Moreton Bay is a bay on the eastern coast of Australia 45 km from Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are used by commercial operators who provide seafood to market.
The Port of Brisbane coordinates large traffic along the shipping channel which crosses the northern section of the bay. The bay serves as a safe approach to the airport and reduces noise pollution over the city to the west of the runway. A number of barge, ferry and water-taxi services also travel over the bay.
Moreton Bay was the site of conflict between indigenous Australians and early European settlers. It contains environmentally significant habitats and large areas of sandbanks. The bay is the only place in Australia where dugong gather into herds. Many parts of the mainland foreshore and southern islands are settled.
Moreton Bay is described as lagoonal because of the existence of a series of off-shore barrier islands that restrict the flow of oceanic water. The tidal range is moderate at 1.5–2 m in range. Moreton Bay has an average depth of 6.8 m. This shallow depth lets light filter through to the seafloor, allowing an array of marine plants to grow which support a diverse range of fauna. The bay itself covers 1,523 km² and has a catchment area 14 times larger, covering 21,220 km². The waters of the bay are mostly blue in colour. Western parts of the bay are sometimes tinted green from algae, brown from suspended sediments or yellow-brown from humic runoff.
Edward "Ned" Kelly (June 1854/June 1855 – 11 November 1880) was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.
Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish convict father, and as a young man he clashed with the Victoria Police. Following an incident at his home in 1878, police parties searched for him in the bush. After he killed three policemen, the colony proclaimed Kelly and his gang wanted outlaws.
A final violent confrontation with police took place at Glenrowan on 28 June 1880. Kelly, dressed in home-made plate metal armour and helmet, was captured and sent to jail. He was convicted of three counts of capital murder and hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol in November 1880. His daring and notoriety made him an iconic figure in Australian history, folklore, literature, art and film.
In August 2011, anthropologists announced that a skeleton found in a mass grave in Pentridge Prison had been confirmed as Kelly's. Kelly's skull, however, remains at large.
Lionel Joaquin Paul Long, OAM (1939 – 1 January 1998) was an Australian country, Western, folk singer and a television actor.
Long became one of Australia's most successful and talented country/western/folk artists in the 1960s, recognised as one of EMI's most popular and successful artists releasing over a dozen LPs. More than a singer, Long was also a songwriter, guitarist, actor and artist. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia on 26 January 1993 with the citation, for service to the performing and visual arts.
The son of an accomplished violinist, Long was born in and grew up in the farming district of the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, New South Wales.
After briefly working as a jackeroo in the Hunter Valley, Long's family relocated to Sydney where he attended Hawkesbury Agricultural College, studying commercial art. He learnt to play the guitar with his long-time friend, Gary Shearston. Both young men had a fondness for country/folk music and shared song verses at the Long family home at Rose Bay.
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success was as a solo singer. Throughout his life Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed. He performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, his enthusiasm for music, and relationship trials. Denver's music appeared on a variety of charts including country & western, the Billboard Hot 100, and adult contemporary, in all earning him 12 gold and 4 platinum albums with his signature songs "Sunshine on My Shoulders", "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Leaving on a Jet Plane", "Rocky Mountain High", "Annie's Song", and "Calypso".
Denver further starred in films and several notable television specials in the 1970s and 1980s. In the following decades he continued to record, but also focused on calling attention to environmental issues, lent his vocal support to space exploration, and testified in front of Congress to protest censorship in music. He is known for his love of the state of Colorado, which he sang about numerous times. He lived in Aspen, Colorado, for much of his life, and influenced the governor to name him Poet Laureate of the state in 1974. The Colorado state legislature also adopted "Rocky Mountain High" as one of its state songs in 2007. He was an avid pilot, and died while flying his personal aircraft at the age of 53. Denver was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s.
The Brothers Four are an American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle, Washington, known for their 1960 hit song "Greenfields".
Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, where they were members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity in 1956 (hence the "Brothers" appellation). Their first professional performances were the result of a prank played on them in 1958 by a rival fraternity, who had arranged for someone to call them, pretend to be from Seattle's Colony Club, and invite them to come down to audition for a gig. Even though they were not expected at the club, they were allowed to sing a few songs anyway, and were subsequently hired. Flick recalls them being paid "mostly in beer."
They left for San Francisco in 1959, where they met Mort Lewis, Dave Brubeck's manager. Lewis became their manager and later that year secured them a contract with Columbia Records. Their second single, "Greenfields," released in January 1960, hit #2 on the pop charts, and their first album, Brothers Four, released toward the end of the year, made the top 20. Other highlights of their early career included singing their fourth single, "The Green Leaves of Summer," from the John Wayne movie The Alamo, at the 1961 Academy Awards, and having their second album, BMOC/Best Music On/Off Campus, go top 10. They also recorded the theme song for the ABC television series Hootenanny, "Hootenanny Saturday Night," in 1963. They also gave a try at "Sloop John B", released as "The John B Sails".
One Sunday morning as I went walking
By Brisbane Waters I chanced to stray
I heard a convict his fate bewailing
As on the sunny riverbank he lay
I am a native of Erin's Ireland
But banished now from my native shore
They stole me from my aged parents
And from the maiden whom I do adore
I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie
At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains
At Castle Hill and the cursed Toongabbie
At all these settlements I've been in chains
But of all places of condemnation
And penal stations in New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I have found no equal
Excessive tyranny each day prevails
For three long years I was beastly treated
And heavy irons on my legs I wore
My back from flogging was lacerated
And oft times painted with my crimson gore
And many a man from downright starvation
Lies mouldering now underneath the clay
And Captain Logan he had us mangled
All On the triangles of Moreton Bay
Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews
We were oppressed under Logan's yoke
Till a native black lying there in ambush
Did deal this tyrant with his mortal stroke
My fellow prisoners be exhilarated
That all such monsters such a death may find
And when from bondage we're liberated