FOR those familiar with Lithgow, pastoralist and wool auction entrepreneur Thomas Mort’s picnic train that left Central Station in September 1875, carrying frozen food for 300 people, was perhaps perplexing.
THE crowd that had gathered at Rosehill Racecourse on April 27, 1929 heard some good things about the large, New Zealand-born chestnut gelding. They were not disappointed.
Forty years ago this week, France conducted its last execution by guillotine. A handsome Tunisian immigrant named Hamida Djandoubi was led to a bladed contraption and his head placed in the stock before the blade dropped quickly and ended his life.
WITH news that William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are expecting their third child, British bookies are taking bets on the name with the most likely being Alice, after another famous third-born royal.
Chlorine was first described as a deadly agent in trench warfare a century ago.
A century ago four people died in a gunfight between cameleers and New Year revellers on the dusty plains of far western NSW.
For one billion people around the world, televised images of Sydney’s festive $7 million bonfire exploding over the harbour will herald the start of a new year.
In the billing for his first Australian tour, American rocker Del Shannon was introduced as a 22-year-old “keen fisherman”. In truth he was almost 27 and married with two children.
Born 100 years ago today, Australian artist Albert Tucker was shaped by his sensitive nature, the poverty of his Depression-era childhood and the suffering of wounded soldiers
George Whitefield was once a religious celebrity in America preaching to swooning crowds of thousands of parishioners
CHEERS, handclaps and honking car horns greeted the ketch Wayfarer when she finally sailed into Hobart, 11 days after setting sail on the first Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
![1914 : Soldiers take a break during the unofficial Christmas truce in 1914, during World War i [One] when British and German soldiers stopped fighting over Christmas. The event is featured in TV documentary film "The Christmas Truce".](https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/0e20fde2eda08ff1788c713e23ff19f7?width=650)
The war that was meant to be over by Christmas was still going in December 1914. Then for a brief moment opponents stopped killing each other to observe the festive season.
There are festive treats only eaten or imbibed at Christmas time. The reasons for their festive associations are many and varied
Forty years ago as cyclone Tracy turned sharply towards Darwin, staff at the Darwin Weather Bureau were enjoying a Christmas party.
Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/today-in-history/page/116