Index

All of the articles on the site, arranged by category. Full articles about Melbourne, click here.

ALL of the ARTS

• 7 Words That Originated in Movies
• 8 Best Animal Actors
• 9 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Stardust’
• 10 Films Nearly Directed by Steven Spielberg
• The ‘Abbey Road’ Bystander
• Adelaide’s Matchbox Car Wall
• The Age of the Cyclorama
• The Australian Government Buys a Jackson Pollock
• Monet’s ‘The Magpie’
• The Penrose Triangle and Other Impossible Objects
• Pepper’s Ghost
• The Sad Sheep Painting
• Strange Backstories of 1970s Hit Songs
• Watching the ‘Back to the Future’ Commentary
• Words and Phrases Coined by Shakespeare
• The Worst Films Nominated for an Oscar

DISASTERS

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

DRINKS and FOODS

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

FIRSTS and LASTS

• 10 Academy Award Firsts
• 10 Things Invented Earlier Than You Think
• Australia’s First Photographer
• Canada’s First National Park
• The First Abstract Art
• The First Cannes Film Festival
• The First Cliffhanger Ending
• The First Exhibition at the NGV
• The First Feature Length Film
• The First House Music
• 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
• Taylor Swift’s First Tour of Australia
• The World’s First Video Store

FORGOTTEN PLACES

• Australia’s Nuclear Test Sites
• Ball’s Pyramid
• Before the Sydney Opera House
• The Chicxulub Crater
• The Meenakshi Temple
• Mount Donna Buang: The Lost Ski Resort
• New York’s Lost Buildings
• Ngorongoro Crater
• The Real ‘Back to the Future’ House
• The Real ‘Stand By Me’ Bridge
• The Secret Tunnels at St James Station
• The Tabbigai Cliff Dwellers
• Wendy’s Secret Garden
• When London Was Abandoned

HOLIDAYS

• The May Day Holiday
• The Origins of Christmas
• The Origins of Easter
• The Origin of the King’s Birthday Holiday

THE NATURAL WORLD

• The 1257 Samalas Eruption
• A Crocodile Named Sweetheart
• Fox Stories
• The Hidden History of Weeds
• The Lyrid Meteor Shower
• Mungo Man (and Lady)
• The Murchison Meteorite
• Pallas’s Cat
• Pando: The World’s Largest Organism
• The Tasmanian Globster
• The Wollemi Pine: A Living Dinosaur
• The Yellow Penguin of South Georgia Island

REMARKABLE CHARACTERS

• Annette Kellerman: The Australian Mermaid
• Errol Flynn: From Tasmania to Hollywood
• The Founder of the Archibald Prize
• Francoise Gilot
• The Man on the $2 Coin
• Lina Bryans and the Pink Hotel
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe
• Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown
• William Edmonson: God Called His Name

SPORTS & GAMES

• A History of the AFL Grand Final
• AFL Teams That Changed Their Names
• 8 Discontinued Olympic Sports
• The First Boxing Day Test
• The Last Australian Man to Win the Australian Open
• The Longest Winning Streak in VFL/AFL History
• The Origins of Women’s Football
• Synthetic Test Cricket: Calling the Ashes by Telegraph

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

• 8 Everyday Things That Can’t Be Explained
• 7 More Everyday Things That Can’t Be Explained
• Aliens in the Dandenongs
• Aliens on the Nullarbor
• The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
• Maree Man
• The Virgin Mary at Coogee Beach
• Who Was the ‘Somerton Man’
• The Wow Signal

WEIRD and WILD

• 8 Amazing Facts About Argentina
• 8 Major Cities That Changed Their Name
• 9 Things You Didn’t Know About the English Language
• Almost World War III
• The Cats of Sydney Harbour Bridge
• The Cat Who Fell from the Ninth Floor
• The Centennial Light: The Lightbulb Burning for 100 Years
• Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever Created
• History’s Greatest Coincidences
• The History of MDMA
• Jetpack Man (and the History of Jetpacks)
• Kitten Overboard
• The Mystery of the Sweating Sickness
• 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
• Strange Origins of Common Phrases
• Strange World of Facial Pareidolia, The

YEARS PAST

• 2024: What Happened 20, 50 and 100 Years Ago