Welcome to 2017!

In this episode we recount the early career of Sir Robert Gordon 'Bob' Menzies, Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister. Menzies served as Prime Minister twice –for a total of 18 years and it is still the record term for an Australian Prime Minister. Menzies totally dominated Australian politics and life for the better part of three decades. He dominated Australia so much that his second term as Prime Minister from 1949 to 1966 is often referred to as "the Ming Dynasty.

For a truly worthwhile cause visit 'Batting for Change' at https://battingforchange.com.au. Ryan Carters, a young Australian cricketer, is raising money to support education for disadvantaged women and girls in cricket playing nations.  You can donate just a dollar per six hit by the Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League cricket tournament.  Since 2013 Ryan has raised over $350,000 and transformed the life of dozens and dozens of women. This year the target is $150,000.

In this episode we delve into an extremely controversial period in Australian history – the genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines. We also look at Truganini, the most famous of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this episode contains the names of people who are deceased.

Be warned!  This is a very long episode by AWP standards.  

It’s back to bushrangers - more bushrangers who were not Ned Kelly. In this episode we will be looking at four bushrangers: Jack Donohoe the ‘Wild Colonial Boy’; Mad Dan Morgan who roamed the Murray Valley area in the 1860s; Martin Cash the 'gentleman bushranger'; and Jimmy Governor – the last of the bushrangers about whom Thomas Keneally wrote his book "The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith".

Email me at jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com. 

Episode 50 - half a century!

In this episode we cover Ronald Ryan’s hanging and the public outcry that accompanied his execution. We then ask did Ryan really kill prison warder George Hodson?

Check out this excellent 15 minute documentary on the Ryan execution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDyFJqru9UI

Also this website that seeks to prove Ryan's innocence: http://www.ronaldryan.info 

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com 

At 8.00 a.m. on 3 February 1967 Ronald Joseph Ryan was hanged in Pentridge gaol in Melbourne for the murder of a prison officer named George Henry Hodson. He had been found guilty of shooting Hodson with a rifle he had taken off another prison guard while escaping from prison. Ronald Ryan was the last person to be executed in Australia.

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

On Fathers Day, the 2nd September R 1984, there was a shoot out between two rival motorcycle gangs at a British motorcycle swap meet in the Western Sydney suburb of Milperra. The shoot out had its origin in a bitter split within the Comancheros and Bandidos motorcycle or bikie gangs. At the end of the shoot out seven people were dead,including a 15 year old girl who was just standing by.

Check out the 60 Minutes documentary on the massacre – done in 2014 on the 30th anniversary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nFKnEwU4MI

On Saturday 19 March 1932 Captain Francis Edward de Groot, dressed in full military uniform, raced up on horseback, drew his ceremonial sword, and cut the ribbon declaring the Sydney Harbour Bridge open and proclaiming he was doing so "in the name of the decent and respectable people of New South Wales.”

Here is a YouTube clip that shows some of the footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19R0d1VCGxM

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production and Emmie the AWP Wonder Dog for security.

Warning to Indigenous Australians -this episode may refer to people who have passed away.

On Australia Day 1972, four young Aboriginal men erected a beach umbrella on the lawns outside Parliament House in Canberra and put up a sign, which read 'Aboriginal Embassy'.

Check out a short youtube documentary about this important political protest site (but ignore some of the stupid racist comments in the comments section):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlBS4GO-xJE

Kenny Dampier, Executive Producer, is down with a bug. So apologies for the low production quality. But thanks to Emmie, the wonder dog, for helping with the recording. 

Sixty years ago Melbourne hosted the Olympics. In this episode we look at two events– one in the lead up to the Olympic games and the other during the games. The first is the Olympic Torch Hoax and the second is the ‘blood in the water’ water polo match between the Soviet Union and Hungary.

Here’s a few YouTube videos of the water polo match, including one from a movie made about it all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ca8P65IUkM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLoA5yLZ4l4

Executive Producer Kenny Dampier is still on other projects. So apologies for lower production quality than usual.  

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!

On the 7th of July 1986, Australians Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers were hanged in Malaysia for possession of 141.9 grams of heroin. They were the first ‘Westerners’ to be executed under new and tougher drug laws introduced in Malaysia in 1983.

Production quality is a little lower for this episode. But Ken Dampier, Executive Producer is busy on other projects.

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production.

In this episode we review the cycling career of one of the greats of Australian cycling – Phil Anderson. Anderson was the first Australian to wear the maillot jueune, or the yellow leader’s jersey, at the Tour de France.

Vive la France, Vive le Tour!!!

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier, Executive Producer, for post production.

In this episode we are going to look at four bushrangers you might never have heard of - John Cesar, Sam Poo, Mary Ann Bugg, and John Gilbert. John Cesar was our first bushranger, Sam Poo our only Chinese bushranger. and Mary Anne Bugg our first Indigenous female bushranger.

Some sources:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/First-bushrangers-trace-back-to-African-roots/2005/01/26/1106415665901.html

http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/2866513/australias-only-chinese-bushranger-remembered-150-years-on/

http://www.thunderboltbushranger.com.au/mary-ann-bugg.html

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilbert-john-johnny-3609

The entire Dampier family has been ill with a really nasty virus. So apologies for taking this long to get this episode out.

You may never have heard of Howard Florey. But chances are you owe this Australian your life or the life of someone close to you. His work on the development of the first penicillin-based antibiotic medicines in the 1940s has probably saved millions of people worldwide.

We also revisit the Hilton Bombing. A new book by Rachel Landers called ‘Who Bombed the Hilton’ puts forward the case that it was actually the Ananda Marga that carried out the bombing. It seems I may have been wrong!!

In this episode we are looking at some strange Australian history that show just how weird a place Australia is. This includes: the Great Emu Wars, when female convicts mooned the Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania, the woman on the $20 note, our Prime Minister who held a Guinness World record for beer drinking and how the Western Australian town of Esperance tried to fine NASA for littering when Skylab crashed.

Here’s a YouTube video on The Great Emu War, very funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9G6WCsfoow'

A picture of the $20 note featuring Mary Reibey:

http://www.polymernotes.com/australia20.html

Bob Hawke sculling a schooner in 10 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5mBShX9fdU

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production, and for his ever lasting knowledge

It’s the ANZAC Day long weekend. And it's also family history time!!

Find out how my grandfather Company Quartermaster Sergeant Major William Cook was captured in North Africa in November 1942, was made prisoner of war, and escaped via the Vatican. An amazing story and one I did not believe until my family was recently able to retrieve official War Office documents!! I’ll post these documents on the AWP Facebook page.

I know it isn't strictly Australian history, but it is a great story.

At 12,40 am on 13 February 1978, a bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. The bomb killed two garbage collectors and a police officer. The Hilton Hotel was the site of the first Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting.

Two members of the Ananda Marga Hindu religious sect, Tim Anderson and Evan Pederick were convicted of the bombing. Anderson was subsequently acquitted. Controversy and conspiracy theories have surrounded the incident and some have claimed that ASIO was responsible.

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production.

Do you know what the capital city of Australia is? If you live overseas you will probably answer Sydney. Wrong! It’s actually Canberra. Some people say that Canberra is a good sheep station spoiled. In this episode we learn about how Canberra came into being, how it got its name, and why it is located where it is.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/downloads/canberraconf_facts.pdf

https://www.nationalcapital.gov.au/index.php/fact-sheets

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier, who is currently on holidays in Thailand, for post-production.

Maybe you have seen a photo of the medal ceremony for the men's 200 meters at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. U.S. sprinter and Gold medallist Tommie Smith and his compatriot John Carlos, the Bronze medallist, stand on the dais. They have no shoes on and each is wearing a single black glove on one hand. They are thrusting their fists into the air in a black power salute and their heads are bowed in protest as the Star Spangled Banner is played. It was an act of defiance aimed at protesting against segregation and racism against African Americans back home in the United States.

But let’s take our gaze away from Tommie Smith and John Carlos. You will see a small guy from Australia standing still. It’s Peter Norman. What few people realise is that Peter Norman is the forgotten hero of that medal ceremony.

Sources for this episode include:

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3572112.htm

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/world-finally-recognises-littleknown-aussie-hero-in-iconic-photo/news-story/0ddb2750053826e4baf7c2c749ba606a

http://www.andrewleigh.com/3389

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9NsN0ybTec

http://salute.vhx.tv/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D35uvpN3IKk

http://corporate.olympics.com.au/news/peter-norman-not-shunned-by-aoc

 Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

 Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

 Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production.

On the morning of 19 February 1942, just 10 weeks after the Japanese navy launch its attack on Pearl Harbour, mainland Australia came under attack from the sky. Japanese forces mounted two air raids on Darwin. The raids involved 54 land-based bombers and approximately 188 attack aircraft, which were launched from four Japanese aircraft carriers in the Timor Sea.

For more details visit the Australian War memorial website at: https://www.awm.gov.au/talks-speeches/1942-bombing-of-darwin/

Email me at: jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production.

Juanita Nielsen was an Australian newspaper publisher and conservationist who was leading a campaign against high rise development in Victoria Street, Kings Cross in Sydney. On the 4th of July 1975 she disappeared, never to be seen again.  A coronial inquest found that Nielsen had most likely been murdered. But the case has never been officially solved.

In this episode we are going to look at the criminal underbelly of Sydney in the late 1960s and 1970s. We will try and get to the bottom of just what happened to Juanita Nielsen and why.

Music courtesy of Dano at: www.danosongs.com

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post production.

Email me at jamesdampier.awp@gmail.com and visit the Aussie waves Podcast Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/AussieWavesPodcast