Reading time: 5 minutes
Cultures, customs and traditions change as time passes on, but sometimes this change is brought about with force from outside rather than evolution from within. One such example is how Gaelic culture was forced out of much of the Scottish Highlands during a process known as the Clearances. In this article, we’ll give an overview of what the Clearances were and how they changed Scotland, and even the world, forever.
Reading time: 8 minutes
On July 25 1882, Inspector Frederick Secretan, the head of Victoria Police’s Detective Branch, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. In the wake of the Kelly Gang fiasco, during which Ned’s infamous band of outlaws had managed to elude the police until the bloody shootout at Glenrowan, a royal commission had been called to inquire into Victoria’s police force. Secretan’s detectives had been singled out for particular criticism. Now, as he fronted the commissioners, the inspector sought to explain the methods he deployed for detecting crime in Melbourne and across Victoria.
Reading time: 8 minutes
In the increasingly urbanized world, few people still ride horses for reasons beyond sport or leisure. However, on horseback, people, goods and ideas moved across vast distances, shaping the power structures and social systems of the premechanized era. From the trade routes of the Silk Road or the great Mongol Empire to the equestrian nations of the American Great Plains, horses were the engines of the ancient world.
In this lesson we will be learning about the two alliances that clashed in WW1 and the events that unfolded during that time.
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Reading time: 7 minutes
Video games love historical settings: from adventure games like the Assassin’s Creed series, to action games like Call of Duty and its sequels, to strategic sagas like Europa Universalis; there’s no shortage of examples. Can computer games be more than entertainment, though, and can they actually teach their audience about what happened in the past?
In this lesson we will be learning about the aftermath of the destruction from WW1 and the rebuilding of Europe.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
A look at Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life by Philippe Girard
the definitive biography of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, leader of the only successful slave revolt in world history.
Reading time: 20 minutes
Australian airmen and sailors played a pivotal role defending Malta. Their actions defending the beleaguered island fortress helped turn the tide of the war. Your visit to the places Australian servicemen and servicewomen lived, served and fought on Malta begins as soon as you step off the aircraft at Malta’s international airport.
This airport began life as RAF Luqa, which was one of the busiest airfields during the defence of Malta.
Rachel Wood, Australian National University Radiocarbon dating has transformed our understanding...
Read MoreThis lesson we will be learning about Genghis Khan and his devastating military campaigns that led to massive expansions of the Mongol Empire.
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Reading time: 12 minutes
One of the most unusual forces ever to join the fighting in Europe: the 25,000 Brazilian soldiers and pilots of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force. An idea born out of political necessity, the “Smoking Snakes” played a brief, important, and fascinating role in the fighting in Europe.
Reading time: 10 minutes
For three long years, as Britain and her allies first clung to survival and then clawed victory out of the face of overwhelming odds, a single island held out hope in the Mediterranean. Malta, just 17 miles long and 9 miles wide, with its neighboring island of Gozo had long stood as a fortress in the sea for whoever could hold it. Over the centuries, Malta had withstood Moorish, Turkish, and French sieges and fallen under a variety of civilisations dating back thousands of years.
In this lesson we will be learning about the Axis powers of the Second World War.
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Reading time: 2 minutes
Land—whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city—is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Built by Amenhotep III and then used by his grandson Tutankhamen, the ruins of the city were an accidental discovery. In September last year, Hawass and his team were searching for a mortuary temple of Tutankhamen.
In this lesson we will be learning about the balance of power and the events that unfolded after the Congress of Vienna.
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Reading time: 4 minutes
Here’s an interesting fact: if you didn’t pay your insurance premiums in 17th and 18th century London, firefighters would simply let your house burn, even if they were on the scene. This fact has been repeated many times by many people, so it must be true, right? Or is it?
In this lesson we will be learning about the significant battles that turned the tide against the Axis forces during WW2.
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Before dawn on the morning of June 4 1629, the Batavia, a ship...
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