Category: Military History

Adventurous identities: intersex soldiers and cross-dressing women at war

Adventurous identities: intersex soldiers and cross-dressing women at war

by | Jul 7, 2025 | | 0

Reading time: 4 minutes
Pulaski is a hero of the struggles for Polish and American independence. He is credited with saving George Washington’s life in battle and with establishing the first American cavalry force. According to the documentary, DNA testing has confirmed a female-appearing skeleton is indeed Pulaski’s. This new evidence is the first hint that Pulaski – who seems to have lived as male from childhood – was anything other than a cisgendered man.

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Menzies’ call on Vietnam changed Australia’s course

Menzies’ call on Vietnam changed Australia’s course

by | Jun 23, 2025 | , | 0

Reading time: 4 minutes
In 1965, Australia was involved in two crises in Southeast Asia, one in Vietnam and the other in Indonesia. The connection between the two was vital to Menzies’ decision to increase our involvement in Vietnam. Having already committed a battalion to Malaysia to support resistance to the Konfrontasi policy of Indonesia’s Sukarno government, the logical next step for Menzies was to look to Vietnam. He did this with the support of his Cold War warrior and minister for external affairs, Paul Hasluck. They decided to send an Australian battalion to South Vietnam, partly to ensure continued American interest in the region.

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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?

by | Jun 9, 2025 | , , | 0

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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Will tourism transform the way Australians remember the Vietnam War?

Will tourism transform the way Australians remember the Vietnam War?

by | May 15, 2025 | , | 0

Reading time: 4 minutes

More than 300,000 Australians visit Vietnam annually. With the ongoing growth of tourism, it is likely that tourists’ experiences at Cu Chi and other war-related sites in Vietnam will increasingly influence how we commemorate this conflict, and encourage Australians to see it from both sides of the frontline.

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The History of Gunpowder: From Elixir of Life to the Revolution of Warfare

The History of Gunpowder: From Elixir of Life to the Revolution of Warfare

by | May 8, 2025 | , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
One of the most famous materials in history, gunpowder is largely responsible for European dominance in the 20th Century, the fall of Constantinople’s impregnable walls, and much more.
Yet this devasting and destructive powder did not materialise into rifles and cannons in Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries. Rather, it was discovered initially in China, several hundred years prior, by alchemists searching for, ironically, the elixir of life.
So how did gunpowder go from a powder for immortality in 9th Century China, to the fiery fuel of guns in Europe and the Middle East over 500 years later?

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Why we are still living with the legacy of Waterloo – that ‘most bloody battle’

Why we are still living with the legacy of Waterloo – that ‘most bloody battle’

by | May 5, 2025 | , , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Our views of war are sanitised today. In an age of professional armies trained for increasingly technical tasks, few of us have witnessed combat, much less taken part in it. In that vein, commemorations of the 200th anniversary of Waterloo will focus on the battle’s strategic significance. There are, though, individual accounts that give us a glimpse into what sword fights and cavalry charges must have been like – and the deadly consequences of defeat.

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