Reading time: 6 minutes
In April 1897, ten elected delegates from each of Australia’s colonies (except Queensland, which did not attend) gathered at Parliament House in Adelaide to map the route to nationhood, a Commonwealth of Australia.
Reading time: 8 minutes
The events of 1919 in Egypt show how the First World War played a crucial role in affecting the country’s history after the war ended.The interwar years saw a political dance take place between the British, Egyptian nationalist politicians, and the Egyptian king, who mistrusted the nationalists. It would take the upheaval of the Second World War and a further Egyptian Revolution in 1952 for the British to leave Egypt. The last British troops left in June 1956, although the Suez Crisis later that year saw their temporary return. While the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 did not secure Egypt’s freedom from foreign rule, it was an important step towards that goal. After 1919, the British had to consider the strength of Egyptian nationalism and deal with nationalist politicians. The Revolution was an inspiration for other anti-colonial struggles across Africa and Asia. The events of 1919 in Egypt show how the First World War played a crucial role in affecting the country’s history after the war ended. The negative effects of the war on Egypt unleashed powerful forces in Egyptian politics and society that could not be ignored.
Reading time: 7 minutes
Some of the earliest records of women playing cricket date back to 1745 in England and 1855 in Australia. Emily Whatman was part of a strong cohort of enthusiastic players from the 1890s. The snowballing interest in playing cricket had led women to form their own national cricket associations in England by 1926 and in Australia by 1931.
Reading time: 8 minutes
Journalists and policy analysts should spend more time reading history. If they did, they would be better placed to challenge the diplomats and politicians who casually requisition the past in order to lay claim to the present. We might also find our way towards policy prescriptions with real meat, as opposed to the all-too-common superficialities that substitute true engagement with historical context for little more than a doff and a wink at times gone by. Wisdom is in the files.
Reading time: 7 minutes
On this day, February 29, conversations the world over may conjure the name of Pope Gregory XIII – widely known for his reform of the calendar that bears his name.
The need for calendar reform was driven by the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar. Introduced in 46 BC, the Julian calendar fell short of the solar year – the time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun – by about 12 minutes each year.
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A review of the “grand and thrilling” book “In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire” by Laurence Bergreen.
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Reading time: 6 minutes
Andrew Leigh’s The Shortest History of Economics is the latest in a series of such histories, mostly focused on particular countries.
It begins with a striking mini-history of household lighting, focusing on the amount of labour required to produce the light now given off by a standard lightbulb: 58 hours for a wood fire, five hours for a candle based on animal fat, a few minutes for an early electric lightbulb, and less than one second for a modern light-emitting diode.
Reading time: 5 minutes
The first Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was prompted by the sinking of RMS Titanic. An attempt to establish basic rules became the most important international treaty about the safety of merchant ships and sea travel.
Reading time: 5 minutes
As the Age of Discovery slowly transitioned into the Age of Colonialism, the Spanish Empire, or more accurately its citizens, began importing African slaves into its new colonial holdings in North America and the Caribbean.
Only 30 years after Columbus had discovered the Americas, on the island of Hispaniola (now modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the very first colonial slave revolt occurred.
Reading time: 5 minutes
It is not the presence of convicts that matters, but the drastic distortion in the ratio of men to women that came with it. Convict men outnumbered convict women by roughly six to one. These numbers were even more skewed at the start of settlement. Convicts were joined by free migrants, especially in the second half of the 19th century, whose numbers also skewed heavily male. The ratio of men to women was consistently skewed in favour of males in Australia until the start of the first world war.
Reading time: 7 minutes
Marking the end of World War One, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by Germany on June the 28th 1919. Often cited as one of the leading reasons for Germany’s descent into fascism and the start of World War Two, the Treaty of Versailles along with the other treaties signed at the Paris Peace Conference vastly reshaped the borders and the economies of the European continent.
Reading time: 7 minutes
Levying war against the Crown was one of the key treasonable offences defined by the 1352 Treason Act. Yet, during the civil wars of the 1640s and again in the American Revolutionary War of the 1770s and 80s, those that levied war against the monarch not only avoided punishments for treason, but rejected royal authority and accused their kings of levying war – of committing treason – against the state.
