Reading time: 8 minutes
With howling westerly winds and in freezing rain, the unforgiving waves push ships closer to the treacherous rocks of the merciless Cornish coastline. The crew has travelled miles with precious cargo, desperately trying to right their course with no modern navigation. In an attempt to save the vessel and themselves, they begin to throw goods overboard.
History Guild Quiz – IntermediateSee how your history knowledge stacks up. Want to know more...
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Reading time: 5 minutes
The idea of hanging up decorations in the middle of winter is older than Christmas itself. Decorations are mentioned in ancient descriptions of the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which is thought to have originated in the 5th century BC.
Reading time: 10 minutes
In December 1792, detachments of the 2nd Dragoon Guards across the Southwest of England staged spectacles of hate. A dummy was paraded through the towns on an ‘ass’ led by a hangman, the crowd of soldiers and residents encouraged to subject it to ‘every possible mark of indignity’. At the customary place of execution, it was burned amidst repeated exclamations of ‘“God Save the King”, and constant cheering and huzzahring’. The dummy was an effigy, of the radical writer Thomas Paine.
1. How long was the Inca Empire in existence?
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Reading time: 5 minutes
The export of German and US tanks to Ukraine is not without risk, both real and symbolic. In purely military terms, well-trained, well-led and motivated Ukrainian tank crews operating the Leopard 2 or M1 Abrams will be better protected, have better firepower and be more manoeuvrable than their Russian counterparts. Provided the Ukrainians can cope with the fact that they will need different ammunition, spare parts and possibly fuel they can make a difference, significantly enhancing Ukraine’s capability to defend its territory.
By Richard James 1941: Great Britain is fighting for its very existence. France has surrendered...
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Reading time: 7 minutes
It was a sudden and unexpected announcement. Late last week, the chairman of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, declared the governing council had decided to develop a much broader, a much deeper depiction and presentation of the violence committed against Indigenous people, initially by British, then by pastoralists, then by police, and then by Aboriginal militia.
Reading time: 9 minutes Eminent Australian anthropologist Peter Sutton and respected field...
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Reading time: 4 minutes
Why do humans like to get drunk? Scientists have written off our affinity for intoxication as an evolutionary mistake, a trick that humans have developed for gaming our biological reward system into releasing little shots of pleasure for no good reason. This, however, is not a satisfying explanation. It should puzzle us more than it does that we have devoted so much ingenuity and concentrated effort to getting drunk.
Researchers have generally thought that only prehistoric males hunted, however a recent...
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Reading time: 4 minutes
In 1663, Europeans called Australia ‘New Holland’, New Zealand was considered one land mass and Tasmania had only been sighted by Abel Tasman – it would be another hundred years before Europeans would set foot there.
Reading time: 6 minutes The new Netflix series Shadow and Bone opens with cartographer Alina...
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History Guild General History Quiz 79See how your history knowledge stacks up! Want to know more...
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Reading time: 6 minutes
It’s important to take historically-based art, whether a painting that condenses a battle or the acclaimed Broadway smash Hamilton: An American Musical, with a grain of salt. Rather than expecting these works to look at history through the factual lens of a primary source, they should be taken as an altered view of history designed to generate the interest of the masses.
Reading time: 6 minutes.
with the 1963 film of that name starring Steve McQueen, reffering to, of course, a mass escape by Allied prisoners during the second world war. But this title might more appropriately be applied to the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk between May 27 and June 4 1940.
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When war broke out in the Northern Hemisphere in 1939, the British called upon their Australian allies for support. The Australian government responded by sending five navy destroyers – HMAS Stuart, Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager and Waterhen.
Reading time: 5 minutes
In September 1941 the British press enthralled its readers with a story of naval heroism that the public, battered by German bombing and strict rationing, was crying out for: a tale of survival against the odds.
1. Which country manufactured the largest battleships ever made?
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OKLAHOMA IS – AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN – NATIVE LAND Reading time: 6 minutes Some Oklahomans...
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