1764: Born to Mutiny: Fletcher Christian, the Man Who Cast Captain Bligh Adrift
Fletcher Christian was born on 25 September 1764 in Cumberland, England, decades before he would become one of history’s most infamous mutineers. Read more →
1854: Anxious to Get Home for Their Dinner: the Killer Who Taunted His Jury, Hanged at Melbourne Gaol
John Hughes told the jurors who convicted him that they were “shopkeepers tired of waiting, and anxious to get home for their dinner”. Read more →
1860: Flogged as a Soldier, Broken on Norfolk Island, Hanged at Hobart: the Ruin of a Convict
Moments after the bolt was drawn at the Campbell Street Gaol in Hobart, the chaplain stepped forward and read aloud a letter the dead man had written the day before in the condemned cell. Read more →
1883: “I Have Cooked Eight”: the Whispered Confession Only the Hangman Heard
Robert Francis Burns walked out of a Melbourne courtroom in August 1882 an acquitted man, and was arrested for a different murder before he had left the building. Read more →
1983: The Great Escape: 38 IRA Prisoners Break Out of the Maze in Britain’s Largest Prison Breakout
On 25 September 1983, 38 IRA prisoners staged a mass breakout from the Maze Prison in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, the largest prison escape in British history. Read more →
