22 Twenty twoooooooo October History

1858 The Lying In Hospital that opened today wasn't actually for women who were lazing their days away and you might know it better as the Melbourne Royal Women's Hospital...or whatever they've rebranded themselves as now.

Bendigo Advertiser

1894 Martha Needle was not a very nice lady.
Many people agreed with this sentiment when she was found guilty and hanged at Melbourne Gaol for poisoning her hubby, children and brother-in-law for the in$urance money.
*As a side note, the sea wall at St Kilda was built using bluestone bricks from Old Melbourne Gaol, 14 of them marked with initials and dates of executed people, including Martha herself.

1945 - Today the Royal Australian Navy decommissioned, then handed back the borrowed HMAS Nepal to the Royal Navy which later broke up the ship in 1956.

1956 - Part of the British nuclear tests was codenamed Breakaway; exploded on this day was 10.8 kilotonnes of TNT (45 TJ) from a tower. You can google the images and see what a mess was made.

1965 - A demonstration against the Vietnam War was held in Sydney with 65 people being arrested.

1999 - The leader of the National Party, Pat McNamara announced the (state) National Party would split from the coalition which they had formed with the (state) Liberal Party in 1990.
Didn't last long.

2007 - It was reported that Swedish museum officials handed back the remains of 10 Aboriginal people which had been illegally smuggled out of Australia 100 years before.

2021 - Melbourne waltzed itself out of the last of the lock downs with announcements from the likes of Reuters it was the world's 'most locked down city'

And if you're alive to bitch about, you're welcome.

15 October in Things that happened on a Fairly Large Island through history

1810 Get Frocked, ladies!

Get gussied up to the nines, girls, the 73rd Regiment held the FIRST official HORSE RACE on this lump of soil known as Oz, in Hyde Park, Sin-City (Sydney).

First Sydney Races

1840 The first land sales of Portland were haggled over, fought over and went off like a frog in a sock at Melbourne, Victoria. Prices were as high as the perfume of some socks owing to the fact Portland was a serious contender as Big Smoke for the Southern Region of The Fair Isle of Oz.

1851 That banking badboy, con artist, Ben Boyd fell off the face of the earth when he popped in as the bite to eat with the native peoples at Guadalcanal Island , or so rumour has it, whilst doing a runner from creditors in his yacht Wanderer.

1871 The Germans in South Oz held a large festival in Tanunda to celebrate peace at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

1895 The Gambling Act was passed with the canapes in sunny Qld which forced Tattersall's to up sticks and shift to Hobart in Tassie.

1915 General Sir John Monash was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Bath(CB).

1940 RAAF Base Townsville was hatched with the motto;

Guarding The North.

1953 Things were really starting to go off like a frog in a sock when the first British nuclear weapons testing on mainland Oz began with a blast into the past at Emu Fields in Crow Eater country South Australia.

Australia's Atom History

1970 The Westgate Bridge in Melbourne fell to earth, killing 35 workmen and injuring 17 more.

1970 Three cheers for the unions who passed a general Black Ban on the proposed redevelopment of Carlton in Melbourne.

1975 Malcolm Fraser, then-leader of the Opposition stated that they'd be blocking supply in the Senate until an election was called as they had no faith in the Whitlam Govt due to messy money matters that had been sort of secret until they weren't.

2004 HMAS Arunta popped in for a cuppa tea at Vladivostok, Russia.