Laneway Names
• Melbourne’s Oldest Buildings
• Melbourne’s Only Honey Locust Tree
• Melbourne’s Pink Lake
• Melbourne’s Significant Trees
• Northcote’s ‘Carnegie Library’
• Prince at Bennetts Lane
• Prince Charles at Geelong Grammar
• Princess Caroline of Brunswick
• Salvatore: The Yarra Seal
• Skipping Girl Vinegar
• Television City: The Bendigo Street Studio
• The 1978 Melbourne Landmark Competition
• The Builders Arms: The Black Pub of Melbourne
• The Cremorne Pleasure Garden
• The Crystal Ballroom
• The Disappearance of Harold Holt
• The Disappearance of Willi Koeppen
• The Eight Hour Day
• The Evan Dando Incident
• The Field Collection
• The Field Show
• The Flinders Street Station Ballroom
• The Forgotten History of The Forum Theatre
• The Great Melbourne Flood of ’72
• The Great Trades Hall Robbery
• The Great Vault Sculpture Controversy
• The Keith Haring Mural in Collingwood
• The Largest Ever Crowd at the MCG
• The Legend of the Queenscliff Treasure
• The Lost Blue Lake of Melbourne
• The Paris End of Melbourne
• The Point Nepean Quarantine Station
• The Princess Theatre Ghost
• The Russell Street Bombing
• The Six O’Clock Swill
• The Southern Cross Hotel
• The St Kilda Solar System
• The Tied Election
• The Toorak Terrorist Attack
• The View from Flagstaff Hill
• The Waiter’s Restaurant Siege
• The Westall UFO
• The William Ricketts Sanctuary
• The Yarra Waterfall
• Underground History: The Degraves Street Subway
• When a Picasso Was Stolen from the NGV
• When Did Sunday Trading Start in Victoria?
• When Houdini Came to Melbourne
• When Prince Charles Was on Countdown
• Who Is Melbourne Named After?
• Who Killed Alma Tirtschke?
• Who Was Saint Kilda?
• Williamstown Racecourse
• Wirth’s Circus
• Yarra Bend Asylum and the Lost Cemetery

🦉 The Natural World 15 ▾

• A Crocodile Named Sweetheart
• Fox Stories
• Mungo Man (and Lady)
• Pallas’s Cat
• Pando: The World’s Largest Organism
• Rakali: The Golden Water Mouse
• The 1257 Samalas Eruption
• The Hidden History of Weeds
• The Lyrid Meteor Shower
• The Murchison Meteorite
• The Tasmanian Globster
• The Wollemi Pine: A Living Dinosaur
• The World’s Largest Flower (and the World’s Smallest Bear)
• The Yellow Penguin of South Georgia Island
• Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl

🛸 Unsolved Mysteries 12 ▾

• 7 More Everyday Things That Can’t Be Explained
• 8 Everyday Things That Can’t Be Explained
• Aliens in the Dandenongs
• Aliens on the Nullarbor
• Marree Man
• The Bogle-Chandler Case
• The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
• The Mystery of the Sweating Sickness
• The Ta Prohm Stegosaur
• The Virgin Mary at Coogee Beach
• The Wow Signal
• Who Was ‘The Somerton Man’?

👽 Weird and Wild 19 ▾

• 8 Amazing Facts About Argentina
• 8 Major Cities That Changed Their Names
• 8 Strange Origins of Common Phrases
• 9 Things You Didn’t Know About the English Language
• Almost World War III
• Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever Created
• History’s Greatest Coincidences
• Jetpack Man (and the History of Jetpacks!)
• The Abbey Road Bystander
• The Cats of Sydney Harbour Bridge
• The Centennial Light: The Lightbulb Burning for 100 Years
• The History of MDMA
• The Mechanical Turk
• The Real ‘Annabelle’ Doll
• The Real Life Inspiration for Nightmare on Elm Street
• The Real Squirrels in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• The Rise and Fall of Flares
• The Secret History of Ambien
• The Strange World of Facial Pareidolia

🔤 Words and Language 3 ▾

• Common Sayings Created by Shakespeare
• The Origin of the Word ‘Gig’
• The Origins of ASAP