 
	Read more: The legendary Beaver Club of Montreal Canada
The Napier earthquake of 1931, also known as the Hawke's Bay earthquake, was a devastating seismic event that occurred on February 3, 1931, in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.8 and remains one of the most powerful earthquakes in New Zealand's recorded history.
The earthquake struck at 10:47 am and lasted for about two and a half minutes. It caused widespread destruction, particularly in the cities of Napier and Hastings. The impact was intensified by the fact that the earthquake occurred during a busy time of day when people were at work and children were in school. foreword by Monty
Read more: The Napier Earthquake 3rd February 1931 - Out of the Rubble...
Sparrow Force was one of three formations rapidly put together by the Australian Government in March and April of 1941 when concern was rising about the intentions of the Japanese to enter WW2 as a combatant and to form a ring of defenses against any advance on Australia. The three forces were given code names of birds: Gull, Lark and Sparrow. Gull and Sparrow were formed at the request of the Dutch government.
Gull Force was sent to Ambon and was soon overcome. The survivors were then mainly executed.
Lark Force went to Rabaul on the north tip of the island of New Britain. It too was soon overwhelmed by a far superior Japanese force and the vast majority were captured with a majority of those executed or used for bayonet practice by Japanese troops and beheading practice for junior Japanese officers. The massacres at Tol Plantation have been mentioned in other articles.
I love words and the precision that they have.
They are like snipers. If used in the right hands, our bullets called words can hit their target very accurately.
That is why the Left want to destroy our language.
There is no precision anymore.
When our words are attacked, we have a problem that is much graver than people realise.
We lived through the Covid years. the lockdowns, the bushfires, the floods, the elections, the lies, deceit and the Ukraine " situation ", Voice, the " Free Palestine " and " I hate Australia " campaign.
Now, every week or so we hear about the Alien Invasions.
The Climate Change years where a demented 16 year old wept and grimaced and said how dare you and the years when ordinary citizens were locked up, knocked down and shut up, all while being told that it was all for " our own good. "
It has been a crazy couple of years, hasn't it?
In early 1942, the Japanese launched their invasion of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) as part of their southward expansion in the Pacific.
Ambon, a strategically important island, was defended by a small garrison of Dutch troops and about 1,100 Australian soldiers from the 2/21st Battalion, known as Gull Force.
They were poorly equipped and significantly outnumbered by the Japanese forces.
On the night of 30/31 January 1942 Japanese forces landed on Ambon. The Japanese were resisted by Australian troops at a number of locations, including Mount Nona, Kudamati, Amahusu and Laha.
Laha airfield was defended by about 300 Australian troops. Aside from a small number who escaped, there were no survivors. After the surrender at Laha, Japanese personnel carried out mass executions of the Australian soldiers. A group of RAAF men were also executed at Laha. Roger Maynard has written of the executions “History would record it as one of the worst massacres of the Second World War”.
Read more: Laha Airfield Executions - 30th January - 3rd February 1942
The 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has just concluded. The Large Hadron Collider Hellgate has closed for the year. As faint impressions of cloven-footprints are steamed from caviar-smeared carpets, an acrid sulfuric stench still permeates the mountainous air.
Read more: PREPARING FOR DISEASE X: Diseased Minds Plan Disease X
Roasting the poor pig is many centuries old, and thus the ways of cooking it are just as many if counted in decades.
The word "pork" has its origins in the Old French language. In Middle English, the term "porc" referred to the meat of a pig, while "pig" or "swine" denoted the live animal.
The transition from "porc" to "pork" likely occurred during the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century.
Read more: Chaucer's Culinary Campaign - Chapter One - Roast Pork
Almost every river in Eastern Australia is now pouring surplus water into the sea. But only two dams have been built in Queensland in the last 20 years - the Wyaralong Dam built 13 years ago and Paradise Dam built 19 years ago.
Droughts will come again and we will wish for another dam-builder like Joh Bjelke Petersen whose government built at least eight dams in Queensland - the Burdekin, Wivenhoe, Hinze, Beardmore, Haig, Fairbairn, Bjelke-Petersen and Eungella dams. But that all came to a halt in 1988 when the plans to build the Wolffdene Dam were scuttled by all the usual suspects.
It is over 250 years since Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia and it's worth asking ... what was Cook doing here?
He certainly wasn't looking for Australia (or New Holland as it was then known) as Europeans had known it existed since the 1500's.
Like many other Europeans before him, Cook was searching for the fabled land of Terra Australis.
Living in the real Outback of Australia is like confronting yourself with yourself. Seeing yourself for who you are. It is like meeting yourself as a stranger and wondering if you will like that person.
It was back in the 1990's that I met Albert. A quiet man who had shunned the city and, after a trip to Brisbane in 1949, decided that the big lights were not for him. He returned to the Channel Country and never left again.
Albert was an older bloke who lived in my new hometown of 35 or so residents. It was a very very long way from the coast.
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