History Guild publishes articles that provide interesting insights into history. These articles cover political and economic history from across the world.
Young people remain ill-equipped to participate in Australian democracy
Reading time: 5 minutes Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited ...
Menzies’ call on Vietnam changed Australia’s course
Reading time: 4 minutes In 1956 Robert Menzies’ offered a Australian battalion to the South Vietnamese government. Prior to the prime minister’s ...
What was the Sykes-Picot agreement, and why does it still affect the Middle East today?
Reading time: 7 minutes Some national borders are determined by natural phenomena like seas, mountains and rivers. Most, however, are ...
The Thucydides Trap: Vital lessons from ancient Greece for China and the US … or a load of old claptrap?
Reading time: 5 minutes The so-called Thucydides Trap has become a staple of foreign policy commentary over the past decade ...
How historically accurate is the film High Ground? The violence it depicts is uncomfortably close to the truth
Reading time: 8 minutes The Australian film High Ground, set mostly at a mission in Arnhem Land in the 1930s, blends stories (and ...
The History of Gunpowder: From Elixir of Life to the Revolution of Warfare
Reading time: 6 minutes One of the most famous materials in history, gunpowder is largely responsible for European dominance in ...
Trump Administration’s Attempts to Curtail Academic Freedom
History Guild supports the Australian Historical Association's Statement in Response to the Trump Administration’s Attempts to Curtail Academic Freedom. The ...
What is suffragette white? The colour has a 110-year history as a protest tool
Reading time: 7 minutes 'Suffragette white' is proving to be a popular fashion choice for women who want to make ...
More than a century on, Gallipoli campaign should be more than just a symbol of futility
Reading time: 6 minutes By the horrific standards of the First World War, the ten-month Gallipoli campaign of 1915-16 was ...
The forgotten Anzacs: ‘honoured guests’ of the Sultan
Reading time: 7 minutes As we undertake our annual remembrance of Australians at war, some attention should be paid to ...
Does the Roman road network influence European prosperity even today?
Reading time: 5 minutes If there's one thing the ancient Romans are famous for, its their roads. The empire was ...
The Partition of British India: Timeline
Reading time: 7 minutes Track the key events during British colonial rule leading to the emergence of the independent nation-states ...
The 7 Largest Empires in History
Reading time: 8 minutes While very few exist today, the world’s history books are filled with hundreds of thousands of ...
Ukraine isn’t invited to its own peace talks. History is full of such examples – and the results are devastating
Reading time: 7 minutes Ukraine has not been invited to a key meeting between American and Russian officials in Saudi ...
South Korea’s March to Democracy: from the Gwangju Uprising to the June Democratic Struggle
Reading time: 7 minutes When did South Korea become a democracy? A quick Google Search may give you many different ...
What is Environmental History?
Reading time: 12 minutes Origins Environmental history is a rather new discipline that came into being during the 1960’s and ...
History’s Greatest Misconceptions Debunked
Reading time: 7 minutes From Napoleon being short to slaves building the pyramids, there are hundreds of common historical misconceptions ...
The First World War continues: Medina, Arabia, January 1919
Reading time: 6 minutes When you think of the First World War, you may think of the Western Front or ...
The Myth of the Fall of the Roman Republic: A Misconception You (Probably) Share with Ridley Scott
Reading time: 10 minutes At first glance, it could be said that few people have popularized Ancient Rome in recent ...
60 years old, the Yirrkala Bark Petitions are one of our founding documents – so why don’t we know more about them?
Reading time: 18 minutes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people. It ...
The Worst Predictions Throughout History
Reading time: 9 minutes It's often said that predicting the future is like betting against God. Despite this, humans have ...
The enduring lessons of the Iraq War
Reading time: 8 minutes The US-led overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq marked the beginning of a ...
Neutral and Nervous – A History of Sweden’s Now Broken 200-Year Streak of Neutrality
Reading time: 6 minutes For over 200 years, Sweden has been one of the few neutral states in Europe. From ...
Farmers or foragers? Pre-colonial Aboriginal food production was hardly that simple
Reading time: 6 minutes For almost ten years, debate has raged over the book Dark Emu by Aboriginal historian Bruce ...
THE 25,000-LI JOURNEY: INSIDE THE LONG MARCH, MODERN CHINA’S FOUNDING MYTH
Reading time: 13 minutes On 21 September 1949, Mao Zedong took to the podium in Huairen Hall, Zhongnanhai, a former ...
The Birth of Modern Iraq: A Historical Odyssey
Reading time: 6 minutes Mesopotamia, now located in the country of Iraq, has been home to some of Earth’s earliest ...
Who Would Be the Roman Emperor Today?
Reading time: 10 minutes The Roman Empire continues to fascinate the world and dominate many cultural aspects of modern Western ...
Birth of a nation: how Australia empowering women taught the world a lesson
Reading time: 20 minutes In February 1902 – just 13 months after the Australian colonies federated to become the world’s ...
The legacy of Empire: The Bengal Famine
Reading time: 4 minutes Does the Bengal Famine shape the way Indians view the British? Ever since I learned of ...
The Origins of the Commons in Britain
Reading time: 8 minutes Walking around any British town or village today, it's difficult to imagine that land might not ...
Cracking the Code: The Quest to Decipher the Indus Valley Script
Reading time: 5 minutes The Rosetta Stone laid the groundwork for our understanding of Ancient Egyptian language and culture when ...
How Australia became a nation, and women won the vote
Reading time: 6 minutes Maybe seven really is a magic number. 2017 certainly has a lot of tricks up its ...
The 1919 Egyptian Revolution
Reading time: 8 minutes Despite British troops not leaving Egypt until the 1950s, the first Egyptian Revolution actually happened in ...
Revealed: how women cricketers mended Australia’s relationship with Britain after Bodyline
Reading time: 7 minutes To combat the prodigious run scoring of Australian batting legend Don Bradman, the captain of the ...
Australia refused to endorse China’s claim to Taiwan in 1972 because it foresaw a time like this
Reading time: 8 minutes Journalists and policy analysts should spend more time reading history. If they did, they would be ...
Pope Gregory XIII gave us the leap year – but his legacy goes much further
Reading time: 7 minutes On this day, February 29, conversations the world over may conjure the name of Pope Gregory ...
IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM: FRANCIS DRAKE, ELIZABETH I, AND THE PERILOUS BIRTH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE – BOOK REVIEW
In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire by Laurence Bergreen ...
From micro to macro, Andrew Leigh’s accessible history covers the economic essentials
Reading time: 6 minutes Andrew Leigh’s The Shortest History of Economics is the latest in a series of such histories, ...
The Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
Reading time: 5 minutes The first Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was prompted by the sinking of ...
The Beginning of Rebellion: The Hidden History of the 1521 Santo Domingo Slave Revolt
Reading time: 6 minutes As the Age of Discovery slowly transitioned into the Age of Colonialism, the Spanish Empire, or ...
What Australia’s convict past reveals about women, men, marriage and work
Reading time: 5 minutes Success for women often comes at a cost. Award-winning, election-winning and high-earning women are more likely ...
The Treaty of Versailles: Brutally Unfair or Righteous Retribution?
Reading time: 7 minutes Marking the end of World War One, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by Germany on ...
Treason against the state: The execution of Charles I
Reading time: 7 minutes Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason ...
‘Habits of civilised life’: how one Australian State forced Indigenous people to meet onerous conditions to obtain citizenship
Reading time: 7 minutes Note of warning: This article refers to deceased Aboriginal people, their words, names and images. Words ...
Dockyard incendiarist: The tale of ‘John the Painter’
Reading time: 8 minutes Opposition to the British Crown during the American War of Independence took many forms, none more ...
Traps, rites and kurrajong twine – the incredible ingenuity of Indigenous fishing knowledge
Reading time: 20 minutes Standing on a ferry chugging across Sydney Harbour, it’s still possible to imagine the city as ...
“The Best Show That Was Ever Staged”: Charles Ponzi’s Scheme
Reading time: 7 minutes Having gambled away his life savings on the passage over, Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi arrived in ...
The Treason of Sir Thomas More
Reading time: 9 minutes Sir Thomas More was among the leading statesmen of the Tudor period and his legacy has ...
The Curious Creation of the Crusader States
Reading time: 7 minutes A major holy land for three of the world’s largest, most influential religions of Judaism, Christianity, ...
Virginia Hall, SOE Agent to CIA Pioneer
Reading time: 9 minutes Virginia Hall (1906–1982) was an American woman who served with the British Special Operations Executive in ...
A Brief History of West Papua: Indonesia’s Unwilling Territory
Reading time: 7 minutes Currently a province of Indonesia, West Papua is a region rich in cultural diversity and natural ...
In The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins dispenses with the myth Aboriginal people didn’t fight back
Reading time: 5 minutes First Nations people please be advised this article mentions colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
LAND: HOW THE HUNGER FOR OWNERSHIP SHAPED THE MODERN WORLD – BOOK REVIEW
Reading time: 2 minutes Land—whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city—is central to ...
THE FORGOTTEN WAR CRIMES OF FASCIST ITALY
Reading time: 14 minutes In just five short years, the combined forces of the Axis powers managed to commit atrocities ...
Why Aboriginal Australian ‘Ununiformed Warriors’ Qualify for the Australian War Memorial
Reading time: 5 minutes Last year, chair of the Australian War Memorial Kim Beazley called for First Nations “guerilla campaigns” ...
Shipwrecks of the Manila Galleons
Reading time: 8 minutes Huge ships filled with canons, gold, porcelain, silk, and other riches from Asia, the Manila Galleons ...
Why Did Britain Change its Stance on Slavery?
Reading time: 7 minutes By the 1730s, Britain was the largest slave-trading Empire in the world. It is estimated that ...
500 years after Ferdinand Magellan landed in Patagonia, there’s nothing to celebrate for its indigenous peoples
Reading time: 5 minutes Five hundred years ago, on March 31 1520, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan began a sojourn ...
How was law and order maintained in Britain before modern Policing?
Reading time: 6 minutes Although the police force may seem an integral part of our world now, the first statutory ...
Australia’s long dread of France in the South Pacific
Reading time: 13 minutes A striking duality drove Australia’s thinking about France in the 20th century. Expressed as a chant ...
The Mabo decision and native title
Reading time: 5 minutes On June 3 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the long-running ...
The debate on the origins of the First World War
Reading time: 5 minutes The way historians have viewed the causes of WWI has changed in the hundred years since ...
Fake news was a thing long before Donald Trump — just ask the ancient Greeks
Reading time: 5 minutes The idea of “news” is a pretty new thing. So is the concept of “fake news”, ...
A new narrative unfolds about South Africa’s protracted war in Angola
Reading time: 5 minutes The book A Far-Away War: Angola 1975 - 1989, about the war waged by apartheid South ...
How those found guilty of treason were punished
Reading time: 7 minutes In 1352 the crime of treason was defined for the first time in English law. But ...
ALL RIVERS LEAD TO ROME
Reading time: 7 minutes Never mind the roads, rivers were the arteries of the Roman Empire, carrying food, fuel and ...
Women, Parliament and Political Space
Reading time: 8 minutes This blog post marks the anniversary of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, which passed on 21 ...
FIVE GREAT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE FILMS: PART FIVE
Most history enthusiasts will eye the release of a new film on a historical topic somewhat skeptically, thinking ‘will they ...
Shapurji Saklatvala – British MP and agitator for change
Reading time: 4 minutes One of the first MPs of Indian heritage, Shapurji Saklatvala (1874–1936) was an agitator for change, ...
‘Wicked and seditious writings’ – Thomas Paine, Rights of Man and treason
Reading time: 7 minutes In December 1792, detachments of the 2nd Dragoon Guards across the Southwest of England staged spectacles ...
What contemporary feminism owes to Victorian textile workers in Glasgow
Reading time: 5 minutes As well as being Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow was its industrial heart. Central to the civic ...
How did 4th-century Roman coins end up in a medieval Japanese castle?
Reading time: 5 minutes The recent discovery of Roman coins in controlled excavations of a castle in Japan prompted the ...
Are we learning the wrong lessons from history?
Reading time: 7 minutes Can historians influence government policy? Should they? And, if so, what kinds of historical knowledge should ...
Treason against the state: America declares independence
Reading time: 6 minutes This is the second part of a two-blog series exploring treason against the state, as used ...
Tales from the Special Operations Executive: Operation Remorse
Reading time: 5 minutes It was ‘the biggest currency black market in history’, a secret operation under the auspices of ...
The “Madman Theory” Was Quintessential Nixon
Reading time: 6 minutes When H. R. “Bob” Haldeman first described Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” in his 1978 memoir, The ...
How the Gunpowder Treason was discovered
Reading time: 9 minutes On the night of 4 November 1605, a man calling himself John Johnson was found in ...
The End of History: Francis Fukuyama’s controversial idea explained
Reading time: 8 minutes In 1989, a policy wonk in the US State Department wrote a paper for the right-leaning ...
The story of HMT Empire Windrush (1930–1954)
Reading time: 5 minutes Next June will mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury ...
The dark history of slavery and racism in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period
Reading time: 7 minutes The anti-racism protest that started in the US has spread to Europe and the world. Protesters ...
A slave state – how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism
Reading time: 46 minutes In July 2021, Jack Dempsey, the mayor of Bundaberg, delivered an official apology for Northern Queensland’s ...
Pickett’s Charge: What modern mathematics teaches us about Civil War battle
Reading time: 5 minutes The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the American Civil War, and Gen. George ...
Slavers in the family: what a castle in Accra reveals about Ghana’s history
Reading time: 6 minutes As a Ghanaian archaeologist, I have been conducting research at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, Ghana. A ...
LUCKY DISCOVERIES OF LOST ANCIENT HISTORY
Reading time: 8 minutes Our knowledge of the ancient world owes a lot to chance discoveries. Here, we share the ...
A white supremacist coup succeeded in 1898 North Carolina, led by lying politicians and racist newspapers that amplified their lies
Reading time: 6 minutes While experts debate whether the U.S. Capitol siege was an attempted coup, there is no debate ...
Returning looted artefacts will finally restore heritage to the brilliant cultures that made them
Reading time: 6 minutes European museums are under mounting pressure to return the irreplaceable artefacts plundered during colonial times. As ...
Why there is no Kurdish nation
Reading time: 6 minutes Since U.S. troops left their region, roughly 180,000 Kurds of northeastern Syria have been displaced, and ...
A short history of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy – an indelible reminder of unceded sovereignty
Reading time: 6 minutes Often people think about the Aboriginal Tent Embassy as something historic, dating back to the 1970s ...
Spain’s Civil War and the Americans who fought in it: a convoluted legacy
Reading time: 9 minutes Eighty seven years ago this week, in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla, a group ...
The Roman ‘Brexit’: how life in Britain changed after 409AD
Reading time: 5 minutes Leaving a major political body is nothing new for mainland Britain. In 409AD, more than 350 ...
Spain’s new memory law dredges up a painful chapter of Spain’s often forgotten ties to Nazis
Reading time: 6 minutes Walking down a tree-lined street in the Poble Sec neighborhood of Barcelona, one might easily miss ...
What good is a new national cultural policy without history?
Reading time: 5 minutes Alongside much else that is being revised, reimagined or recast by the Albanese government, Australia is ...
Regimes Around the World are Manipulating History and Threatening Historians
Reading time: 6 minutes The past is back at the center of today’s politics. The invasion of Ukraine by Russian ...
IBM and Auschwitz: New Evidence
Reading time: 13 minutes By Edwin Black. This article is drawn from Mr. Black's updated German paperback edition published in ...
America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis
Reading time: 7 minutes When United States servicemen stormed the beaches in Normandy, most of them had an essential item ...
The other assassination of November 1963
Reading time: 5 minutes If you weren’t living as a hermit in the desert, you’d have been well aware that ...
‘Excessive severity’: Treason and the Grenadian Rebellion of 1795
Reading time: 9 minutes Late in the night of 2 March 1795, a rebellion broke out on the Caribbean island ...
A love story that threatened the Commonwealth: Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams
Reading time: 7 minutes A relatively unknown name in contemporary Britain, Sir Seretse Khama left an indelible mark on southern ...
WHY IS CHARLES CURTIS’S LEGACY SO COMPLICATED?
Reading time: 6 minutes Since the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, journalists, scholars, and activists have celebrated Harris ...
Historians are Being Asked to Spin Simple Stories of Nationalism; The Past Won’t Cooperate
Reading time: 7 minutes North Macedonia, an EU candidate since 2005, and Bulgaria, an EU member since 2007, are neighbors ...
90 years ago, Yorta Yorta leader William Cooper petitioned the king for Aboriginal representation in parliament
Reading time: 4 minutes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased ...
PUTIN’S PAST: The Return of Ideological History and the Strongman
Reading time: 8 minutes From Russian Constitutional Court chairman Valery Zorkin, to former Russian culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, to presidential ...
Uncovering the roots of racist ideas in America
Reading time: 5 minutes Donald Trump proclaimed during his inaugural address, “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no ...
How Woodrow Wilson’s propaganda machine changed American journalism
Reading time: 8 minutes When the United States declared war on Germany 100 years ago, the impact on the news ...
German spies in South Africa during WWII – The enemy within
Reading time: 5 minutes The story of the intelligence war in South Africa during the Second World War is one ...
The absurd irony of Putin’s invocation of Stalingrad
Reading time: 5 minutes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address in Volgograd on 2 February, in which he sought to draw ...
What Vietnam and Iraq should teach Canberra
Reading time: 7 minutes If we learn more from losses than wins, then the Canberra system has much to gain ...
Australia, Indonesia and Confrontation
Reading time: 5 minutes Perhaps an old-fashioned diplomatic historian might add to the valuable comments by Peter Jennings, Peter McCawley ...
Roman Britain was multi-ethnic – so why does this upset people so much?
Reading time: 4 minutes Nil nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere,nec scire utrum sis albus an ater homo. I’m not ...
A tale of subterfuge, rivalry, Napoleon and snakes: how the NSW State Library came to own the map of Abel Tasman’s voyages
Reading time: 6 minutes Every year, tens of thousands of New South Wales State Library patrons walk past a stunning ...
Armenia-Azerbaijan: an intermittent war as a way of life
Reading time: 5 minutes Clashes in the border territories between Armenia and Azerbaijan around Nagorno-Karabakh have recurred in recent times, ...
The Roman dead: new techniques are revealing just how diverse Roman Britain was
Reading time: 6 minutes Our knowledge about the people who lived in Roman Britain has undergone a sea change over ...
How the Ancient Egyptian economy laid the groundwork for building the pyramids
Reading time: 5 minutes In the shadow of the pyramids of Giza, lie the tombs of the courtiers and officials ...
Would London Fire Brigades really let your house burn down if you were uninsured?
Reading time: 4 minutes Here’s an interesting fact: if you didn’t pay your insurance premiums in 17th and 18th century ...
Why we must better understand our history
Reading time: 5 minutes History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. Mark Twain As a society it is ...
100 Years on, a New German Putsch?
Reading time: 9 minutes On December 7, 2022, German federal police arrested 25 people who were allegedly plotting to violently ...
What the Romans can teach us about immigration and integration
Reading time: 4 minutes As a Roman historian, I’m struck by how often people ask why the Roman empire ended, ...
Carols, ration books and bomb shelters: how Britain celebrated Christmas in 1940
Reading time: 6 minutes At Christmas 1939, Britons had been able to maintain a semblance of normality. The blackout prevented ...
Popular Histories Have Influenced World Leaders, Sometimes For the Better
Reading time: 6 minutes Sometimes presidents are influenced by history books. Bill Clinton consulted Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History by Robert ...
America’s Favourite Fighting Frenchman: Marquis de Lafayette
Reading time: 8 minutes Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda remains one of the best Broadway musicals of all ...
Australian politics explainer: how women gained the right to vote
Reading time: 5 minutes Between 1894 and 1908 a wave of women’s enfranchisement swept across Australia. Beginning in South Australia ...
The horse bit and bridle kicked off ancient empires – a new giant dataset tracks the societal factors that drove military technology
Reading time: 7 minutes Starting around 3,000 years ago, a wave of innovation began to sweep through human societies around ...
The Chungking Legation: Australia’s first diplomatic mission to China, as soon to be wartime allies
Reading time: 6 minutes Gough Whitlam’s visit to China in 1971 is an iconic moment in the history of Australia-China ...
Jamaica’s Morant Bay Rebellion and it’s brutal repression
Reading time: 11 minutes On 12 October 1865, John Davidson, a magistrate in the east of Jamaica, wrote to the ...
Archaeology is unravelling new stories about Indigenous seagoing trade on Australia’s doorstep
Reading time: 6 minutes A Motu trading ship with its characteristic crab claw shaped sails. Taken in the period 1903-1904 ...
4 Forgotten Historical Events that Shaped The World
Reading time: 7 minutes Our world has such a long, twisted history, it’s no surprise that some tales have been ...
The Moon Landing, Before the First Steps
Reading time: 10 minutes “We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not ...
RESTORING ONE OF THE WORLD’S RAREST MAPS
RESTORING ONE OF THE WORLD’S RAREST MAPS Reading time: 4 minutes In 1663, Europeans called Australia ‘New Holland’, New Zealand ...
Five myths about the partition of British India – and what really happened
Reading time: 6 minutes This August marks 75 years since the partition of the Indian subcontinent. British withdrawal from the ...
A Cuban Catastrophe: The Bay of Pigs Invasion
Reading time: 11 minutes The 1959 Cuban Revolution resulted in rule by a communist regime under Fidel Castro. This period ...
Dispatches from Red Square: reporting Russia’s revolutions then and now
Dispatches from Red Square: reporting Russia’s revolutions then and now Reading time: 9 minutes “No news from Petrograd yesterday”, was the ...
Extraordinarily, the effects of the Spanish Inquisition linger to this day
Extraordinarily, the effects of the Spanish Inquisition linger to this day Reading time: 5 minutes From Imperial Rome to the ...
Putin’s brazen manipulation of language is a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak
Putin’s brazen manipulation of language is a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak Reading time: 6 minutes If you’ve been paying ...
ABUSE AND TENACITY: UKRAINE’S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY
ABUSE AND TENACITY: UKRAINE'S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY Reading time: 10 minutes The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has rightfully outraged ...
The wild decade: how the 1990s laid the foundations for Vladimir Putin’s Russia
The wild decade: how the 1990s laid the foundations for Vladimir Putin’s Russia Reading time: 6 minutes Putin’s inauguration in 2000: ...
B.C. FRANKLIN AND THE TULSA MASSACRE
B.C. FRANKLIN AND THE TULSA MASSACRE Reading time: 5 minutes On May 31, 1921, Buck Colbert Franklin peered up at ...
Dag Hammarskjöld: a defiant pioneer of global diplomacy who died in a mystery plane crash
Dag Hammarskjöld: a defiant pioneer of global diplomacy who died in a mystery plane crash Reading time: 5 minutes The idea ...
William Cooper: the Indigenous leader who petitioned the king, demanding a Voice to Parliament in the 1930s
William Cooper: the Indigenous leader who petitioned the king, demanding a Voice to Parliament in the 1930s Reading time: 7 ...
ELIZABETH II: 70 YEARS OF A QUEEN
ELIZABETH II: 70 YEARS OF A QUEEN Reading time: 7 minutes 2022 marks 70 years since Elizabeth II ascended the ...
Kazakhstan: A Story of Endurance
KAZAKHSTAN: A STORY OF ENDURANCE Reading time: 7 minutes As protests erupt across the former Soviet republic, the world watches ...
That time private US media companies stepped in to silence the falsehoods and incitements of a major public figure … in 1938
THAT TIME PRIVATE US MEDIA COMPANIES STEPPED IN TO SILENCE THE FALSEHOODS AND INCITEMENTS OF A MAJOR PUBLIC FIGURE … ...
A Continent’s Currency: 20 years of the Euro
A CONTINENT'S CURRENCY: 20 YEARS OF THE EURO Reading time: 6 minutes The central unit of money for much of ...
What lies behind the war in Tigray?
WHAT LIES BEHIND THE WAR IN TIGRAY? Reading time: 7 minutes Ethiopian soldiers in 2005 on a hilltop outpost overlooking ...
New research shows WA’s first governor condoned killing of Noongar people despite proclaiming all equal under law
NEW RESEARCH SHOWS WA’S FIRST GOVERNOR CONDONED KILLING OF NOONGAR PEOPLE DESPITE PROCLAIMING ALL EQUAL UNDER LAW Reading time: 5 ...
10 things every politician should know about history
10 THINGS EVERY POLITICIAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HISTORY Reading time: 5 minutes The federal Education Minister, Alan Tudge, has announced ...
Britain’s obsession with the second world war and the debates that fuel it
BRITAIN’S OBSESSION WITH THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE DEBATES THAT FUEL IT Reading time: 5 minutes The COVID-19 pandemic ...
In Appreciation of Schindler’s List
IN APPRECIATION OF SCHINDLER'S LIST Reading time: 7 minutes Revisiting Steven Spielberg's harrowing Holocaust drama on the 28th anniversary of ...
Domino Theory and U.S. Foreign Policy
DOMINO THEORY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY When looking at the cold war and the way the United States went about ...
PEARL HARBOR AND AMERICA’s ENTRY TO WAR
PEARL HARBOR AND AMERICA'S ENTRY TO WAR The commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor also ...
Under what conditions are international sanctions effective?
UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS ARE INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS EFFECTIVE? Reading time: 7 minutes Demonstrators in Zimbabwe chant slogans and wave flags during ...
The Test of Time: The Oldest Companies Still in Operation and Why They Survived
THE TEST OF TIME: THE OLDEST COMPANIES STILL IN OPERATION AND WHY THEY SURVIVED Today’s biggest companies are considered young, ...
When France extorted Haiti – the greatest heist in history
WHEN FRANCE EXTORTED HAITI – THE GREATEST HEIST IN HISTORY Reading time: 7 minutes Much of the reparations debate has ...
Cuba without Fidel: Five Years Later
CUBA WITHOUT FIDEL: FIVE YEARS LATER Reading time: 6 minutes For nearly 60 years, and for better or for worse, ...
Supreme Court upholds American Indian treaty promises, orders Oklahoma to follow federal law
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS AMERICAN INDIAN TREATY PROMISES, ORDERS OKLAHOMA TO FOLLOW FEDERAL LAW Reading time: 5 minutes The eastern part ...
How a Cyprus Museum Uses Tech to Make the Past Come Alive
HOW A CYPRUS MUSEUM USES TECH TO MAKE THE PAST COME ALIVE What do you do when a building important ...
How one woman pulled off the first consumer boycott – and helped inspire the British to abolish slavery
HOW ONE WOMAN PULLED OFF THE FIRST CONSUMER BOYCOTT – AND HELPED INSPIRE THE BRITISH TO ABOLISH SLAVERY Estimated reading ...
Gens Du Pays: A History of Quebec’s Struggle for Sovereignty
GENS DU PAYS: A HISTORY OF QUEBEC’S STRUGGLE FOR SOVEREIGNTY Reading time: 13 minutes Vive le Québec libre! The date ...
The fall of Singapore
THE FALL OF SINGAPORE Reading time: 14 minutes Japanese Soldiers enter Singapore. The Land Campaign Nothing in history is inevitable ...
5 Inspiring Women Of History
5 INSPIRING WOMEN OF HISTORY Reading time: 10 minutes Throughout history, the world has witnessed influential women take the world ...
How the Australian Secret Service Helped Overthrow the Chilean Government
HOW THE AUSTRALIAN SECRET SERVICE HELPED OVERTHROW THE CHILEAN GOVERNMENT Reading time: 8 minutes Recently, documents came to light that ...
SIX of the best WORLD WAR II FILMS
SIX OF THE BEST WORLD WAR II FILMS World War II (1939-1945) was and remains the greatest conflict that humanity ...
Deng Xiaoping’s Rise to Power
Reading time: 6 minutes By orchestrating China’s transition to a market economy, Deng Xiaoping has left a lasting legacy on ...
The Long History of Mandated Vaccines in the United States
THE LONG HISTORY OF MANDATED VACCINES IN THE UNITED STATES Reading time: 5 minutes Vaccines against smallpox during the Revolutionary ...
THE IMPACTS OF CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION: HOW THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY CHANGED THE WORLD
THE IMPACTS OF CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION: HOW THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY CHANGED THE WORLD Reading time: 14 minutes The ‘Age ...
The Russian Revolution
Reading time: 6 minutes For most people, the term “Russian Revolution” conjures up a popular set of images: demonstrations in ...
Warfare spurred on the welfare state in the 20th century – but it probably won’t in future
Reading time: 7 minutes A tank on its way to port for the Normandy landings in 1944. PA Archive The ...
The Friar Who Faced The Medici of Florence
Reading time: 8 minutes Girolamo Savonarola, an Italian preacher and reformer, led an interesting life. His ideologies and strong stance ...
Pinochet’s Chile
Reading time: 7 minutes General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, a career military officer, was appointed Commander in Chief of the Chilean ...
Gregor MacGregor: History’s Greatest Conman
Reading time: 8 minutes In 1821, Gregor MacGregor, a seemingly ordinary man deceived banks, investors, the general public, and even ...
The Iranian Revolution
Reading time: 9 minutes To understand what caused the Iranian Revolution, we must first consider the ongoing conflict between proponents ...
Australia’s first known female voter, the famous Mrs Fanny Finch
Reading time: 7 minutes On 22 January 1856, an extraordinary event in Australia’s history occurred. It is not part of ...
The Franco-British Union: Genius, or Madness Born of Desperation?
Reading time: 6 minutes When crisis strikes, one imagines members of government or heads of state stoically dealing with the ...
Four days in August: The Soviet Union’s final blow
Reading time: 8 minutes Nearly 30 years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, and ...
What is Bastille Day and why is it celebrated?
Reading time: 6 minutes French people travelling to or living in English-speaking countries are sometimes surprised when asked about their ...
51 years ago: Israel won an air battle, and lost the War of Attrition
The Israel Air Force drew the Soviet expeditionary force in Egypt into a perfect, successful ambush, but pride was the ...
315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: the shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific
Reading time: 6 minutes The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons received its 50th ratification on October 24, and ...
THE PHANTOM OLYMPICS-Why Japan Forfeited Hosting the 1940 Olympics
Reading time: 6 minutes When the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was ...
Sardines for breakfast, hypothermia rescues: the story of the cash-strapped, post-pandemic 1920 Olympics
Reading time: 8 minutes Since the global pandemic began, debate has raged over whether Tokyo should go ahead with the ...
The voyage of Nicolas Baudin and ‘art in the service of science’
Reading time: 9 minutes The real-life story of French navigator Nicolas Baudin’s sea voyage to map the unknown coasts of ...
ROME’S AUGUSTUS AND THE ALLURE OF THE STRONGMAN
ROME’S AUGUSTUS AND THE ALLURE OF THE STRONGMAN Reading time: 8 minutes The Roman emperor Augustus is held up by ...
From the Caribbean to Queensland: re-examining Australia’s ‘blackbirding’ past and its roots in the global slave trade
Reading time: 6 minutes There are moves afoot to scrub colonial businessman Benjamin Boyd’s name from the map. The owners ...
Churchill and India: imperial chauvinism left a bitter legacy
Reading time: 6 minutes Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill arrives at Number 10 Downing Street with John ...
HMS Terror wreck found – but what happened to her doomed crew? Here’s the science
Reading time: 8 minutes It remains one of history’s best-known naval tragedies – and mysteries. The loss of all 129 ...
The Antarctic Treaty is turning 60 years old. In a changed world, is it still fit for purpose?
Reading time: 6 minutes The 1959 Antarctic Treaty celebrates its 60th anniversary this week. Negotiated during the middle of the ...
How Eleanor Roosevelt reshaped the role of First Lady and became a feminist icon
Reading time: 5 minutes “Well-behaved women seldom make history” is a phrase frequently trotted out around International Women’s Day, and ...
A program for peace: The founding of the United Nations
Reading time: 6 minutes Achieving the elusive dream of “world peace”, has long been an idealist and collectivist goal for ...
The 5 Biggest Financial Bubbles You’ve Never Heard Of
Reading time: 7 minutes With the prophets of doom foretelling that we’ll see massive inflation in 2021 and the crash ...
Venezuela’s Fight For Independence: The Battle of Carabobo
Reading time: 6 minutes This year marks the 200th anniversary of the battle of Carabobo, a major battle in Venezuela’s ...
The Siege of Haarlem, Kenau, and Creating a Heroine
Reading time: 5 minutes The Dutch Revolt, the conflict that created an independent Netherlands free from Spain, also created a ...
Caste: A Divisive Structure in the United States, India, and Nazi Germany
Reading time: 4 minutes In her new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson writes that the ways ...
The Cold War Ignites: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Reading time: 6 minutes Once the centre of Nazi ideology and power, the German capital of Berlin was extremely important ...
How early Australian settlers drew maps to erase Indigenous people and push ideas of colonial superiority
Reading time: 6 minutes The new Netflix series Shadow and Bone opens with cartographer Alina Starkov crammed into the back ...
How War with Spain Created the Dutch Colonial Empire
Reading time: 8 minutes The Dutch colonial empire was a large collection of territories that spanned the globe from the ...
Constructing Oppression: The Berlin Wall and the Literal Iron Curtain
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes 60 years after its initial construction, the memory of the Berlin Wall remains a potent ...
The Two Countries That ‘Escaped’ The Scramble for Africa
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes The Scramble for Africa is often recognized as the beginning of colonialism and European Imperialism ...
Africa’s World War: The Congo War
Africa’s World War: The Congo War Reading time: 5 minutes 5.4 million people died in the deadliest war in modern ...
Brilliant and Flawed: The Enduring Legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The 200th anniversary of his death (1821-2021) renews discussion on how the former Emperor should ...
Five Great Historically Accurate Films: Part Two
Reading time: 5 minutes By Michael Vecchio READ PART ONE of FIVE GREAT HISTORICAL FILMS Gandhi (1982) Dir. Richard Attenborough ...
How The Napoleonic Wars Entrenched British Rule In 19th Century South Africa
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The battles between Britain and France following the French Revolution and into the Napoleonic Wars ...
Hero and Villain: Robert Clive of the East India Company
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes Robert Clive, a general of the East India Company, was despised by his contemporaries – ...
Northern Ireland, born of strife 100 years ago, again erupts in political violence
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Sectarian rioting has returned to the streets of Northern Ireland, just weeks shy of its ...
How the shadow of slavery still hangs over global finance
When the infamous Zong trial began in 1783, it laid bare the toxic relationship between finance and slavery. It was an unusual ...
Highland Clearances: Changing a Culture
HIGHLAND CLEARANCES: CHANGING A CULTURE Reading time: 5 minutes Cultures, customs and traditions change as time passes on, but sometimes ...
Hubris and Miscalculation: The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion
HUBRIS AND MISCALCULATION: THE FAILURE OF THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Michael Vecchio The ...
Archaeologists have a lot of dates wrong for North American indigenous history – but we’re using new techniques to get it right
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes By Sturt Manning, Cornell University. Columbus famously reached the Americas in 1492. Other Europeans had ...
The Long Tail of the First World War
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes Fallen Empires and Civil War By Caitlan Hester The popular view of the First World ...
Cultural diversity – the making of Rome
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Richard Shrubb. The Roman Empire was arguably the most successful empire in history, eclipsing ...
How the National Guard became the go-to military force for riots and civil disturbances
Reading time: 6 minutes The Pentagon has approved leaving 5,000 troops deployed indefinitely to protect the U.S. Capitol from domestic ...
The West and the Rest: Deconstructing the Great Divergence Debate
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Madison Moulton. The causes of global inequalities between the West and the East is ...
Mapping the World: A Short History of Cartography
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes From the cave paintings of Montignac to the Mercator Projection and beyond, maps explain how ...
The Cold War, Churchill’s Iron Curtain, and the Power of Imagery
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Michael Vecchio Many years of fighting and an estimated 85 million people dead; the ...
After Caribbean Slavery – Indentured Labour
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Richard Shrubb. The abolition of slavery by the British Empire would cause an economic ...
Long before GameStop, bucket shops challenged the legitimacy of Wall Street
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Robbie Moore, University of Tasmania. The gleeful manipulation of GameStop’s share price is not ...
Australian government must negotiate a treaty with First Nations people
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Lidia Thorpe With 26 January looming, many Australians will be ashamed of the fact ...
Quantity Becomes a Quality All of Its Own
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes In the history of warfare, there have been mismatched conflicts where skilled forces have been ...
The Rise of Black Wall Street and the Race Massacre That Burned It Down
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes The Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma was a hub for black business and wealth from ...
The Battle of Kadesh and the World’s First Peace Treaty
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes For a shining example of ancient warfare and the cause of the world's first recorded ...
Fake News, Misinformation and Propaganda Throughout History
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Madison Moulton Fake news has become a popular buzzword. However, the phenomenon is not ...
Neutrality At All Costs: The Netherlands in WW1
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Fergus O'Sullivan World War 1 was a conflict that engulfed entire continents and swallowed ...
Explainer: what is radiocarbon dating and how does it work?
Rachel Wood, Australian National University Radiocarbon dating has transformed our understanding of the past 50,000 years. Professor Willard Libby produced ...
The Changing Relationship Between the US Government and Native Americans
Reading time: 11 minutes The Civilisation Program, the Indian Removal Act and the Cherokee Trail of Tears, 1776 - 1860 ...
Best Historical Films 2010-2020
There may be many historically based films, but only a few can be rightfully called striking, emotional, and informative. As ...
A Period of Change: Global Events in the Lead Up to WWI
Reading time: 6 minutes The history of the lead up to WWI is undoubtedly dominated by Europe. European powers understandably ...
Decolonialising India’s Persianate Age
Reading time: 6 minutes For the last 1,000 years and until very recently, scholars have held that the Indian sub-continent ...
Five Great Historically Accurate Films
By Michael Vecchio. Most history enthusiasts will eye the release of a new film on a historical topic somewhat sceptically, ...
What Hamilton Got Wrong
Reading time: 6 minutes It’s important to take historically-based art, whether a painting that condenses a battle or the acclaimed ...
Five of the Most Historically Accurate PC Games
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Plenty of video games are marketed as being historically accurate, but few truly are. In ...
Why Do We Have an 8-Hour Working Day?
Reading time: 3 minutes The working day as we now know it was the result of international, cross-industry labour efforts ...
How Romania’s WW1 Gamble Paid Off Spectacularly
Reading time: 6 minutes The Great War was a major turning point for virtually all European countries, but not too ...
Interesting Stories of the Mound-Building Native American Civilizations of the Midwest
By Caitlan Hester. Native American Mound-Building Civilizations For over 5,000 years the Eastern, Southeastern, and the Midwestern U.S. were populated ...
Slavery Compensation: Who Got Paid?
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes By Richard Shrubb. With the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 the ...
Battle of One Tree Hill, Australian Frontier Wars
Battle of One Tree Hill, Australian Frontier Wars Reading time: 7 minutes The Battle of One Tree Hill in 1843 ...