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unusual facts about convicts



1788 in Great Britain

17 February - The uninhabited Lord Howe Island is discovered by the brig HMS Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Ball, who is on his way from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with convicts to start a penal settlement there.

1804 in Australia

4 March – The Castle Hill convict rebellion, also known as the Battle of Vinegar Hill, takes place: 200 convicts, mostly Irish, rebel.

1830 in Australia

23 September - The Bathurst Rebellion begins outside of Bathurst, New South Wales, following the escape of a group of convicts known as the 'Ribbon Gang' under the leadership of convict-servant Ralph Entwistle.

Battle of Alcatraz

They then released about a dozen convicts including Sam Shockley and Miran Thompson.

Warden James A. Johnston now called upon the expertise of two platoons of Marines under the direction of General "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell to guard the general population of convicts and to take the cell house from the outside.

Brazil Red

The plot of this veritable epic is set in 1555, on a small island in the Guanabara Bay of Rio de Janeiro, where an odd French expeditionary force, made up of sailors, craftsmen, priests, ex-convicts and a Quixotic knight, has just landed.

Canada Bay

Imprisoned at Longbottom Stockade (which was located at what is now Concord Oval), the convicts broke stone for the construction of Parramatta Road and collected oyster shells for making lime.

Caning in Singapore

A judicial caning scene is featured in the film in which one of the three convicts (played by Henry Thia) receives his caning sentence of six strokes.

Castle Hill convict rebellion

The rebellion culminated in a battle fought between convicts and the Colonial forces of Australia on 5 March 1804 at Rouse Hill, dubbed the Battle of Vinegar Hill after the Battle of Vinegar Hill of 1798 in Ireland.

Civil Brand

She attempts to move in with her cell mate Nikki Barnes (N'Bushe Wright), who is presumed to be the leader amongst the convicts, but is denied and instead lives with Lil’ Mama (Lark Voorhies), a 17-year old pregnant convict who is deeply involved in Christianity and befriends Frances.

Clonoulty

Boorowa, New South Wales (the Tipperary of the South) was settled by Europeans who were mainly Irish convicts transported from Clonoulty after political activity against the British in 1815.

Convenience store crime

To address this issue, stores used training material provided in part by the National Association of Convenience Stores such as the six security workshops in 1971, including the "Why Hold Up Convenience Stores?" workshop, featuring a panel of six ex-convicts — including Ray D. Johnson, who became the first maximum-security prisoner to escape from Folsom Prison.

Convict Lake

A posse, from Benton, led by Deputy Sheriff George Hightower, encountered the convicts near the head of what is now Convict Creek.

Convicts in Australia

Fears that France would lay claim to the land prompted the Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling, to send Major Edmund Lockyer, with troops and 23 convicts, to establish a settlement at King George Sound.

In April 1848, Charles Fitzgerald, Governor of Western Australia, petitioned Britain to send convicts to Western Australia because of labor shortages.

Criminal punishment in Edo-period Japan

For crimes requiring moderate punishment, convicts could be sent to work at labor camps such as the one on Ishikawa-jima in Edo Bay.

It was also common for female convicts to be sentenced to serve terms working as slaves and prostitutes in walled Red Light Districts, most notably Yoshiwara.

Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar

The Supreme Court of India on 21st January 2014 commuted the death sentence of 15 death row convicts on account of delayed execution and on account of mental health of the convicts.

Farmer's Daughters

The convicts (with their leader, George, played by Spalding Gray who would later become famous for his mainstream acting and monologue work) continue on to the parents' house and stop them in mid-intercourse.

Flipper's New Adventure

He flees by motorboat to the Bahamas, where he witnesses a vacationing British family of Sir Halsey Hopewell (Tom Helmore), being taken hostage by some recently escaped convicts.

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

In 1826 Major Edmund Lockyer was sent to establish a military base with the aim to deter convicts, whalers and sealers and this first military outpost lasted five years.

George de Cuevas

In addition to classic dances, Hightower's performances included Piège de Lumière by John Taras, the troupe's choreographer and balletmaster, in which she danced the role of a butterfly in a tropical forest who enchants a group of escaped convicts.

George Farquhar

The 1987 play, Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker, revolves around the story of 18th-century Australian convicts attempting to put on Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. Wertenbaker's play is based on a novel by Thomas Keneally.

Gone with the Pope

The movie tells the story of four ex-convicts who journey to Rome to attempt to kidnap the Pope, planning to charge a ransom of "a dollar from every Catholic in the world."

Incarceration in Florida

The 1995 law requiring convicts to serve 85% of their sentence and Zero tolerance have all contributed to lengthening prisoners sentences in Florida.

Island of the Fishmen

When several of these convicts meet unfortunate ends at the hands of the titular fishmen, Claude and the other survivors flee into the jungle, only to encounter the sadistic Edmond Rackham (Richard Johnson) and his beautiful captive Amanda Marvin (Barbara Bach).

James Mudie

Mudie responded by attacking and criticising several people: he charged Watt with serious misdemeanours, attacked Roger Therry for defending the mutineers at their trial and criticised Bourke for showing acts of leniency and what Mudie perceived to be favouritism towards convicts.

John Towill Rutt

Concern for the reformers Thomas Muir, Thomas Fyshe Palmer and William Skirving led him to visit them as convicts on board the hulks, when awaiting transportation, and he sent papers and pamphlets to them in New South Wales.

Josiah Spode

Samuel's son Josiah emigrated to Tasmania where he held a position as Controller of Convicts.

My Mother the Carjacker

The next day, as the bus transfers Mona and other female convicts to a federal prison, Homer and Bart trick the bus into pulling over by changing a sign overhead to display a warning of a snowstorm ahead (despite the perfect weather).

Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa

Among those released in 1992 were also death convicts like Barend Strydom and Robert McBride from the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Nicholas Devine

Cavan, Ireland (also spelt Divine) was superintendent of convicts for Newtown, New South Wales.

Pearling in Western Australia

This led to recruitment from the convicts on the "Native Prison" on Rottnest Island.

Pease Porridge Hot

Pease Pottage is a small village in West Sussex, England which, according to tradition, gets its name from serving pease pottage to convicts either on their way from London to the South Coast or from East Grinstead to Horsham

Ralph Clark

He and the convicts' experiences were later the subject of a nove, The Playmaker, by Thomas Keneally, and a play, Our Country's Good, by Timberlake Wertenbaker.

Richard Hickock

Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock (June 6, 1931 – April 14, 1965) was one of two ex-convicts convicted of murdering four members of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas on November 15, 1959, a crime made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.

St. Peter's Church, Portland

The mosaic within the church is known to have been the work of female convicts, notably Constance Kent, who was serving a life sentence in HM Prison Parkhurst.

Taylor Auerbach

Auerbach also broke Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson's now infamous tirade at a group of Sydney paparazzi, in which he compared Australians to convicts.

Viper Island

Viper Island is near Port Blair in Andaman district in the Andaman Islands, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India and was the site of the jail where the British used to imprison convicts and political prisoners.

Wild 7

In the wake of rising criminality and terrorist activities in Japan against Japanese nationals, the Japanese National Police Agency has no choice but to authorize the mobilization of a special Counter-terrorist Motorcycle unit consisting of reformed convicts, ranging from simple thugs, individuals forced into prison for simple petty trouble and former Yakuza henchmen and leaders to combat armed criminals and terrorists.

William Nowland

William Nowland (September 1804 – April 28, 1884) was the son of Second Fleet convicts Michael Nowland and Elizabeth Richards, and the discoverer of Nowlands Gap, the "gateway" to the Liverpool Plains and first road into the Hunter Region.

William Street, Brisbane

Also in the area is the Commissariat Store which was built by convicts in 1829, making it one of Brisbane's oldest surviving buildings.

Yeronga, Queensland

In 1823 the first Europeans passed through the Brisbane region, being the former convicts, then timber getters, Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnigan and Richard Parsons.


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