World War Two
Main articles: Australian home front during World War II, and Military history of Australia during World War II
During World War II, although Canberra was officially the capital, most of the military and civilian administration was centered in Melbourne, and the city's economy benefited from wartime full employment and the influx of American service personnel (including General Douglas MacArthur, who made his headquarters in Collins St).
Organised crime was rife, with gang fights in the streets of Collingwood and underworld figures like Squizzy Taylor legendary. The Labor Party was much less successful in Melbourne than it was in Sydney and other Australian cities. Labor did not form a majority government in Victoria until 1952.
Read more about this topic: History Of Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“The grand principles of virtue and honor, however they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same the world over: and where these principles are concerned, the right or wrong of any action appears the same to the uncultivated as to the enlightened mind.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)