Social and Cultural History

The messy history of our modern, Western calendar Reading time: 7 minutes Calendar. Wikimedia Commons For something that’s meant to lend ...
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Jim Jones, leader of the People's Temple Cult and perpetrator of the Jonestown Massacre. Reading time: 12 minutes The phenomenon ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes On 23 August 1720 at the Council Chamber in Whitehall, the Privy Council issued an order ...
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Meeting Grace O’Malley, Ireland’s pirate queen Reading time: 8 minutes Mid-16th century tower house on an inlet from Clew Bay ...
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The wreck of Endurance is a bridge to a bygone age, and a reminder of Antarctica’s uncertain future Reading time: ...
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ABUSE AND TENACITY: UKRAINE'S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY Reading time: 10 minutes The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has rightfully outraged ...
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The Mafia, The Godfather, and the Hollywood romance Reading time: 8 minutes The Godfather. Perhaps one of the greatest films ...
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REEL OR UNREAL HISTORY Reading time: 5 minutes Long before “fake news” wedged itself into American vernacular, “fake” or “engineered” ...
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Why January 6 Was Not Like a Banana Republic Reading time: 5 minutes After the January 6 insurrection, many observers, ...
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How George Orwell justified killing German civilians in the second world war Reading time: 5 minutes Eric Blair (better known as ...
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Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong Reading time: 7 minutes Right now, it’s Bitcoin ...
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HOW DID A COCKATOO REACH 13TH CENTURY SICILY? Reading time: 7 minutes Among the hand-written documents, books, and ancient artefacts ...
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Humans domesticated horses – new tech could help archaeologists figure out where and when Reading time: 8 minutes In the increasingly ...
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Hard Evidence: how much did our ancestors drink – and are we drinking more? Reading time: 7 minutes On the ...
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Shillings, gods and runes: clues in language suggest a Semitic superpower in ancient northern Europe Reading time: 6 minutes Remember ...
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A SNAPSHOT OF THE PUBLIC’S VIEWS ON HISTORY Reading time: 8 minutes The teaching of history has become a political ...
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When History disappears: the modern loss of historical artifacts Reading time: 6 minutes Thanks to their meticulous preservation, museums and ...
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THE CONQUERORS PERSPECTIVE: WHY EUROPE HAS SO MANY DIFFERENT LANGUAGES History is typically told from the winner's perspective. In the ...
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US PREP SCHOOLS HELD STUDENT EXCHANGES WITH ELITE NAZI ACADEMIES Reading time: 7 minutes In the summer of 1935, the ...
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ON THE MONEY: KATE SHEPPARD AND THE MAKING OF A NEW ZEALAND FEMINIST ICON Reading time: 7 minutes In 1992 ...
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100 YEARS LATER, WHY DON’T WE COMMEMORATE THE VICTIMS AND HEROES OF ‘SPANISH FLU’? Reading time: 5 minutes At Sydney’s ...
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A CONTINENT'S CURRENCY: 20 YEARS OF THE EURO Reading time: 6 minutes The central unit of money for much of ...
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WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE A CHILD IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE? Reading time: 7 minutes As the researcher for ...
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THE CHATTERLEY TRIAL 60 YEARS ON: A COURT CASE THAT SECURED FREE EXPRESSION IN 1960S BRITAIN Reading time: 6 minutes ...
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TRUGANINI AND THE BLOODY BACKSTORY TO VICTORIA’S FIRST PUBLIC EXECUTION Reading time: 10 minutes Sometime in August 1841, Truganini left ...
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BRITAIN’S OBSESSION WITH THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE DEBATES THAT FUEL IT Reading time: 5 minutes The COVID-19 pandemic ...
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THE BIGGEST ESTATE ON EARTH: HOW ABORIGINES MADE AUSTRALIA Reading time: 5 minutes Indigenous Australians systematically burnt grasslands to reduce ...
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REWILDING: LESSONS FROM THE MEDIEVAL BALTIC CRUSADES Reading time: 6 minutes The Forest of Białowieża, which straddles the border of ...
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IN APPRECIATION OF SCHINDLER'S LIST Reading time: 7 minutes Revisiting Steven Spielberg's harrowing Holocaust drama on the 28th anniversary of ...
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I ASKED HISTORIANS WHAT FIND MADE THEM GO ‘WAIT, WUT?’ HERE’S A TASTE OF THE HUNDREDS OF REPLIES Reading time: ...
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THE BLACK WAR Reading time: 10 minutes Nicholas Clements’ The Black War sheds new light on the long and bloody ...
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HOW THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY SPOKE TO ‘50S HOUSEWIVES ABOUT THE COLD WAR Reading time: 5 minutes Under editor Esmé ...
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SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS AMERICAN INDIAN TREATY PROMISES, ORDERS OKLAHOMA TO FOLLOW FEDERAL LAW Reading time: 5 minutes The eastern part ...
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MAURICE HILLEMAN, THE SCIENTIST WHO SAVED MORE LIVES THAN ANY OTHER Reading time: 5 minutes Maurice Hilleman is credited as ...
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Reading time: 4 minutes SLAVE REVOLT FILM REVISITS HISTORY OFTEN OMITTED FROM TEXTBOOKS Armed with machetes and pitchforks and uttering ...
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HOW ONE WOMAN PULLED OFF THE FIRST CONSUMER BOYCOTT – AND HELPED INSPIRE THE BRITISH TO ABOLISH SLAVERY Estimated reading ...
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KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENTS: EARLY MEASUREMENTS OF THE EARTH Reading time: 7 minutes The desire to obtain knowledge of the ...
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OKLAHOMA IS – AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN – NATIVE LAND Reading time: 6 minutes Some Oklahomans are expressing trepidation about ...
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PEOPLE DROPPED WHISKY INTO THEIR NOSES TO TREAT SPANISH FLU. HERE’S WHAT ELSE THEY TOOK THAT WOULD RAISE EYEBROWS TODAY ...
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GENS DU PAYS: A HISTORY OF QUEBEC’S STRUGGLE FOR SOVEREIGNTY Reading time: 13 minutes Vive le Québec libre! The date ...
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5 INSPIRING WOMEN OF HISTORY Reading time: 10 minutes Throughout history, the world has witnessed influential women take the world ...
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SIX OF THE BEST WORLD WAR II FILMS World War II (1939-1945) was and remains the greatest conflict that humanity ...
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THE END OF APARTHEID Reading time: 8 minutes Racial divisions emerged in South Africa as early as the 1600s, due ...
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ENHEDUANNA, PRINCESS, PRIESTESS AND THE WORLD’S FIRST KNOWN AUTHOR Reading time: 6 minutes The world’s first known author is widely ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes Last month, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull visited the Gunditjmara community of southwest Victoria to announce that ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes Girolamo Savonarola, an Italian preacher and reformer, led an interesting life. His ideologies and strong stance ...
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Reading time: 7 minutes Warning: some of the following photos may be disturbing to readers. The event traditionally defined as ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes In 1821, a seemingly ordinary man deceived banks, investors, the general public, and even European governments ...
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Reading time: 13 minutes On 14 April 2010 the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted for a second time in two month ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes If you go to the Surrey Hills of northwest Tasmania, you’ll see a temperate rainforest dominated ...
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Reading time: 13 minutes It’s 50 years since the anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner gave the 1968 Boyer Lectures — a watershed ...
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WHY DO WE LIKE TO GET DRUNK? Reading time: 4 minutes Bacchanal (1625–1626) by Nicholas Poussin, Prado Museum. Why do ...
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Reading time: 7 minutes At a public meeting in Hobart in the late 1830s, Solicitor-General Alfred Stephen, later Chief Justice ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes Nearly 30 years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, and ...
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Reading time: 14 minutes The destruction of the world’s forests is a major concern in our age. According to the ...
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Reading time: 5 minutes American farmer and poet Wendell Berry said of the first Europeans in North America that they ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes When the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was ...
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Reading time: 5 minutes The word “pyramid” is synonymous with Egypt, but it is actually neighbouring Sudan that is home ...
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Reading time: 10 minutes Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu is in the news again, with the publication of a new book ...
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Reading time: 7 minutes A scene from Doug Engelbart’s groundbreaking 1968 computer demo. Doug Engelbart Institute On a crisp California ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes Since the global pandemic began, debate has raged over whether Tokyo should go ahead with the ...
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Reading time: 9 minutes The real-life story of French navigator Nicolas Baudin’s sea voyage to map the unknown coasts of ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes READ PART ONE AND PART TWO By Michael Vecchio Saving Private Ryan (1998) Dir. Steven Spielberg ...
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Reading time: 9 minutes Eminent Australian anthropologist Peter Sutton and respected field archaeologist Keryn Walshe have co-authored a meticulously researched ...
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Reading time: 7 minutes National Geographic magazines and Indiana Jones movies might have you picturing archaeologists excavating near Egyptian pyramids, ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes Holiday in Hawaii and one of the birds you’re most likely to encounter is the chicken ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes There are moves afoot to scrub colonial businessman Benjamin Boyd’s name from the map. The owners ...
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Reading time: 10 minutes In 2013, the World Health Organisation declared antibiotic resistance was a threat to global health security ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes Archaeology in the rugged landscape of Georgia reveals a medieval world where caves and underground shelters ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes The rock art of northwestern Arnhem Land is world-renowned and represents one of the world’s most ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes Achieving the elusive dream of “world peace”, has long been an idealist and collectivist goal for ...
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Reading time: 8 minutes Just look at a map of Remote Oceania – the region of the Pacific that contains ...
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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes Last spring, I found myself in the surprising position of explaining to a student sitting ...
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Reading time: 4 minutes In her new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson writes that the ways ...
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Reading time: 6 minutes The new Netflix series Shadow and Bone opens with cartographer Alina Starkov crammed into the back ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes 60 years after its initial construction, the memory of the Berlin Wall remains a potent ...
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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes Archaeology at the site of the former Pontine Marshes has uncovered a massive but forgotten ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes New techniques for dating volcanic eruptions, a lone axe and Indigenous oral traditions give us ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes We know it is more than 60,000 years since the first people entered the continent ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Michael Vecchio READ PART ONE of FIVE GREAT HISTORICAL FILMS Gandhi (1982) Dir. Richard ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The battles between Britain and France following the French Revolution and into the Napoleonic Wars ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The plight of Jewish refugees after the outbreak of World War II in 1939 is ...
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes Picture the United States struggling to deal with a deadly pandemic. State and local officials ...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes The legacy of one of the greatest inventors in history is some of our most ...
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes The advances in medicine and technology have helped curb the spread of one of the ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Before dawn on the morning of June 4 1629, the Batavia, a ship of the ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Easter celebrates the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In so doing, ...
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HIGHLAND CLEARANCES: CHANGING A CULTURE Reading time: 5 minutes Cultures, customs and traditions change as time passes on, but sometimes ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes The world’s oceans hold their secrets close, including clues about how people lived tens of ...
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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes By Sturt Manning, Cornell University. Columbus famously reached the Americas in 1492. Other Europeans had ...
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Mistaken Maps and the Myths They Perpetuated Reading time: 7 minutes Mapmakers in history occasionally got it wrong. Sometimes, very ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes The mass migration of Austronesian-speaking peoples thousands of years ago still has an impact on ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Michael Vecchio Every year on March 17th, much of the western world celebrates “being ...
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes In a time and place that offered few career opportunities for women, the job of ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Dawn LaValle Norman, Australian Catholic University. When we conjure up ancient philosophers the image ...
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes For the millions of people around the world who live on islands today, a plane ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Richard Shrubb. The Roman Empire was arguably the most successful empire in history, eclipsing ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes In Western Australia’s northeast Kimberley region, on Balanggarra Country, a two-metre-long painting of a kangaroo ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Madison Moulton. The causes of global inequalities between the West and the East is ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes From the cave paintings of Montignac to the Mercator Projection and beyond, maps explain how ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Michael Vecchio Many years of fighting and an estimated 85 million people dead; the ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Richard Shrubb. The abolition of slavery by the British Empire would cause an economic ...
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A Brief History of Saint Valentine's Day Reading time: 5 minutes When one hears the word “Valentine”, many things may ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Robbie Moore, University of Tasmania. The gleeful manipulation of GameStop’s share price is not ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Lidia Thorpe With 26 January looming, many Australians will be ashamed of the fact ...
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Estimated reading time: 11 minutes The Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma was a hub for black business and wealth from ...
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes By Madison Moulton Fake news has become a popular buzzword. However, the phenomenon is not ...
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Explore the story of the Roanoke disappearance. And the latest findings and theories that have brought us a bit closer ...
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Rachel Wood, Australian National University Radiocarbon dating has transformed our understanding of the past 50,000 years. Professor Willard Libby produced ...
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New collaborative work at an Aboriginal cave in eastern Victoria, published today, shows the stark difference between contemporary archaeological research ...
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Reading time: 11 minutes The Civilisation Program, the Indian Removal Act and the Cherokee Trail of Tears, 1776 - 1860 ...
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By Anne Lawrence-Mathers, University of Reading The idea of hanging up decorations in the middle of winter is older than ...
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There may be many historically based films, but only a few can be rightfully called striking, emotional, and informative. As ...
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Explorer, Scientist, and Humanitarian Hero By Caitlan Hester. Sir Paul Strzelecki (1797-1873) spent over four years exploring 7,000 miles of ...
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Though her brave acts were acknowledged after her death, Wauba Debar’s grave was later robbed in the name of “science” ...
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By Thomas Suddendorf, The University of Queensland and Michelle Langley, Griffith University Today, bags are everywhere — from cheap canvas ...
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By Richard Shrubb. For the last 1,000 years and until very recently, scholars have held that the Indian sub-continent was ...
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  Robyn Moore, University of Tasmania In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe writes that settler Australians wilfully misunderstood, hid ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes By Madison Moulton Looking out at the North Sea – the body of water dividing ...
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Before the glamorous flyers of the 1930s like Amelia Earhart, “Chubby” Miller and Nancy Bird Walton, another woman opened the ...
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By Michael Vecchio. Most history enthusiasts will eye the release of a new film on a historical topic somewhat sceptically, ...
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By Carolyn Comeau. It’s important to take historically-based art, whether a painting that condenses a battle or the acclaimed Broadway ...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Plenty of video games are marketed as being historically accurate, but few truly are. In ...
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By Anna McEvinney. The working day as we now know it was the result of international, cross-industry labour efforts from ...
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By Caitlan Hester. Native American Mound-Building Civilizations For over 5,000 years the Eastern, Southeastern, and the Midwestern U.S. were populated ...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes By Richard Shrubb. With the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 the ...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes By Madison Moulton. About 3500 years ago, an event began that changed the demographic, linguistic, ...
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Battle of One Tree Hill, Australian Frontier Wars Reading time: 7 minutes The Battle of One Tree Hill in 1843 ...
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2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook and the HMB Endeavour charted the East Coast of Australia. The ...
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