31st October 1917: Australia’s Light Horsemen charge Turkish positions at Beersheba, enabling the British to break the Ottoman line.
This iconic moment in Australian military history is considered one of the nation’s most significant in the First World War.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
From the Provincial Archives of Alberta
Children in Halloween costumes at the Little Smoky River Farm Industries settlement in Alberta, Canada. Circa 1950.
In a photograph dated the 29th of October, 1917, Australian soldiers are seen on the move in Belgium during the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres).
Australia fought alongside Britain and troops from other parts of the British Empire, France and Belgium against the German Empire in a battle that lasted from the end of July until mid-November.
The image’s original information reads as follows:
Soldiers of an Australian 4th Division field artillery brigade on a duckboard track passing through Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, 29 October 1917. The leading soldier is Gunner James Fulton and the second soldier is Lieutenant Anthony Devine. The men belong to a battery of the 10th Field Artillery Brigade.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
The railway station in the eastern English village of Bures is photographed here on the 28th of October, 1966.
Situated on the Essex/Suffolk border, the community’s railway station opened in 1849.
The Hall in Country Life. 28th September 1901.
On the 24th of October, 2004, Nocton Hall – a Grade II listed building in Lincolnshire, England – was gutted by fire for a second time. The Hall is the former home of Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon, who served as British Prime Minister in the 1820s.
An investigation concluded the destruction was caused by arson, but so far nobody has been arrested.
In addition to being home to a number of prominent residents, the Hall was also used as a location to treat wounded soldiers in both the First and Second World Wars.
The current building is a nineteenth-century construction that was built to replace the original sixteenth-century house, which was also destroyed by fire.
Today, the ruined house stands empty while its future is debated.
This photograph, dated the 22nd of October, 1973 shows people demonstrating in Washington D.C., calling for the impeachment of US President Richard Nixon.
The protest came in the middle of the Watergate scandal, when Nixon lied about his involvement in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
This was less than two weeks after the resignation of Vice President Agnew because of criminal charges of bribery, tax evasion and money laundering. Agnew was later convicted.
Nixon resigned in August of 1974 to avoid almost certain impeachment.
This weekend marks the seventieth anniversary of Stalin’s mass deportation of Ukrainians to Siberia. In the west of the country entire villages were cleared of ethnic Ukrainians. In just one day over 76 000 people were deported.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Soldiers of the 3rd Australian Division at the entrance to the General Staff Office on the 21st of October, 1917. This was during fighting at Ypres, Belgium in the First World War.
This photograph is dated the 21st of October, 1945. After surrendering to Australian forces, Japanese soldiers and civilians on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo prepare to leave for Jesselton (modern-day Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia) for repatriation.
As with Russia in territories annexed by the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan imported hundreds of thousands of their own people into occupied territories outside Japanese borders. These locations included Korea, China and Taiwan. There, they enjoyed a higher social standing than the original occupants.
