1. Australia’s Killer Plant
A brush with the Gympie Gympie is like "being burnt by hot acid and electrocuted at the same time”. When you touch the plant, fine hairs lodge in the skin and deliver a powerful sting. Every second the hairs remain in the skin, more neurotoxin is released into the bloodstream.
2. The Emu War
Australian farmers were not only struggling through drought and the Great Depression, they also had to take on a horde of 20,000 flightless birds.
3. Australia’s First Flash Mob
300 female convicts once mooned the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land when he visited their forced labour camp.
4. The Battle Of Brisbane
For two nights in 1942, Australian and U.S. servicemen turned the streets of Brisbane into a war zone
5. The Time WA Tried To Leave Australia
In 1933, Western Australians voted overwhelming to secede from the Commonwealth.
6. The Man Who Posted Himself To Perth
An Australian javelin thrower once posted himself from London to Australia when he couldn’t afford a plane ticket home.
7. A Drunken Accent?
A communications expert claims that drunkenness is the reason behind our unique enunciation. The theory goes that when the first British arrivals landed in Australia, they were such big drinkers that their slurred speech distorted their accents, and that verbal hangover remains today.
8. The Cannibal Convict
Alexander Pearce was executed for murdering and eating a fellow criminal.
9. Australia’s First Body Farm
Sydney will soon be home to a field of decomposing corpses.
10. A Shark-Infested Golf Course
When golfers began reporting strange sightings in the lake at Brisbane’s Carbrook Golf Club, course manager Scott Wagstaff discovered there was something swimming around in the golf course’s water hazard – bull sharks!
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