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ONCE upon a time, if you wanted a beer you went to Queanbeyan, simple. Thanks to King O’Malley, the federal Minister for Home Affairs of the day, Canberra was a dry town from 1911 to 1929. King O’Malley… a fierce teetotaller, who called grog “stagger-juice”. O’Malley, a fierce teetotaller, who called grog “stagger-juice” and abstained from it, persuaded his cabinet colleagues to ban, in 1911, the granting of liquor licences in the Federal Capital Territory. Queanbeyan resident Phill Hawke, who is researching O’Malley’s “flamboyant” life, says that at the time it wasn’t illegal to possess or drink alcohol in the ACT, you just couldn’t sell it. ....
Christmas is rapidly approaching and you are in a panic about what to get for that special someone. Rest assured that you are not alone. General William Sherman found himself there in 1864 when he had not had time to go shopping for his commander-in-chief. His solution was to wire President Abraham Lincoln with the following: “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.” The president apparently appreciated his gift. When Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, felt stymied about a gift for his favorite wife, he started thinking creatively. The result was the Taj Mahal. There was the trifling drawback that he also intended it to serve as her tomb, but hey, there is nothing wrong with a dual-purpose gift. ....