Australia
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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,…
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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…
