Oceania

  • The Great Emu War

    Yes, I am actually referring to the bird. Following World War I, large numbers of ex-soldiers from Australia and Britian took up farming within Western Australia. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, these farmers were encouraged to increase their wheat crops, with the government promising but failing to provide assistance in the form of subsidies. Wheat prices continued to fall, and by October 1932 matters were becoming intense. The farmers prepared to harvest the season’s crop while simultaneously threatening to refuse to load the wheat. The difficulties facing farmers was increased by the arrival of as many as 20,000 emus. Emus regularly migrate after their breeding season,…

  • 1886 Eruption of Mount Tarawera and the Phantom Canoe

    The volcanic eruption of Mount Tarawera in New Zealand on June 10,1886 was one of New Zealand’s greatest natural disasters. The eruption lasted for six hours and caused unparalleled destruction. Located 24 kilometers southeast of Rotorua in the North Island, many Maori villages were located near by. It was also near a natural wonder called the Pink and White Terraces. These were on the shores of Lake Rotomahana and were considered to be the eighth wonder of the world. The Maori name for this natural formation was Otukapuarangi, fountain of the clouded sky, and Te Tarata, the tattooed rock. The terraces were formed as water containing silica flowed down from…

  • Sarah Higgins

    Sarah Sharp was born on January 30th 1830 in Kent, England. Her mother Mary Ann died when Sarah was an infant, possibly as a result of childbirth and her father remarried when Sarah was about nine or ten. Her step-mother died in childbirth after only a year, the baby dying too, leaving Sarah’s father Stephen with five children to look after. Whilst he was out trying to obtain work, Sarah spent her days with her grandmother, and received a limited education until around the age of eleven where she received lessons in sewing and reading. Following the death of her step-mother, Sarah’s father applied to join the call for emigrants…

  • Mary Wade

    It is thought Mary Wade was born in the Westminster area of London on 17th December 1775, the eldest of four known children of Lawrence Wade and Mary Smith although earlier suggestions claim she was born in 1778 to George Wade and Mary English. Mary had a short life of abject poverty until committing her first crime of robbery at around the age of 8 where she stood accused of stripping the outer clothes from a younger girl, possibly aged around five years old, who she then dumped unceremoniously in a ditch (this ditch could mean anything associated with an outside toilet of the time, which were quite likely to…