Image: https://vagrantsandmurderesses.com/
Current discussions about ‘homelessness’ have echoes of the past treatment of vagrants. New historical research tells us more about the lives of people during periods of social and economic hardship.
18th-century London newspapers frequently reported on the tragic and curious accidents that befell the city’s residents.
(Shutterstock)
News reports about accidents can deliver important moral lessons and remind us to value life.
Coral bleaching event near Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, May 2016.
XL Catlin Seaview Survey/AAP
With the disastrous effects of climate change already upon us, past events may have lessons for the future.
ACT Up NY
The word ‘queer’ has a history as a widely used and respectful term in the LGBTIQA+ community, as well as being a slur.
Human remains dating back more than 30,000 years were found at Paviland cave in Gower.
Left: Leighton Collins/Shutterstock; right: Ethan Doyle White CC BY-SA 3.0.
It’s been 200 years since the discovery of one of the oldest human burial sites in western Europe on the Gower peninsula in south Wales.
The children of Cwm Gwaun go door to door singing and collecting calennig in 1961.
Geoff Charles/National Library of Wales
Britain may have ditched the Roman calendar in 1752 but Cwm Gwaun continues to cling on to its old traditions.
Vaginal and anal speculum were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Shutterstock/Praisaeng
Speculums can be painful and invasive for many women.
Lisa F. Young / Shutterstock
Clowns and jesters have positively contributed to society for centuries.
The public bar at Hancock’s Essendon Hotel, photographed around 1938.
Harold Paynting Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Would it lessen the ‘Australianness’ of the 20th century pub if we understood the ‘lavatory’ tiles in a broader context?
© The Trustees of the British Museum
The story of Martin Luther starting the tradition is a myth; the real story started 350 years later – and presents were popularised by savvy booksellers.
Protesters at an anti-LGBT+ rally in Istanbul, Turkey, 18 September 2022.
Sedat Suna/EPA via AAP
Turkey has never resembled an autocracy as much as it does today. A new history examines its slide into illiberalism.
A reconstruction of the Harpole burial.
MOLA / Hugh Gatt
The jewellery and human remains discovered at a recent excavation in Northamptonshire shed light on the elite position of some newly-Christian women in seventh century England.
The Wellcome Collection gallery in central London.
William Barton
Closing racist exhibitions is a good step, but it doesn’t go far enough to decolonise our museums – an expert explains.
Portrait of Madame Gely by Frederick Carl Frieseke (1907).
Public Domain Review
From Madame de Pompadour to punks and pussy protest hats, pink has always been the colour of choice for those who dare to make a statement.
Raychan on Unsplash
The extraordinary Chinese writing system has over 4,000 core complex characters – and they’ve been getting more complex over time.
An illustration from Charles Dickens’s Bleak House of men drink hot toddys.
Recipes inspired by the social scene of 1800s London or which made their first appearance in a Dickens novel.
Adrian Paci’s Centro di Permanenza Temporanea.
Adrian Paci
From plane stairs that lead nowhere to paintings of empty towns, these artists depict the experience of Albanian immigrants.
Alex Traveler / Shutterstock
Research supports an affordable and meaningful alternative to high street sales.
Gongsanseong Fortress in the Baekje Historic Areas of Gongju.
Baekje World Heritage Center
To boost their attractiveness to tourists and residents alike, in 2020 the towns of Gongju and Buyeo – once Imperial capitals – launched the “Smart Town Challenge” to link online and offline services.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, heads the closing session of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Joseph Eid/AFP
The absence of norms defining the common good and the insufficient place of scientific arguments in the democratic debate weaken the capacity of liberalism to face global threats.