Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly is the most famous of all Australian bushrangers. He was born in the Glenrowan area in 1855 and at age 15 had his first altercation (ссора) with the police. He was charged with helping bushranger Harry Power during robberies.
Shortly after, he was sentenced (приговорен) to 6 months hard labor for assault (нападение).
After his release (освобождение), he got a job working in a sawmill (лесопилка) and stayed out of trouble for a time. He developed a reputation as a rider and boxer during this time, and seemed to have learned his lesson well.
When the saw mill closed in 1876 he was accused of stealing a bull, and soon became a target of the police who took out their frustrations on his female relatives. Kelly's resentment (возмущение) of this harassment grew and he developed a hatred for the police, which lasted through his short lifetime.
Over the next few years the police tried many times to gain evidence on Kelly to get him behind bars (за решетку) until, on the 20th of June, 1880, Kelly with a gang comprised of his brother and others, attacked Glenrowan, cutting the telegraph wires. In the ensuing (последовавший) gun battle with police Kelly was shot in the knee and captured. On 11 November 1880, at the age of twenty-five, he was hanged in the Melbourne jail. His last words were "Such is life". Some 4,000 Melbourne people attended the hanging.
The suit of armor (доспехи, латы) which Kelly designed to protect himself in gun battles with police is now a part of Australian folklore. It comprised an iron helmet, something like an inverted bucket, with a slit (щель) for the eyes to see through.
Ned Kelly is an integral part of Australian folklore and expressions like "As game (храбрый) as Ned Kelly" have become part of the language. A statue of Ned Kelly wearing his famous armor will be found in the town of Glenrowan. He is buried in the Old Melbourne Jail.
'Mad Dan' Morgan
'Mad Dan' operated in the area around Culcairn on the Olympic Way between Albury and Wagga Wagga. He was notorious for his brutality and daring (отвага). A museum detailing his exploits will be found at Culcairn. After his capture the head was removed from his body and sent to Melbourne for testing to try and analyze the reason for his brutality and "insanity” (безумие).
Nikolai Nikolayevich (Nicholas) Miklouho-Maclay in Australia
Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay (1846–1888), a Russian ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist
Miklouho-Maclay left St Petersburg for Australia on the steam corvette Vityaz. He arrived in Sydney on 18 July, 1878. A few days after arriving, he approached the Linnean Society (Общество Линнея) and offered to organise a zoological centre. In September 1878 his offer was approved. The centre, known as the Marine Biological Station and located in Watsons Bay on the east side of the Greater Sydney, was the first marine biological research institute in Australia.
Miklouho-Maclay extended his research in Australia to study the Aboriginal people. He tried to revise Darwin's theory of the selection of the species and challenged the idea that certain races of people are born genetically superior.
In 1884 Miklouho-Maclay married Margaret Clarke (Margaret-Emma Robertson), the widowed daughter of five times premier of New South Wales, Sir John Robertson. In 1887 he left Australia and returned to St Petersburg to present his work to the Russian Geographical Society, taking his young family with him.
Exploring the interior
In 1860 Victoria and South Australia decided to send separate expeditions across the continent from south to north. The governor of Victoria called it 'a glorious race'.
The South Australian expedition was led by a Scotsman called John McDouall Stuart. An Irish policeman Robert O'Hara Burke was the leader of the Victorian expedition. His second-in-command (заместитель) was twenty-six year old William John Wills.
John McDouall Stuart Robert O'Hara Burke William John Wills
Great crowds gathered to farewell Burke and Wills when they left Melbourne on 20 August 1860. The party was very well-equipped. Enough food for two years had been packed on horse-drawn wagons and the backs of camels. Revolvers, rifles, eighty pairs of boots and thirty hats were taken. There were gallons of lime juice (лимонный сок) for the men and rum for the camels, fishing lines (рыболовная леска) and six tonnes of firewood (дрова), packets of seeds to plant. They also took 120 mirrors and a kilogram of beads (бусы) to give the Aborigines they were sure to meet.
Map of the Burke and Wills expedition