It can be difficult to imagine that the antiquities in our museums were once a part of vibrant and cosmopolitan cities. Let our expert take you on a tour of three cities to rival today’s global hubs.
The discovery of battered old boots, tattered garments, trinkets and dead cats concealed in the walls of historic buildings sheds new light on the lives of Australia’s early white settlers.
Are women really each other’s worst enemies? Probably not.
Everett Collection/Shutterstock
Depictions of women bullying women are a mainstay of reality television shows, just as reports of Twitter fights between female celebrities are regular tabloid fare. It’s a phenomenon with a long history.
A baobab in Tete Province, Mozambique.
Christian Kull
Anne Summers’ ambitious 1975 book reframed Australian history by placing women at its centre. It was a book of its time. But its groundbreaking approach ensures it is also a book for today.
Prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Michael Somare at the Papua New Guinea independence ceremony in September 1975.
NAA: A6180, 22/9/75/28
Australian colonial rule and its legacy tend to be neglected, but as Papua New Guinea marks 40 years of independence the nation is still living with the consequences.
In the recluse of his study under the watchful eye of the ‘vozhd’.
Courtesy of the Scheffer-Voskressenski family
Ivan Maisky’s account of his life in London provides a detailed and personal account of life at the epicentre of the dramatic events leading to World War II.
The Queen has now been on the throne for 63 years and 217 days. As the embodiment of Britain, it has been certainly been a role that’s out of the ordinary.
Tony Abbott has twice compared Islamic State to the Nazis, but does that aid our understanding of terrorism and what needs to be done to defeat it?
AAP/Richard Wainwright
We need to find ways of speaking about the horrific actions of Islamic State that help, not hinder, understanding of the magnitude of those crimes and what needs to be done to combat them.
The ancient site of Palmyra, parts of which have reportedly now been destroyed by Islamic State.
Reuters/Mohamed Azakir
An individual may remember and forget what he or she likes, but once a version of past events is accepted and shared by a group, as a collective construction, it is on public record.
Wilfred Burchett’s career should be judged on all his achievements and not reduced to a single solitary story.
George Burchett
Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The legacy of Catherine the Great is currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria. But who, exactly was Catherine II, the Empress of Russia?
In preparation for China’s commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war, a couple in Luoyang, Henan province, re-enacts the famous photograph taken in New York’s Times Square on V-J Day.
Reuters
At the heart of the debate around the language of marriage is a conflict about whether a marriage between same-sex partners is the same or different to a marriage between opposite sex partners.
Marshal Admiral Yamamoto’s bunker in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, which was the wartime headquarters of the Japanese in the south-west Pacific.
AAP/Lloyd Jones
The Pacific War played out as a colonial war in the Pacific. It was brutal for non-combatant civilians in its path, and its impact epitomised the dehumanising capacity of both war and colonialism.
We cannot attribute a particular characteristic, whether positive or negative, to religion as religion does not have the ability to act.
EPA