[MonaroSS]

Originally Posted by chinamonty

Yeah well there is some food for thought in this thread. America doesn't remember that Australia was the world home of motion pictures in the 30's. Even the English admitted that. History can be very sellective when it is written. Articles like this serve to keep the facts on record.

Hi chianmonty,

I believe that Australia also had the first banked oval car racing track in the world. It was near Sydney at the beginning of the 1900's I believe and was made of wood. Also, as you are so far from home I thought I'd list some Aussie Firsts for you.

From www.palindrome.com.au/firsts

Australian Firsts and Inventions

First place in the world to have a secret ballot in elections (1856)

First Place in the world to give women the vote. (1894)

Torrens Title. An Australian invented the worlds first method of land registration. Now in use by many countries around the world.

First country in the world to beat America in it America's cup.

Only country to have attended every modern Olympic games.

The first country to employ skiing as a sport. (1863)

The Australian crawl. Until the 1890's competetive freestyle was done with the head out of the water. (Remember how Tarzan used to swim in the movies?) Australian Richard Cavill popularised it and enabled it to be accepted in world class meetings.

The bionic ear, a device that enables some deaf children to hear.

Flexible wine casks... the bag in the box.

The boomerang. Ancient weapon of the aboriginies. Other cultures have throwing sticks but none came back to the thrower if it missed the target.

The Notepad. In the whole history of paper, it had been sold and used in single sheets until in 1902 JA Birchall thought it would be a good idea to stack a pile of half sheets together, back it with cardboard and glue one end. Making the world's first notepad.

The Electric Drill was the invention of Arthur James Arnot, who patented it in 1889.

Postage stamps. The world's first pre paid postage system was introduced at Sydney in 1838.

The world's first refrigeration plant was an Australian invention of 1858.

To our collective shame, the worlds first bathing beauty contest was held in Australia in 1920.

The famous "black box" flight recorder for recording aeroplane movements was invented in Australia in 1958.

Also in 1958 the worlds first regular 'round the world' airline service was begun.

The inflatable aircraft escape slide, which becomes a raft if the aeroplane ditches in water was an Australian invention of 1965.

The Automatic letter sorting machine - 1930

Two stroke lawn mower.

The rotary hoist washing line.

Lithium as a treatment for manic depression.

Latex gloves 1945

The underwater torpedo, Louis Brennan 1874

The tank (1912 - Lance de Mole)

Paper machine gun belt - dramatically reduced gun jamming while firing.

The flagpole at Parliament house in Canberra is the largest aluminium object in the world.

Kalgoorlie in WA is the worlds largest electorate 2,255,278 sq km

The Australian Labor Party is the oldest surviving labor party in the world. (1891)

The worlds largest cattle property is Strangeray Springs in S.A. over 30,000 sq km



And from www.avcal.com.au/html/resource/australian_firsts

Some Australian Firsts in Science and Innovation

1838 Pre-paid postage World first issued by NSW Post Office.

1843 Grain stripper John Ridley & John Bull, South Australia. Strips grain head from stalk and delivers it into a bin for winnowing.

1850 Refrigeration plant Geelong publisher, James Harrison, built world's first mechanical refrigeration plant.

1876 Stump-jump plough Robert Bowyer Smith from South Australia's Mallee country developed a plough that could jump over stumps and stones, instead of being caught and damaged by them.

1882 Stripper harvester Conceived by Hugh Victor McKay from Drummartin, Victoria when just 17 years old. Harvesting machine that can strip, thresh, winnow and bag grain in one continuous operation.

1884 Box kite Sydney aeronautical inventor, Lawrence Hargrave, conducted experimental flights with box kites, pioneering the way for heavier than air flight.

1885 Telephane Henry Sutton, Victoria. Forerunner of the television.

1886 Windmill James Alston built the first all-steel circular windmill as a source of power for lifting underground water to the surface

1889 Electric drill Arthur James Arnot from Melbourne patented the world's first electric drill.

1889 Radial rotary engine Howard Hargrave developed an engine with revolving cylinders attached to propellor blades and powered by compressed air. It played a major part in the development of aviation in Europe.

1897 Differential gears David Shearer, South Australia, built a steam car with a differential inside left rear wheel hub.

1898 Teleprinter Donald Murray, Sydney, invented the teleprinter for recording messages onto a tape.

1903 Froth flotation process Charles Potter and Guillaume Delprat, NSW, developed a process for separating minerals from rock by flotation.

1905 Thrust bearing A.G.M. Michell invented the tilt-pad thrust bearing which revolutionised thrust technology.

1906 Feature film The world's first feature length film, more than one hour long, The Story of the Kelly Gang was made in Australia and screened in Melbourne.

1906 Surf-lifesaving reel Invented by Lyster Ormsby, first Captain of the Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club. First person to be rescued was Charlie Smith in 1907. He later became the famous aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

1907 Xerography Professor O.U. Vonwiller at The University of Sydney developed a dry-copy imaging process, the forerunner of Xerox copying.

1910 Hume pipe Walter Hume invented the spun concrete pipe, made using a centrifugal process which expels the water and makes a dense, strong pipe.

1913 Automatic totalisator George Julius invented a system to display odds and automatically calculate dividends for race meetings.

1924 Car radio The first car radio was fitted to an Australian car built by Kellys Motors in New South Wales.

1925 Electric record changing salonola Tasmanian Eric Waterworth invented the stepped centre spindle later used in record changers worldwide.

1925 Pedal wireless Alfred Traeger from Adelaide invented a simple radio transceiver powered by a pedal generator.

1925 Latex gloves Developed by Eric Ansell. His company introduced disposable medical gloves in 1964. Now world's largest producer of latex gloves.

1928 Flying doctor service Dr Kenyon Welsh and pilot, Arthur Affleck began operating the first flying doctor service out of Cloncurry, Queensland.

1930 Letter sorting machine Built by A B Corbett, an engineer with Post Master General's Department in Sydney.

1934 Utility vehicle The utility vehicle, with a front like a car and a rear like a truck was designed by Lewis Brandt at the Ford Motor Company in Geelong, Victoria.

1935 Penicillin Sir Howard Florey grew the mould detected by Fleming, extracted the penicillin drug, refined and tested it.

1946 Castors George Shepherd invented the dome shaped castor with an oil trap to keep the working parts permanently lubricated.

1952 Atomic absorption spectrophotometer Sir Alan Walsh of the CSIRO invented a precision instrument for the high-speed analysis of trace quantities of metallic elements in solids or liquids.

1953 Solar hot water Developed by R N Morse at CSIRO in Victoria.

1956 T-VASIS visual landing system Developed by Aeronautical Research Laboratory, a set of light patterns on either side of the runway shows if the plane is on the correct landing approach.

1958 Black box flight recorder Dr David Warren from Melbourne invented the black box voice and instrument data recorder.

1965 Inflatable aircraft escape slide Jack Grant from Qantas invented the inflatable aircraft escape slide, which doubles as a raft.

1965 Wine cask Angoves in South Australia developed an airless-flow method of packaging wine in a plastic bag. Later fitted with dispensing tap by Wynns in 1969.

1970 Variable ratio rack and pinion steering Australian engineer Arthur Bishop developed variable ratio rack and pinion steering now used extensively in world automobiles.

1971 Interscan Invented by Brian O'Keefe and Dr Paul Wild, the microwave landing guidance system is now the international standard for instrument approach landing.

1979 Bionic Ear Professor Graeme Clark from the University of Melbourne developed the Cochlear implant, a device which restores a measure of hearing to the profoundly deaf.

1980 Wave-piercing catamarans Developed by Phillip Hercus and Robert Clifford of Incat in Tasmania. High speed passenger ferries more efficient and comfortable.

1981 Earth leakage circuit breaker Developed by Adelaide based Gerard Industries.

1984 Frozen embryo baby The first frozen embryo baby was born at the Queen Victoria Medical Centre in Melbourne.

1984 Continuous self-cleaning micro filtration A group of engineers and scientists led by Dr Doug Ford invented continuous self-cleaning micro filtration.

1985 Gene shears CSIRO scientists, Wayne Gerlach and Jim Haseloff discovered a way of preventing harmful genes in plants and animals from doing their work.

1985 Solar Cells Professor Martin Green breaks the elusive 20% efficiency barrier for silicon solar cells

1988 Polymer bank notes The CSIRO developed the world's first plastic-laminated bank notes, which provide enhanced security and longer life.