Australia On This Day Australia On This Day

REPEAT: On this day in 1930, Arthur Stace — hopeless Sydney alcoholic — converted to Christianity and set himself on the path to becoming Mr Eternity, whose one-word message would eventually reach billions worldwide. Australia On This Day will be on a short break until next week. Thanks for listening.
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REPEAT: At 2am on this day in 1944, the Cowra Breakout began. This episode looks at the man who blew the bugle that gave the signal for the mass escape – and how he wound up behind barbed wire as the first Japanese POW in the first place, courtesy of a Darwin Digger's odd angry shot and the bravery of an Aboriginal man from the Tiwi Islands.

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REPEAT: 176 years ago today, Australia suffered what is still our worst civil maritime disaster when the emigrant ship Cataraqui struck a reef off King Island and sank in Bass Strait. Of the 409 aboard, just nine were to survive - but fate held a cruel trick in store for two of these men.

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REPEAT: On this day in 1912, William Chidley, radical sexologist and one of Australia’s most eccentric characters, was arrested for being a lunatic – the first use of this power against him in a vendetta that’d eventually make him a martyr to free speech.

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REPEAT: On this day in 1986, one of Australia's strangest and funniest crimes was committed when Pablo Picasso's masterpiece The Weeping Woman — valued at $2m — was stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria and held to ransom by a mysterious group calling themselves Australian Cultural Terrorists.

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REPEAT: On this day in 1905, Flos Greig became Australia’s first female lawyer — but before she could practice the law she had to change it via an act of parliament.

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