CRUISE SHIP TALKS
by Carol Baxter
Carol Baxter, the history detective, is a cruise ship "enrichment speaker" telling true tales of murder, mystery and mayhem.
Carol believes that cruise ship passengers wish to be entertained as well as educated. Thus, each session is a gripping fully-memorised storytelling performance.
Carol Baxter speaking on the Regent Seven Seas Explorer in 2024.
AVIATION TALKS
What really happened to Amelia Earhart?
In 1937 the world’s most famous aviatrix sets off across the Pacific Ocean on the final stretch of her world flight … and disappears. Did her empty fuel tanks force her to ditch into the ocean? Was she spying for the US government? Was she captured by the Japanese? Let's seek answers to this fascinating mystery.
The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller series
Why haven't you heard about Australia's first internationally-famous female aviator, Jessie Miller, who became a close friend of Amelia Earhart? All is revealed in this three-part talk.
Carol's book about Jessie Miller, The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller, is being turned into a TV series called The Aviatrix.
The Feisty Mrs Miller
Bored Australian housewife Jessie Miller joins World War I British aviator Bill Lancaster in a (hopefully) record-setting flight from England to Australia in 1927. But aloft in their open-cockpit biplane, events soon spiral out of control.
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
That Magnificent Gal in her Flying Machine
Australia’s first internationally famous aviatrix, Jessie Miller, travels to America in 1928 where she becomes a record-setting celebrity, the world's first female test pilot, and a close friend of Amelia Earhart. Then one day she disappears ...
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
Be Careful What You Wish For
As the Great Depression grips the globe, famous Australian aviatrix Jessie Miller finds herself the world’s most notorious scarlet woman and a central player in a sensational celebrity murder trial.
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
Mayday!
When a retired US Navy pilot sets off from San Francisco to ferry a Cessna to Sydney, little does he realise that his navigation system is about to fail. Soon, he’s lost over the deadly Pacific Ocean as darkness falls and his fuel tanks empty. Can a nearby Air New Zealand DC-10 save him?
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
INTERNATIONAL MARITIME TALKS
Shipwrecked
When Britain loses its greatest possession – America – and sends the First Fleet across the world’s oceans to establish convict colonies in Australia and Norfolk Island, little do they realise (or perhaps care) that these new outposts of the British Empire will soon be plunged into a life-threatening crisis.
NB. This talk could instead be called Danger! However, the title Shipwrecked keeps the passengers on the edge of their seats wondering if each dramatic shipping incident is about to become the shipwreck disaster foretold in the title.
The Catalpa series
Little do most people realise that Ireland's centuries-long crusade to achieve independence from their British overlords was critically boosted by a bold plan set in motion by some Irish-Americans.
Catalpa Conspiracy
In 1875, Irish-born Americans plot to help their homeland throw off the yoke of British oppression. Their plan to liberate Irish political prisoners – Fenians – from Australia's last convict colony is both audacious and perilous. Could it possibly succeed?
Catalpa Confrontation
The American whaler Catalpa docks in Western Australia in 1876 on a secret mission to pluck Irish political prisoners – Fenians – from the grasp of their British captors. But nothing goes according to plan.
The Mary Celeste series
Have you heard about the American ghost ship that became one of the world's greatest maritime mysteries? These two talks grippingly recount the discovery, the investigation, and the theories proposed to explain its abandonment.
The Mary Celeste Ghost Ship
Some call it the “greatest maritime mystery ever”. In 1872 the now-famous American brigantine Mary Celeste sails from New York for Italy carrying eight crew members, two passengers, and a cargo of alcohol. Soon it's found abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean. What did the investigators discover?
The Mary Celeste Mystery
After the Mary Celeste was found abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872, it became one of the world's greatest maritime mysteries. After 150 years of theories, speculations and outrageous claims, can we determine what really happened to the ship, the passengers and the crew?
TRUE HISTORICAL CRIME TALKS
Murder that Launched the Electric Telegraph
The explosion in new technologies in the 1800s included the revolutionary electric telegraph (sometimes nicknamed the Victorian internet). But few saw its potential – for anything! – until a murderer was caught by the wires.
From Carol's book The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable.
Bushranger Captain Thunderbolt
Join outlaw Frederick Wordsworth Ward – aka Captain Thunderbolt aka the Gentleman Bushranger – on a rollicking robbing ride across colonial New South Wales during the bushranging epidemic of the 1860s as he exposes the mostly British and Irish cops as bumbling incompetents.
From Carol's book Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady, which is being turned into a TV series called Thunderbolt and Bugg.
Australia's Largest Bank Robbery
aka
Breaking the Bank
Convicts tunnel into Australia’s gentlemen’s bank in 1828, delighting their fellow felons with their audacity and impudence. Can the authorities catch the thieves, reassert their imperious authority in this convict colony (of all places), and save it from a devastating economic collapse?
From Carol's book Breaking the Bank.
Black Widow
In 1888 – the year Jack the Ripper launched himself onto the world stage – Louisa Collins finds herself in Australia's spotlight. Nicknamed "The Lucretia Borgia of Botany Bay", she’s declared by some to be worse than the Ripper. But is she innocent or guilty of the arsenic deaths of her husbands?
From Carol's book Black Widow. Watch a video snippet from her "Black Widow" cruise talk (filmed 2018).
WORLD WAR 2 TALKS
Australia's Pearl Harbour
As the U.S. reels from the shock of the Pearl Harbour attack in December 1941 and Britain from the Fall of Singapore ten weeks later, Japanese bombers head towards Darwin. Are they planning an invasion?
GENERAL TALKS
It's About Time
As we cross the world's oceans changing time zones along the way, let’s explore the surprisingly strange story of how humans shackled time and came to establish the world’s fixed time zones that plague us on our travels.
For Want of a Clock ...
Shipwrecks, drowned or starving sailors, disasters that would continue to destroy ships, lives and trade opportunities while navigators couldn't determine their longitude at sea. How did the world solve the greatest technological challenge of its time?
IDEAS FOR FUTURE TALKS
Daring Escape
Mary Bryant, her babies and eight male convicts flee New South Wales convict servitude in 1791 by stealing a boat and sailing north. Will they elude their captors, survive the arduous voyage to the Dutch East Indies (Timor) and successfully conceal the truth?
(Talk should be completed in 2025)
SMITHY: They said he couldn't do it
Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew become the laughingstock of San Francisco in 1928 as they attempt the most arduous flight of all: across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean to Australia.
(Talk should be completed in 2025)
Captain Bligh's Disastrous Voyage
In 1789, Captain William Bligh and seaman Christian Fletcher face off in the world's most well-known shipboard uprising: the mutiny on the Bounty. What really happened during the infamous voyage?