Social and Cultural History Archives

Scientists at work: Public archaeologists dig before the construction crews do

by History Guild | Feb 17, 2025 | Historical Sites, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 8 minutes
I’m the director of the Public Archaeology Facility, a research center specializing in cultural resource management. Our mission is to identify, evaluate and preserve significant sites, train students to be professional archaeologists and share our results with the public. We can work on up to 100 projects a year. Since our inception in 1972, the center has discovered more than 3,500 archaeological sites.

South Korea’s March to Democracy: from the Gwangju Uprising to the June Democratic Struggle

by History Guild | Feb 13, 2025 | Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
When did South Korea become a democracy? A quick Google Search may give you many different answers.
You may be wondering, what’s the real answer? As with most things, the truth is complex. More recent events with the attempted, and failed, political coup attempt from then-sitting President Yoon Suk-yeol in 2024 shows just how ingrained South Korea’s recent history of political turbulence is.
This is the history of South Korea’s democratic struggle.

Glastonbury: archaeology is revealing new truths about the origins of British Christianity

by History Guild | Feb 10, 2025 | Historical Sites, History News, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Many Christians believe that Glastonbury is the site of the earliest church in Britain, allegedly founded in the first or second century by Joseph of Arimathea. According to the Gospels, Joseph was the man who donated his own tomb for the body of Christ following the crucifixion. By the 14th century, it was popularly believed that Glastonbury Abbey had been founded by the biblical figure of Joseph. The legend emerged that Joseph had travelled to Britain with the Grail, the vessel used to collect Christ’s blood. For 800 years, Glastonbury has been associated with the romance of King Arthur, the Holy Grail and Joseph of Arimathea. Later stories connected Glastonbury directly to the life of Christ.

“Delusive Quackery”: How a Brazen Medical Scam led to Real Scientific Advancements

by History Guild | Feb 6, 2025 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
As the eighteenth century came to a close, Dr. Elisha Perkins appeared poised for a truly successful career. He had served his young nation as a surgeon in the Revolutionary War, and even established a private hospital in his own home. He was respected by his colleagues, and stood as a member of the Connecticut Medical Society, which his father had founded.
Still more exciting: in the 1790s, Perkins believed himself to have made an astonishing discovery. During tooth extractions, he noted that patients experienced a brief reduction in pain when their inflamed gums were touched with a metal instrument.

Of course Australia was invaded – massacres happened here less than 90 years ago

by History Guild | Jan 26, 2025 | Advocacy, Historical Sites, History News, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 4 minutes Much has been made of the University of New South Wales’ “diversity...

Our savage history of fighting bushfires

by History Guild | Jan 20, 2025 | History News, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Bushfires are tragically fought by families, neighbours, volunteers, and professional firefighters, all risking their lives. Facing a wall of roaring flames is a terrifying prospect, too often with the direst consequences. The deaths of these individuals must be honoured as continual reminders of the fragility of the human condition against nature, but also of the heroism that is often remembered posthumously.

History’s Greatest Misconceptions Debunked

by History Guild | Jan 16, 2025 | Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
From Napoleon being short to slaves building the pyramids, there are hundreds of common historical misconceptions floating around.
Sometimes deliberate propaganda attempts created by political enemies, and occasionally simple misunderstandings of the truth, people love to recite interesting facts and titbits about history, but not all of them are completely true.
Here are some of the most famous misconceptions about history you may have heard of, along with some surprising accurate revelations.

The Myth of the Fall of the Roman Republic: A Misconception You (Probably) Share with Ridley Scott

by History Guild | Dec 30, 2024 | Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 10 minutes
The Roman Republic had an empire long before it had an emperor, and even after it gained an emperor, it did not cease to be a republic. The changes that occurred in the Roman state and the roles of its institutions over the centuries were not the result of sudden political upheaval. Instead, they reflected a gradual process of adjustment and evolution – sometimes influenced by the needs of the elites, sometimes by the demands of the people, and often by external factors.

Where did the new year’s resolution come from? Well, we’ve been making them for 4,000 years

by History Guild | Dec 26, 2024 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
As we welcome in the new year, a common activity across many cultures is the setting of new year resolutions. New year represents a significant temporal milestone in the calendar when many people set new goals for the year ahead. Here in Australia, over 70% of men and women (over 14 million Australians) are reported to have set at least one new year resolution in 2022.

60 years old, the Yirrkala Bark Petitions are one of our founding documents – so why don’t we know more about them?

by History Guild | Dec 23, 2024 | Advocacy, Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 17 minutes
Each of these declamatory objects speaks back to power, a creative act of resistance to a perceived political injustice. Like the stories of the creation, presentation and reception of the Eureka Flag and the women’s suffrage petition, the story of the Bark Petitions takes us to a time when democratic inclusion, when basic entitlements of citizenship, could not be taken for granted by certain sections of the body politic.

Revisiting the “Knickerbocker” Origin Story of Santa Claus

by History Guild | Dec 16, 2024 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
In December 1953, Dr. Charles W. Jones, a University of California professor hailed as one of the world’s foremost scholars on St. Nicholas of Myra, gave a speech to the New-York Historical Society that was published the following year in the society’s quarterly under the title “Knickerbocker Santa Claus.” The premise of Jones’ speech was that author Washington Irving invented Santa Claus in an 1809 satire, A History of New York, that was purportedly written by a completely fictional Dutch historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker. “Without Irving there would be no Santa Claus,” Jones wrote. “Santa Claus was a parasitic germ until the Knickerbocker History in 1809; after 1809 Santa Claus spread like a plague which has yet to reach its peak.”

A History of Drinking with the World’s Oldest Pubs

by History Guild | Dec 11, 2024 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
Alcohol is one of humanity’s oldest inventions.
Our earliest evidence of humans brewing and drinking alcohol comes from 8th Century BCE China – over 9,000 years ago.
Across the world, from China and India to Mesopotamia and Europe, we’ve brewed many different types of alcoholic drinks, and almost as old as the drinks are the places we drink in.
While most of the world has a long history of drinking establishments, Europe is the home of the pub, which comes from the Roman tradition of establishing tabernaes or wine shops everywhere they went.

Category: Social and Cultural History