Raymond Brownell (17 May 1894 – 12 April 1974) was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and a World War I flying ace. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at the outbreak of World War I and served in the Gallipoli campaign before transferring to the Western Front. Awarded the Military Medal for his actions during the Battle of Pozières, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in 1917. Moving with his squadron to Italy, he was awarded the Military Cross and credited with shooting down 12 aircraft. After the war, Brownell returned to Australia and was group captain at the outbreak of World War II. Establishing the RAAF base in Singapore, he returned to Australia in 1941 and was appointed to lead No. 1 Training Group. He was Air Officer Commanding Western Area for over two years, then led the No. 11 Group on Morotai. Retiring from the RAAF in 1947, Brownell became a partner in a stockbroking firm. He died in 1974; his autobiography was published posthumously. (Full article...)
The Red Cape, also known as Madame Monet or The Red Kerchief, is an oil-on-canvas snowscape by the French Impressionist artist Claude Monet. Painted around 1868 to 1878, it depicts Monet's wife, Camille, passing outside a window dressed in a red cape as seen from inside a house. Monet created the painting while living in Argenteuil and the solitary setting at his home there allowed him to paint in relative peace, as well as spend time with his family. It is Monet's only known snowscape painting featuring Camille. The Red Cape is now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio, United States.
A series of explosions at a depot storing 1,500 tonnes of obsolete munitions forces the evacuation of some 2,000 people in Sofia and the closure of the Bulgarian capital's main airport.
... that George Jenkins(pictured) was described in 1901 as "the happiest, proudest, most important and most worried individual" in Australia, but 90 years later as "a lazy, dictatorial, unctuous opportunist"?
.jpg)
