The Transformers Collection Count & Historical Events Game

[GoktimusPrime]

So you're just 15 years old and you have a collection of 2000 Transformers?!? It's taken me 31 years to amass my current collection of 1940! Wow!

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay, recently acquired a few more toys, but also decided to remove some toys that I'm currently selling from my count. So now I'm on: 1941 (UCM)!

1941:
* The Holocaust begins.
* Japan bombs Pearl Harbour.
* You think Australian politics is crazy now? Australia had three Prime Ministers within one year! Robert Menzies, Arthur Fadden and John Curtin!

[GoktimusPrime]

1942:
* Japan invades the Dutch East Indies, and are actually welcomed by the local Indonesians who have grown tired of living under Dutch colonial rule (the enemy of my enemy...). Many Indonesians actually welcomed the Japanese with open arms. The Dutch aren't so keen and execute a Scorched Earth strategy, deliberately destroying much of the East Indies' infrastructure before leaving.
* A Jewish girl turns 13 and begins documenting her life. Her family flee to the Netherlands and hide in an attic. Her name was Anne Frank.
* In Papua New Guinea, Australian and Japanese forces battle each other in the Kokoda Track Campaign. Many local Papua New Guineans assisted Australian forces and came to be known as the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels,' including carrying wounded Australian soldiers under heavy enemy fire. In spite of this, the Australian government has not officially recognised the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' contribution and many Aussie lives saved (e.g. better foreign aid to improve local health, education in villages around the Kokoda track etc.). On a darker note, Australian forces also bullied local PNGs into only assisting them, and any locals accused of assisting the Japanese were brutally punished, even publicly executed in front of children.

[GoktimusPrime]

1943:
* One of the worst battles in human history finally concludes.
* Jacques Cousteau and Émile Gagnan invent the Aqua Lung, the precursor to the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA), which itself is a precursor to rebreather technology used in spacesuits.
* After forming minority government in 1941, John Curtin begins to serve another term as Prime Minister after the Labor Party defeated the Coalition in the greatest landslide victory in Australian history. This guy's totally a keeper.

[GoktimusPrime]

Sold a toy, which brings me back down to 1942, so...

• Little Golden Books begins!

• Disney's Bambi hits cinemas

• December 1941's attack on Pearl Harbour saw a law that prohibited the production of toys containing "critical materials" such as iron, steel, zinc and rayon if it made up more than 7% of that toy's weight. This law remained in effect until the end of WWII in 1945. This saw a rise in the popularity of play things such as:
  * board games
  * model kits
  * paper craft toys (e.g. dolls, train sets etc.)
  * puzzles
  etc.

[GoktimusPrime]

Power Battler Vehicon has become my 1945th Transformer. So let's look at the year of 1945:

• Adolf Hitler and his newly married wife Eva Braun commit suicide as Russian forces approach the Führerbunker in Berlin. He is succeeded by Karl Dönitz (President) and Joseph Goebbels (Chancellor). Dönitz is trialed and imprisoned for 10 years. Goebbels kills his six children via poisoning, then he and his wife committed suicide.

• Japan becomes the first and only country to be attacked by nuclear weapons, as atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan unconditionally surrenders to Allied Forces, ending WWII.

• John Curtin dies while still incumbent as Prime Minister. Ben Chifley is elected as the successor of the Labor Party, thus becoming the 15th Prime Minister of Australia

[Jaxius._]

Grim year 1945 was

[Jaxius._]

So you're just 15 years old and you have a collection of 2000 Transformers?!? It's taken me 31 years to amass my current collection of 1940! Wow!

Well having parents and relatives that collected helps. So does army building.

[GoktimusPrime]

1949:
* Australian citizenship comes into being.
* Interracial marriage is outlawed South Africa under apartheid.
* The Neptunian moon of Nereid is discovered.

[GoktimusPrime]

1950:
* The Korean War begins
* British engineer and author Nevil Shute, who migrated to Australia, publishes his novel, A Town Like Alice.
* Kyoto's beautiful Kinkakuji (Gold Pavilion Temple) is burnt to the ground.