‘Nasty’ Muriel’s Wedding almost didn’t make it
A quarter of a century ago Muriel’s Wedding premiered at Cannes to great acclaim. But the now beloved musical almost never made it to the big screen
Today In History
Killer cult unleashed poison on Aussie sheep
In 1993 a group of cult members came to Australia to test out a deadly poison. The world became aware of their experiments after two fatal attacks in Japan, the first of which was 25 years ago today
Cold killer cried on day of his execution
Serial killer Frederick Deeming, once linked to Jack The Ripper, had been arrogant and defiant at his trial but broke down and wept on his day of execution
The Anzac, his feathers and love that outlasted war
When Eunice Lydiate accepted a gift of feathers from an unknown soldier marching to war, it was the beginning of a love story that lasted 74 years
More Stories
When Bohemia threw peace out the window
Today we might vote annoying leaders out of office but in 1618 the Bohemians tossed their leaders’ representatives out of an office window
Reno Gang’s ‘Great Train Robbery’ was a last hurrah
WHEN a train was robbed 150 years ago today by the notorious Reno Gang it hastened the end of the gang
Engineering fashions fit for the space age
IT was the decade when Parisian tailor-architect Pierre Cardin and engineer Andre Courreges put industrial design onto fashion runways, even topping Audrey Hepburn with a white astronaut-style helmet in How To Steal A Million.
No mercy for sons of executed Soviet spies
ARTIST Pablo Picasso was among hundreds of high-profile agitators who pleaded for the lives of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Gordon built theatre in a Kirribilli boatshed
TENNESSEE Williams is not normally found in a children’s library but when a group of actors put on his plays in a Cammeray library they founded a long running theatre company
Protesters massacred for freedom of press
WHEN a crowd supporting radical politician and journalist John Wilkes turned ugly, soldiers began firing on them resulting in an infamous massacre.
Vertigo perhaps Hitchcock’s finest work
Citizen Kane topped film polls for 50 years until Hitchcock’s Vertigo knocked it off the top spot in 2012
Unarmed Red Cross warriors born of battle
DESCRIBED as unarmed warriors, the only protection for battlefield medics is their “distinctive sign, a white armlet with a red cross”.
King invited observers to witness a royal birth
NITPICKING about the Duchess of Cambridge’s impeccable grooming when she left hospital six hours after the birth of her third child pales in comparison to the public spite hurled at Queen Mary of Modena after the birth of her first surviving son.
Paris opera house accident inspired Leroux’s Phantom
WHEN a counterweight crashed through the roof of a Paris opera house, Gaston Leroux stored the story away to help create the Phantom of the Opera.
Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/today-in-history/page/28