As buyers flock to online retailers for Black Friday sales, we take a look back at a time when shopping wasn’t just for buying stuff. It was an EXPERIENCE 🛍️
Back in the early 1900s, shopping wasn’t seen as a glamorous leisure activity.
Until Selfridges came along.
Selfridges was the brainchild of American-born businessman Harry Gordon Selfridge.
Selfridge moved to London in 1906, but found the city’s department stores lacked the dazzling drama of their American rivals. He had bigger ideas.
He found a site on Oxford Street and, in 1909, opened a new kind of department store. On opening day, 90,000 people visited the store. Over the first week, visitor numbers topped one million.
The store opened with the motto “everyone is welcome”. Traditional Oxford Street stores mostly served a middle class clientele. But here, social divisions were blurred as the wealthy and the working class browsed side by side. Selfridges had a particularly popular ‘bargain basement’, which it claimed was “easier to enter… than to leave”.
It also offered shoppers leisure and socialising experiences, including a restaurant, rest areas, an American-style soda fountain and a library. It was “a city epitomised”, according to the Daily News.
Selfridges gave its customers glamour and entertainment – and kept them in the store for as long as possible.
And its still standing strong on Oxford Street over 100 years later. Read on to discover more about one of London's most iconic department stores: https://bit.ly/4i46GcG
"willing and ordaining that Degrees in Arts, Medicine, Law, Science and Music conferred by the University of Adelaide upon any person, male or female, should be recognised as academical distinctions and rewards of merit and be entitled to rank, precedence and consideration"
Early colonial Adelaide was shaped by the diversity and wealth of its free settlers, in contrast to the convict history of other Australian cities. It was Australia's third most populated city until the post-war era. It has been noted for its leading examples of religious freedom and progressive political reforms, and became known as the "City of Churches" due to its diversity of faiths. The city has also been renowned for its automotive industry, as well as being the original host of the Australian Grand Prix in the FIA Formula One World Championship from 1985 to 1995. Today, Adelaide is known by its many festivals and sporting events, its food and wine,[16] its coastline and hills, its large defence and manufacturing sectors, and its emerging space sector, including the Australian Space Agency being headquartered here. Adelaide's quality of life has ranked consistently highly in various measures through the 21st century, at one stage being named Australia's most liveable city, third in the world.[17] Its aesthetic appeal has also been recognised by Architectural Digest, which ranked Adelaide as the most beautiful city in the world in 2024.[18]
As South Australia's government and commercial centre, Adelaide is the site of many governmental and financial institutions. Most of these are concentrated in the city centre along the cultural boulevards of North Terrace and King William Street.
The approximate extent of Kaurna territory, based on the description by Amery (2000).
The area around modern-day Adelaide was originally inhabited by the Indigenous Kaurna people, one of many Aboriginal tribes in South Australia. The city and parklands area was known as Tarntanya,[19] Tandanya, now the short name of Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Tarndanya,[20] or Tarndanyangga, now the dual name for Victoria Square, in the Kaurna language.[21] The name means 'male red kangaroo rock', referring to a rock formation on the site that has now been destroyed.[22]
The surrounding area was an open grassy plain with patches of trees and shrubs which had been managed by hundreds of generations. Kaurna country encompassed the plains which stretched north and south of Tarntanya as well as the wooded foothills of the Mt Lofty Ranges. The River Torrens was known as the Karrawirra Pari (Red Gum forest river). About 300 Kaurna populated the Adelaide area, and were referred to by the settlers as the Cowandilla.[23]
There were more than 20 local clans across the plain who lived semi-nomadic lives, with extensive mound settlements where huts were built repeatedly over centuries and a complex social structure including a class of sorcerers separated from regular society.[24]
Within a few decades of European settlement of South Australia, Kaurna culture was almost completely destroyed. The last speaker of Kaurna language died in 1929.[25] Extensive documentation by early missionaries and other researchers has enabled a modern revival of both,[26] which has included a commitment by local and state governments to rename or include Kaurna names for many local places.[27][28]
19th century
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Australia Highway 1, known as the "Big Lap," is one of the longest highways in the world and extends mostly at the national level, encircling the entire continent.
Connecting seven Australian capitals, this route passes through key cities such as Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Perth, and Melbourne, and extends to Hobart in Tasmania via the Bass Strait. This route is not only an engineering feat but also offers a unique journey that encompasses the vast geographical and cultural diversity of Australia, establishing itself as essential for both national logistics and tourism.
