Australians and their Achievements: Part 2 Quiz

Answer: Sir Ernest "Weary" Dunlop

Ernest "Weary" Dunlop (1907-1993) was an Australian surgeon and an accomplished sportsman. He earned the nickname "Weary" because of his surname, "tired" like a Dunlop tyre. He became the first Victorian born player to play for the national rugby union team the Wallabies. He made his debut against the All-Blacks in Sydney in July 1932. His determination and exploits on the sporting field were superseded by his leadership as a POW during WWII. He joined the Australian Army Medical Corps in 1935, spent time in England and when WWII broke out served in the Middle East and Tobruk and then was shipped to Java, where he was captured in 1942 and became a POW and was sent to Changi Camp. He was then sent with other POW's to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway. It was here that he became a legend among his fellow prisoners, attending the sick, wounded and operating under extreme conditions with primitive instruments. Once returning to civilian life he devoted his time and energies to the welfare and health to former war veterans and their families. He was awarded the Knight Bachelor in 1969 and was voted Australian of the Year in 1976.

Vivian Bullwinkel (1925-2000) was born in Kapunda, South Australia and was an Australia Army nurse during WWII. As an Australian Army Nurse she was sent to Singapore in 1941. When it was eminent that the Japanese were going to take Singapore she left by boat, but the boat was sunk by Japanese aircraft. Many of the survivors were able to make it to Bangka Island(Dutch East Indies but now Indonesia) but when discovered by the Japanese the men were executed and the 22 nurses were told to wade into the water at Radji Beach, where they were machine gunned down by the soldiers. Although Bullwinkel was wounded, she feigned death and was the only nurse to survive. She spent a number of days in the jungle but was then discovered and sent to a POW camp. She was a prisoner until the end of the war and it is believed that all the nurses on the beach were raped before being gunned down. At the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946, it is believed that Vivian Bullwinkel was "gagged" by the Australian Government not to mention anything about the raping.. The execution event on the Beach is now known as "the Bangka Island massacre". She retired from the Army in 1947 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. She continued in nursing and later became the President of the Australian College of Nursing.

Albert Jacka (1893-1932) was the first Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross during WWI. It is the British and Commonwealth's highest decoration for bravery "in the face of the enemy".

Sir John Monash (1865-1931) was a civil engineer and a military commander during WWI. He was a great strategist and devised many successful campaigns during the conflict. He was knighted by King George V on the battlefield in August 1918. It was the first time in 200 years that a British monarch had honored a commander on the battlefield. Monash University in Melbourne is named in his honour.

Answer: Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy (b. 1941) is a singer, actress and activist. In 1966 she won a talent contest on Bandstand and the prize was a trip to New York and an audition. She made a number of recordings but in December 1972 she became the first Australian artist to have a number one hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart with "I Am Women". She followed this up with number one hits on the US charts with "Delta Dawn" (September 1973) and "Angie Baby" (December 1974).

John Bertrand (b. 1946) is a yachtsman who ended the USA supremacy of 132 years of the Americas Cup. He skippered Australia II to victory over Liberty (skippered by Dennis Conner), 4-3 of the New York Yacht Club at Newport, Rhode Island. The victory broke the longest winning stream in sporting history. The event was in September 1983.

Neville Bonner (1922-1999) was the first Aboriginal Australian to be become a member of the Parliament of Australia. He became a Senator for Queensland from 1971-1983 and in 1979 was voted "Australian of the Year" together with the naturalist Harry Butler.

Kay Cottee (b. 1954) was a sailor and achieved her feat in 1988 by becoming the first women to sail single-handed , non-stop and unassisted to circumnavigate the world. The voyage took her 189 days in the yacht "Blackmores First Lady". The yacht is on display at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.

Answer: Dawn Fraser

Dawn Fraser (b. 1937) was the first swimmer to win Olympic gold in the same event, 100m freestyle at three consecutive Olympics in 1956, 1960 and 1964. Since then two other swimmers have achieved the feat in other events being Krisztina Egerszegi (Hungary) and Michael Phelps (USA). Dawn was the first female to swim under one minute for the 100m freestyle and her record was not broken until 1972, eight years after her retirement.

Rechelle Hawkes (b. 1967) won three Olympic gold medals in Women's Field Hockey in 1988, 1996 and 2000.

Ian Thorpe (b. 1982) has won five Olympic gold medals, the most by any Australian athlete plus three silver and one bronze. He also won 13 gold medals at the World Championships.

Andrew Hoy (b. 1959) was the second Australian to win Olympic gold in the same event in three consecutive Olympic Games. The gold came in the Equestrian Team Event in 1992, 1996 and 2000.

Answer: Andrew "Banjo" Paterson

Andrew "Banjo" Paterson (1864-1941) was a poet, journalist and author who mainly wrote about life in the rural and outback areas of Australia. Many of his earlier works were written under the name of his favourite horse "The Banjo". In later years he was simply known as Banjo Paterson. He wrote what is considered Australia's unofficial national anthem "Waltzing Matilda"(1895), however, his other works included "Clancy of the Overflow" (1889) and " The Man from Snowy River" (1890). The Australian National Anthem since 1984 has been"Advance Australia Fair" which was penned by the Scottish composer Peter Dodds McCormick in 1878.

Sir Sidney Nolan (1917-1992) was one of our leading artists last century. He is best remembered for his series of paintings depicting Australian history and one of his main subjects in our history was the outlaw and bushranger, Ned Kelly. He was knighted in 1981.

Henry Lawson (1867-1922) was a writer and bush poet. He was considered by many as Australia's "greatest short story writer" upon his death in 1922 he was the first Australian writer to be granted a State funeral.

Dorothea MacKellar (1885-1968) was a writer and poet. Her most famous poem is "My Country" (1908). It was first published in London under the title "Core of My Heart". The poem has been taught for many years in classrooms. Due to the currently situation in Australia in 2019-20 with damaging fires, droughts and floods, it appears Dorothea had good foresight with her poem, particularly the second stanza.

Answer: Jim Frazier

Jim Frazier (b. 1940) has worked closely with David Attenborough on his projects "Life on Earth" and "The Living Planet". Jim is an inventor, naturalist and cinematographer and invented the Frazier lens which is widely used in Hollywood and cinematography. The special lens mainly gave the versatility to allowed for depth and foreground to be in focus. In 1998 Jim won the Academy Award for Technical Achievement and also an Emmy Award.

Dr. David Warren (1925-2010) was a scientist who invented and developed the flight "black box", which is the flight and cockpit voice recorder. It is standard practice for all aircraft to have installed.

Thomas Angrove (1918-2010) was a winemaker in South Australia and in 1965 is credited with developing the first wine bag in a box which was a world first in wine packaging. This invention is worthy of any award.

While working at the Australia airline Qantas in 1965, Jack Grant developed the inflatable aircraft escape slide and raft. Today it is standard safety equipment in all passenger aircraft worldwide.

Answer: Howard Florey

Howard Florey (1898-1968) was a pharmacologist and pathologist, who while at the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford, England, in 1941 carried out the first clinical trials of penicillin on a patient.
In 1945 he shared the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine with Sir Ernest Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming.

Elizabeth Blackburn (b.1948) became the first Australian female in 2009 to receive the Nobel Prize. She shared the prize in Physiology or Medicine with Carol W. Greidrr and Jack W. Shostakovich. The prize was awarded for processing which chromosomes are protected by teleomeres.

John Cornforth (1917-2013) was a chemist and in 1975 won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work was the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions.

Sir Frank MacFarland Burnet (1899-1985) was a virologist and is remembered for his contributions to immunology. In 1960 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the same year he was the first "Australian of the Year". He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1978.

Answer: Brian Bevan

Brian Bevan (1924-1991) was visiting the UK in 1946 on board HMAS Australia when he was picked up for a trial with Warrington. He played for Warrington during the 1940s - 1960s. He is the only player to be inducted into the Australian and British Rugby League Hall's of Fame. He was the only player to have not played Test match rugby for Australia who was chosen on the wing in "Australia's Team of the Century" (1908-2007). His statue is outside the Warrington ground and he appeared in 1995 on a British stamp to commemorate the centenary of Rugby League.

Andrew Johns is a former professional player from the years 1993-2005. He captained both the Newcastle Knights and Australia. During his career he was hailed as the best half back in the world. He did play three games for Warrington (UK) in 2005.

Arthur Beetson (1945-2011) represented Queensland and Australia.He was the first Indigenous Australian to Captain the country in any sport.

Dally Messenger (1883-1959) played both Union and League football and was one of the first professional footballer in Australia in 1908. The Dally M. Medal is awarded annually to Australia's rugby league best player. There is a statue in his honour at the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park in Sydney.

Answer: Lionel Rose

Lionel Rose (1948-2011) became the first Aboriginal to win a World Boxing Championship which he achieved in Tokyo, Japan by beating Fighting Harada on 26 February 1968 for the World Bantamweight title. That same year he was honoured as "Australian of the Year". He successfully retained his title three times in the next 13 months only to lose the title in August 1969 to Ruben Olivares (Mexico) in the USA.

Jack Brabham (1926-2014) was a racing driver who won the Formula 1 Drivers World Championship in 1969, 1960 and 1966. In 1966 he not only won the World Championship but is still to this day the only driver to win the Championship driving his own designed car. He was elected "Australian of the Year" in 1966.
Shane Gould as a 17 year old at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games won three swimming gold medals plus a silver and bronze medals. She is the only swimmer, male or female, to hold every world record in freestyle from 100m -1500m at the same time. She was also the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals at the Olympics in World record time. She was "Australian of the Year" in 1972.

Robert de Castella (b.1957) is a former world champion marathon runner. He won the marathon at the World Championships in Helsinki (Finland) in 1983. That same year he was "Australian of the Year". After retirement he was the director of the Australian Institute of Sport from 1990-1995.

Answer: Sir William Dargie

Sir William Dargie (1912-2003) was a painter who specialised in portrait paintings. During WWII he was a war artist and over the years has painted portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Ministers and Governor -Generals. It was his portrait of Sir Robert Menzies that appeared on the front cover of Time Magazine in April 1960. He won the Archibald Prize on eight occasions from 1941-1956. The last in 1956 was a portrait of Albert Namatjira.

Sir William Dobell (1899-1970) was a portrait and landscape painter. He won the Archibald Prize on three occasions 1943, 1948 and 1959.

Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) was an aboriginal who was born near Alice Springs in Central Australia. As an artist he had a unique style of painting which were mainly landscapes of Australian flora with majestic gum trees. He became international famous with one of his fans being Queen Elizabeth II who bestowed on him the Queen's Coronation Medal in 1953. Albert Namatjira is recognised as one of Australia's greatest artists and also a pioneer and advocate of Aboriginal rights.

Sir Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) was a landscape painter and in 1891 became a member of the Heidelberg School of Australian art. This was later described as Australian Impressionism. His paintings captured Australian life, the bush and the shades of light that surround our nation.

Answer: Cyril Callister

Cyril Callister (1893-1949) was a chemist who developed "Vegemite". During to WWI and the unavailability of the British product Marmite, Cyril Callister was asked by his employer (Fred Walker & Co) to develop a similar product. He experimented with leftover brewer's yeast obtained from Carlton & United brewery. By adding vegetables and spices he came up with a spread we now know as Vegemite which appeared on the market in 1923. Over 22 million jars of Vegemite are manufactured each year.

Barry Humphries (b. 1934) is a comedian, actor and author. He is best known nationally and internationally for his portrayals on stage and television of Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.

Rupert Murdoch (b. 1931) was born in Melbourne and founded News Corporation (abbreviated to News Corp.) in Adelaide in 1980 as the holding company for News Limited. In 1985 News Corp. aquired total shares of 20th Century Fox and it was at this time that Rupert Murdoch was required to take out American citizenship due to the legal requirements that only American citizens could hold interests in television stations. Over the years there have been numerous deals and acquisitions of newspapers and media outlets in Europe, Asia and the USA. Rupert Murdoch is the current CEO of Fox Corporation. In 2019, Rupert Murdoch and family were rated by Forbes' as the 52nd wealthiest billionaires in the world.

John Curtin (1885-1945) was the 14th Prime Minister of Australia from 1941-1945 and considered by many as one of our greatest PM's. He lead the country through most of WWII and many of his policies were acted upon post 1945.