Lasseters Legacy

Lasseters Legacy
Author: Steven Elliott
Publisher: Balboa Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2020-10-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1504322983

The Lasseter legend is well known in Australia, or at least it was when I was a younger man. The story goes that a man named Harrold Lasseter whilst journeying across the desert from Alice Springs to the west coast around 1900 reportedly discovered a fabulously rich reef of gold. Nothing was done about the discovery until many years later in the 1930’s when Lasseter mounted an expedition to relocate the fabulous reef, an expedition that resulted in his death and no reef. Since that time many people have ventured into the desert in search of the reef with no success. This book details a geologists quest for the reef and his own fabulous gold find which become embroiled in criminal conspiracy and action. Of course the hero geologist triumphs and a World class series of gold mines is established. It should however be noted that the author believes that Lasseters gold reef never existed.

Lasseter’s Reef

Lasseter’s Reef
Author: Bill Decarli
Publisher: Boolarong Biographies
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2021-09-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1922643068

Fact or myth? Harold Bell Lasseter and his claim of finding a vast gold-bearing reef in Central Australia has continually been surrounded in mystery. Yet his ill-fated death in the Australian outback, where the land is unforgiving to the careless and the foolhardy, is relatively undisputed. Despite Lasseter taking secrets to a lonely desert grave in 1931, the story of the elusive gold reef has become a holy grail for explorers from near and far. One such explorer is Vietnam veteran Bill Decarli, who has spent the best part of forty years unravelling one of Australia’s greatest mysteries. On his maiden voyage to the outback in 1991, instead of heading towards Western Australia like other diehard explorers, Bill reversed his map and headed east towards Queensland. It was there that he struck upon the infamous gold reef, one that Lasseter had never laid eyes on, yet some how had been made aware of its existence. Based on significant new insights, and with a further nine trips to the reef, the key to putting all the pieces together, for Bill, was a man who barely left any trace of his own existence — until now. A story of adventurous hearts, honesty and resolve, in this new twist, Bill unearths how Lasseter’s claim was another man’s story, the exact location of the reef and how the reef stands to have a bright future.

History's Greatest Lies

History's Greatest Lies
Author: William Weir
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 161673437X

Get the real facts you weren’t taught in school and learn how these myths have survived for so long. Discover the stories behind history’s greatest lies and how—and why—the world’s biggest whoppers have survived textbooks and lesson plans for years. For instance, did you know the conquistador Hernán Cortés wasn’t as bloodthirsty as they say? Neither were the Goths, who were actually the most progressive of the Germanic tribes. Or, that a petty criminal with a resemblance to John Dillinger was probably assassinated instead of the notorious bank robber? In History’s Greatest Lies, Weir sets the record straight through a fascinating examination of historical lies and myths and the true stories behind them. Each chapter pinpoints a misconception held as common truth in history. For example: Emperor Nero did not fiddle as Rome burned Paul Revere had plenty of help in his midnight ride In terms of prisons, the Bastille wasn’t all that bad Weir explains why each lie persevered in our minds through ulterior motives, responsibility shirking, or exaggerations. You’ll also discover the common threads that make up these falsehoods: the scapegoats, the spin needed to cast undeserving in a better light, and the frightful oversimplification of facts. Praise for History’s Greatest Lies “Weir takes no prisoners—and tells no lies—in his continuously surprising and always fascinating new book. Great falsehoods have shaped history even more than great truths; the enduring fascination of this highly original volume is discovering how much of what we accept for fact is just plain wrong.” —Joe Cummins, author of The War Chronicles: From Chariots to Flintlocks and History’s Greatest Untold Stories

America's Film Legacy

America's Film Legacy
Author: Daniel Eagan
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 848
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0826429777

Collection of the five hundred films that have been selected, to date, for preservation by the National Film Preservation Board, and are thereby listed in the National Film Registry.

The A to Z of the Discovery and Exploration of Australia

The A to Z of the Discovery and Exploration of Australia
Author: Alan Day
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2009-06-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 081086326X

This engaging reference examines the history of, the search for, and the discovery of Australia, taking full account of the evidence for and the speculation surrounding possible earlier contacts by the Ancient Egyptians, Arabs, and Chinese seamen. Day brings the expeditions to life, expressing the desires that drove great sea captains deeper into turbulent waters searching for caches of spice, silks, and precious metals. Covers a wide variety of topics, including _ Seamen from eight nations _ The recovery of storm wrecked ships _ Diplomatic treaties _ Priority of discovery disputes _ Military and civil explorers and surveyors _ Topographical features _ Geographical terms and places _ Rivers and river system

Gold

Gold
Author: Iain McCalman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2001-03-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521805957

Throughout history, gold has been the stuff of legends, fortunes, conflict and change. The discovery of gold in Australia150 years ago precipitated enormous developments in the newly settled land. The population and economy boomed in spontaneous cities. The effects on both the environment and indigenous Aboriginal peoples have been profound and lasting. In this book, a team of prominent historians and curators have collaborated to produce an innovative cultural history of gold and its impact on the development of Australian society.

Rebecca Harding Davis

Rebecca Harding Davis
Author: Rebecca Harding Davis
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2001
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780826513847

This is the annotated edition of novelist/journalist Rebecca Harding Davisís 1904 autobiography, Bits of Gossip, and a previously unpublished family history written for her children. The memoirs are not traditional autobiography; rather, they are Davis's perspective on the extraordinary cultural changes that occurred during her lifetime and of the remarkable--and sometimes scandalous--people who shaped the events. She provides intimate portraits of the famous people she knew, including Emerson, Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Ann Stephens, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Horace Greeley. Equally important are Davis's commentaries on the political activists of the Civil War era, from Abraham Lincoln to Booker T. Washington, from the "daughters of the Southland" to Lucretia Mott, from Henry Ward Beecher to William Still.

In Search of the Never-Never

In Search of the Never-Never
Author: Ann McGrath
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2019-04-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1760462691

Mickey Dewar made a profound contribution to the history of the Northern Territory, which she performed across many genres. She produced high‑quality, memorable and multi-sensory histories, including the Cyclone Tracy exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the reinterpretation of Fannie Bay Gaol. Informed by a great love of books, her passion for history was infectious. As well as offering three original chapters that appraise her work, this edited volume republishes her first book, In Search of the Never-Never. In Dewar’s comprehensive and incisive appraisal of the literature of the Northern Territory, she provides brilliant, often amusing insights into the ever-changing representations of a region that has featured so large in the Australian popular imagination

Lasseter's Truth

Lasseter's Truth
Author: John Somerset
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1528994213

Jack Johnson is both lucky and unlucky. He survives the Vietnam war as a decorated helicopter pilot, marries the girl he left behind, and lands on his feet at Australia’s leading advertising agency, as a launch pad to spectacular success in the industry. Lucky, you might say. But luck can change. Jack is hit with a bogus criminal charge that chases him into the Great Australian Desert, in a quest for Lasseter’s fabled gold reef. But Jack is not the only one looking. A mysterious Chinese company called Triple Eight is buying up leases in the desert, and people are dying. Back home, he leaves not only a heartbroken wife but a beautiful and very determined daughter who has had her own problems. Expelled from Australia’s most prestigious public school, Tess Johnson vows to clear her father’s name. Lasseter’s Truth follows them both as they take on the odds. A story that ranges from the greed of the nineties, into a famous legend of Australia’s outback, with a compelling climax for our own time.

Reef Madness

Reef Madness
Author: Ernest Hunter
Publisher: ETT Imprint
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2022-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1922698288

It's a tale that doesn't seem like it would be a winner; an improbable proposition of a ten-mile reef of gold in the middle of the continent, a cabal of scheming investors, a farrago of poor planning and preposterous publicity, the fiasco of the prematurely celebrated triumph of technology over unforgiving terrain, a dead prospector - and no gold. The Central Australian Gold Exploration Company had it all, and Lasseter's Last Ride was in the stores before the final chapter of the real-life debacle had closed. It was a runaway success. Angus and Robertson sold three million copies of Ion Idriess' sixty-some books before he died in 1979. But in 1931, as he was working on what would be Lasseter's Last Ride, he was looking for an angle. In filling the gaps between the few facts with detailed descriptions of lands and people he had never seen, he found it - and promoted it - in Magic and Mystery. Idriess' fictional account of the last months of the life of Harold Bell Lasseter gave birth to a legend that has repeated in dozens of books, films, poems, podcasts, websites and exhibitions, is memorialised in the names of a highway and a casino, and has spawned searches and scams that continue nearly a century later. Idriess was probably surprised at its success and chose not to tamper with a winning formula when inconvenient material soon emerged. To do that he had to control the evidence and continued to insist on his narrative's unimpeachable adherence to fact. Reef Madness exposes how Idriess confected his first successful book and why the story of a failed prospector became a quintessentially Australian myth.