1307: Friday the 13th: King Philip the Fair Orders the Arrest of the Knights Templar
Before dawn on Friday 13 October 1307, royal officers across France moved on hundreds of Knights Templar at once, arresting the warrior monks in their own preceptories under sealed orders opened simultaneously nationwide. Read more →
1846: Over Confiscated Kettles: Twelve Hanged on Norfolk Island After a Convict Mutiny
The trouble began with cooking pots. Read more →
1846: Jackey Jackey: the Bushranger Hanged on Norfolk Island for the Cooking Pot Uprising
William Westwood was already notorious as Jackey Jackey, a bushranger transported twice and flogged repeatedly, when he helped lead the 1846 Cooking Pot Uprising on Norfolk Island, a desperate convict revolt sparked by brutal rations and treatment. Read more →
1860: Freed From Servitude, Then Hanged: John Caldwell Executed at Perth for Assault
John Caldwell was a former British soldier, court martialled at Bangalore in India for stealing his own equipment and sentenced to seven years transportation. Read more →
1860: Thomas Airey Hanged at Perth Gaol Just Months After Winning His Freedom
Thomas Airey had spent most of his adult life behind bars in England before he was transported to Western Australia aboard the Nile, arriving at Fremantle in December 1857 to serve a 15 year sentence for burglary. Read more →
1884: Keep Away From Women: the Final Warning Scrawled on a Cell Wall Before a Hanging at Hobart
Henry Stock married Elizabeth Keats when she was nineteen and already raising another man’s child. Read more →
1969: A Bloodstained Scrap of Shirt: the Zodiac Killer Mails Proof to a San Francisco Newsroom
Two days after shooting cabdriver Paul Stine dead in San Francisco, the Zodiac Killer sent the San Francisco Chronicle a taunting letter dated October 13, 1969. Read more →
1999: The Shooting at Gladstone Park That Lit the Fuse on the Melbourne Gangland War
Carl Williams was 29 and already dealing drugs when Jason Moran shot him in the stomach on this day at Gladstone Park, in Melbourne, over an $80,000 debt tied to a failed amphetamine batch. Read more →
