Australia's War in the Mediterranean

What was the Sykes-Picot agreement, and why does it still affect the Middle East today?

What was the Sykes-Picot agreement, and why does it still affect the Middle East today?

Jun 16, 2025

Reading time: 7 minutes
While this may be true, Sykes-Picot is still emblematic of how consequential European colonial ambition was in the Middle East. And while the borders outlined in the agreement did not eventuate, Britain and France still managed to get most of the territory they wanted, with little consideration of local populations. The Sykes-Picot agreement is therefore one of many colonial projects that we are still feeling the ripples of today.

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Combat in the High Himalayas: the Sino-Indian War of 1962

Combat in the High Himalayas: the Sino-Indian War of 1962

Jun 11, 2025

Reading time: 13 minutes
There are corners of the map where the neat lines of national boundaries, so carefully laid and plotted over the modern era, begin to blur and bleed. Aksai Chin, the bleak “White Stone Desert” which sits just inside China’s western border, is one of these.

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The Thucydides Trap: Vital lessons from ancient Greece for China and the US … or a load of old claptrap?

The Thucydides Trap: Vital lessons from ancient Greece for China and the US … or a load of old claptrap?

Jun 9, 2025

Reading time: 5 minutes
The so-called Thucydides Trap has become a staple of foreign policy commentary over the past decade or so, regularly invoked to frame the escalating rivalry between the United States and China.

Coined by political scientist Graham Allison — first in a 2012 Financial Times article and later developed in his 2017 book “Destined for War” — the phrase refers to a line from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote in his “History of the Peloponnesian War,” “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”

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Weekly History Quiz No.270

Weekly History Quiz No.270

Jun 6, 2025

1. Which country fought alongside the French and British against the Egyptians during the Suez crisis?
Try the full 10 question quiz.

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What stone tools found in southern tip of Africa tell us about the human story

What stone tools found in southern tip of Africa tell us about the human story

May 29, 2025

Reading time: 6 minutes Stone tools. Our ancestors made them, some people still make them, and many species of extinct humans made them too. For more than three million years, fractured pieces of hard rock provided past people with a means to extract their livelihood from the environment. Because stone is plentiful and cheap to acquire, stone tools were made in large numbers. And because it is so durable, it usually outlasts other traces of human activity. With the passing of time, everything from our thoughts and languages to clothes, food waste and even our own bones are inevitably erased. But stone tools have remained.

History Audiobooks

A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World – Audiobook

A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World – Audiobook

On his first journey Cook mapped the east coast of Australia, on his second the British Admiralty sent him into the vast Southern Ocean. Equipped with one of the first accurate chronometers, Cook pushed his small vessel not merely into the Roaring Forties or the Furious Fifties but become the first explorer to penetrate the Antarctic Circle, reaching an incredible Latitude 71 degrees South, just failing to discover Antarctica.

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History Guild would like to acknowledge the Boonwurrung people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are based, and pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.