Doggerland: The Lost World Beneath the North Sea
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Madison Moulton Looking out at the North Sea – the body of...
Read MoreEstimated reading time: 5 minutes By Madison Moulton Looking out at the North Sea – the body of...
Read MoreReading time: 6 minutes
In contemporary culture, the word Viking is generally synonymous with Scandinavians from the ninth to the 11th centuries. We often hear terms such as “Viking blood”, “Viking DNA” and “Viking ancestors” – but the medieval term meant something quite different to modern usage. Instead it defined an activity: “Going a-Viking”. Akin to the modern word pirate, Vikings were defined by their mobility and this did not include the bulk of the Scandinavian population who stayed at home.
Reading time: 6 minutes
When the small Greek town of Kuturla burned in 1943, teenage Sara Fortis had been on the run from German occupying forces for two years already. From the raw age of fourteen, she had hidden her Jewish status and worked for underground resistance movements as a nurse and teacher. But when her sanctuary burned, when she was separated from her mother, Fortis was no longer willing to hide. She was no longer willing to limit her resistance to ‘women’s work.’
Reading time: 20 minutes
Some forms of Indigenous fishing inevitably became lost as Traditional Owners were dispossessed and disenfranchised of their lands and fisheries following the expansion of the colonial frontier post-1788.
The Benghazi handicap is the name Australian soldiers gave to their race to stay ahead of the German Afrika Korps in Libya, 1941. They won the race, but the reward was just to be besieged in the city of Tobruk for 241 days, the longest siege in British military history. In this article, we use the words of veterans themselves to describe these events, and how the Rats of Tobruk experienced the siege.
Read MoreReading time: 5 minutes
When one hears the word “Valentine”, many things may spring to mind, but the feeling of love is sure to be among them; from greeting cards, chocolates, romantic dinners, and anonymous declarations of amorous affection, Valentine’s Day has indeed become an entrenched part of many Western cultures.
Reading time: 5 minutes
We’ve made enough concrete to cover the entire surface of the Earth in a layer two millimetres thick. Enough plastic has been manufactured to clingfilm it as well. We annually produce 4.8 billion tonnes of our top five crops and 4.8 billion livestock animals. There are 1.4 billion motor vehicles, 2 billion personal computers, and more mobile phones than the 7.8 billion people on Earth.
Reading time: 5 minutes
The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the American Civil War, and Gen. George Pickett’s infantry charge on July 3, 1863, was the battle’s climax. Had the Confederate Army won, it could have continued its invasion of Union territory. Instead, the charge was repelled with heavy losses. This forced the Confederates to retreat south and end their summer campaign.
Reading time: 8 minutes
Early in the Second World War, when Britain’s empire stood alone, one man was responsible for the early successes which broke the myth of Axis invincibility. His name was Richard O’Connor.
HUBRIS AND MISCALCULATION: THE FAILURE OF THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION Estimated reading time: 6...
Read MoreReading time: 11 minutes
The 1959 Cuban Revolution resulted in rule by a communist regime under Fidel Castro. This period also saw counter-revolutionaries forming anti-Castro movements, complicating the already tumultuous political landscape. In 1961 the United States would intervene with a force made up of Cuban exiles, the infamous ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion.
Reading time: 6 minutes
December 7 marks the 50-year anniversary of the Blue Marble photograph. The crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned mission to the Moon – took a photograph of Earth and changed the way we visualised our planet forever. Taken with a Hasselblad film camera, it was the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and is believed to be the most reproduced image of all time. Up until this point, our view of ourselves had been disconnected and fragmented: there was no way to visualise the planet in its entirety.
In this lesson we will be learning about the concept of a nation-state, the Westphalian system and it’s significance on European politics.
Read MoreIt has recently emerged that the Russian Navy used specially trained marine mammals, probably...
Read MoreReading time: 5 minutes Morale can make all the difference on the battlefield. On the 27th May...
Read MoreReading 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: 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: 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.
This lesson we will be learning about the Etruscans, which were a Mediterranean civilization during the 6th to 3rd century BCE.
Read MoreReading 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.