Read Andrew Leopold's presentation about King John of England and the Magna Carta (pdf – 25 slides).

The material covers all the shenanigans before and after the signing of The Magna Carta in 1215.

Read Andrew Leopold’s presentation on the Internet (pdf – 30 slides).

The material covers the history of both the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on the partitioning of Palestine (pdf – 44 slides).

This presentation starts with the Dreyfus affair of 1894 and ends with 1948 Arab–Israeli War, covering all the relevant matters in between.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on Australia and World War II (pdf – 23 slides).

This presentation covers a number of the important events including the Japanese midget submarines entering Sydney harbour, the 'Brisbane line' and the battle of the Coral Sea.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on momentous decisions: rabbits and Australia (pdf – 11 slides).

This presentation discusses how wild rabbits came to be in Australia. As Andrew says, "The wild rabbit infestation appears to have originated with the release of 24 wild rabbits by Thomas Austin for hunting purposes in October 1859, on his property, Barwon Park, near Winchelsea, Victoria."

In other posts, we we have ranged through Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey. Now read Andrew Leopold's presentation on UNESCO's World Heritage sites in the rest of Europe (pdf – 70 slides).

This presentation includes sites in France, Iceland, Malta, Norway and Romania.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on UNESCO's World Heritage sites in Italy (pdf – 29 slides).

This presentation covers the Dolomites in northern Italy, the cave dwellings in Matera in southern Italy, and the Nuragic civilisation of Sardinia.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on UNESCO's World Heritage sites in Greece (pdf – 64 slides).

This presentation focuses on Aigai, Knossos and Mycenae. It is one of a series of presentations on UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on interesting churches around the world (pdf – 25 slides).

The presentation covers a total of 22 churches.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on sacred places in Asia (pdf – 37 slides).

We roam through Afghanistan, Armenia, China, India and Sri Lanka.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on sacred places in continental Europe (pdf – 59 slides).

We roam through Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on sacred places in the British Isles (pdf – 38 slides).

The material covers the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on the 1925 ‘monkey trial’ (pdf – 16 slides).

In 1925, Tennessee passed a law that “That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or part by the public school funds of State, to teach any theory that denies the Story of Divine Creation as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

A teacher called John Scopes was accused of breaking this law. The resulting trial was a major media event.

Read Andrew Leopold's presentation on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (pdf).

Here’s something you might not know: as damaging as the earthquake was, fires that burned out of control afterwards were even more destructive. It has been estimated that up to 90% of the total destruction was the result of the subsequent fires.

Read Andrew Leopold’s presentation on the establishment of the Flying Doctor Service in 1928.

Read Andrew Leopold’s presentation on the bombing of Australia in World War 2.

According to an Australian Government website, from the first raid on 19th February 1942 until the last on 12th November 1943, Australia and its allies lost around 900 people, 77 aircraft and several ships. The Japanese lost around 131 aircraft in total during the attacks.

These items of weird news come from a 2011 book entitled The Mammoth Book of Weird News. Note that the material in that book is unsourced and cannot easily be verified.

Bazenheid, Switzerland, 2010

As he was backing his car while at the local recycling plant, an unfortunate Swiss driver hit the accelerator instead of the brake and plunged 9 metres down into a bunker. Apart from cuts and bruises, he had to suffer a further punishment when the dump bosses fined him $100 for leaving an 'inappropriate item' – namely, his car – in a recycling bin.

Nigeria, 2009

Police arrested a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.

Vigilantes captured the black and white goat, claiming it had been an armed robber who used black magic to change into a goat after he had failed in an attempt to steal a car.

A spokesman for the police said: “The goat is in custody. Witnesses saw some criminals attempting to rob a car. One escaped, while the other turned into a goat.”

The Romanian Soccer League, 2006

Someone called Marius Cioara, who played for second division team UT Arad, was sold to fourth division Regal Hornia for 15Kg of pork sausages. Talking of the transfer, a spokesman for Regal Hornia confirmed: "We gave up the team's sausage allowance for a week to secure him, but we are confident it will be worth it". However Cioara angrily declared that, because he was fed up with the sausage taunts, he was quitting football to work on a farm in Spain. Regal Hornia asked for the return of their sausages.

Serbia, 2004

A guest celebrating a wedding in Serbia fired a gun into the air, in accordance with national custom, and accidentally shot down a light aeroplane.

Wellington, Kansas, 1992

A woman was arrested for allegedly offering two men her husband’s prized collection of baseball cards if they would kill him.

The men informed the police and handed in the 10 cards that were to be a down payment for their killing him.

A deputy sheriff commented on the unusual method of payment: “That’s about as mean that a wife can get. The only thing lower would have been if she had offered his fishing and hunting gear.”

Virginia Beach, Virginia, 1981

A burglar entered a woman’s home while she was asleep.

He went to her bedroom and forcible covered her from head to foot will vanilla and chocolate cake frosting.

When she objected, he said that she should have known this would happen if she left her front door unlocked!

Nairobi, Kenya, undated

After removing a bean that was lodged inside a young girl’s ear, the physician asked for a payment of $6. When the parents were unable to pay, the physician pushed the bean back into the child’s ear.

Undated

A woman who owned a greyhound that kept finishing second took him to the vet who discovered it was short-sighted. Because it could only see as far as the animal in front, it never passed the leading dog. After it was fitted with contact lenses which enabled it to see the lure/hare, it became a winner.