Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard is removed from the entrance to City Park in New Orleans.
REUTERS/Cheryl Gerber
A scholar of southern politics finds inspiration in an unexpected place.
A statue of Henry David Thoreau in front of a replica of his cabin in Concord, Massachusetts.
Chris Devers
Thoreau spent his life pursuing the ‘hard bottom’ of truth. But he confronted a sensationalist newspaper industry that, in many ways, mimicked today’s media environment.
Lord Macartney’s first meeting with the Qianlong emperor in 1793.
"A study of History", Arnold Toynbee
What can we learn from the 19th-century Qing dynasty?
Back in the 1930s, people like this pear peddler in New York City’s Lower East Side often got their news from labor-led media.
AP Photo
The newspaper’s new owners harken back to a tradition of labor-led media in the early part of the 20th century, which represented a bulwark against corporate power.
Benito Mussolini’s bust and crypt in San Cassiano cemetery are a sensitive topic in Predappio, Italy.
Saiko/Wikimedia
Politicians hope that a “museum of fascism” in Benito Mussolini’s hometown can help the country face its demons. Historians aren’t so sure.
Allied forces wearing gas masks at Ypres, 1917.
Wikimedia Commons
The first fully industrialised war prompted many to draw parallels between human society and the insect world.
PA Archive
National Archive files reveal how the PM offered preferential treatment to a breakaway union in a bid to weaken its rivals.
shutterstock.com
Many have compared the UK’s repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 with leaving the European Union.
French POWs being led away from the battlefield in May 1940.
Wikimedia Commons
How French memories of the Dunkirk evacuation differ from those of the British.
While homelessness is becoming more visible, it is not new in affluent societies like Australia.
AAP/Joe Castro
Taking the long view of homelessness can reveal patterns that explain how and why people get caught up in conditions not of their making.
The uber pool of the 18th century.
James Pollard / Google Art Project
Prior to industrialisation in the 19th century, most people worked multiple jobs to piece together a living.
The small city of Hazard, Kentucky, rests in the heart of Appalachia.
AP Photo/David Stephenson
The founder of the West Virginia Dialect Project hopes to debunk some of the myths about the way Appalachian people speak and instill pride in a rich, oft-maligned culture.
Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Center, Manhattan. The inscription behind it is a paraphrase of Aeschylus that reads: “Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends”.
Wikimedia
How the idea of a hyper-connected society could quickly go from utopia to dystopia and why neither scenario is likely to last.
South Korea’s subtly calibrated risk aversion in the face of outrageous North Korean aggression has kept the two countries from war.
EPA/KCNA
An aggressive posture is one thing – but doing something about it is another, as countries factor in the costs and risks of aggression.
Edward Jenner, who pioneered vaccination, and two colleagues (right) seeing off three anti-vaccination opponents, with the dead lying at their feet (1808).
I Cruikshank/Wellcome Images/Wikimedia Commons
Some people have objected to childhood vaccination since it was introduced in the late 1700s. And their reasons sound remarkably familiar to those of anti-vaxxers today.
No go zone.
pixelflake/Flickr
Explore the hidden origins of one of China’s most significant historic sites.
Eymet, a small village in the Perigord, is home to hundreds of British people.
Esther Westerveld / Flickr
While people from many nations have chosen to make their home in France, the British were among the first and remain the most numerous.
A Civil War re-enactment at Gettysburg, Pa., on the 150th anniversary of the battle in 2013.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Pickett’s Charge was one of the seminal battles of the U.S. Civil War, setting the stage for the ultimate Confederacy defeat. Could it have played out differently?
Legacies of genocidal phases have scarred the Aboriginal psyches.
AAP/Neda Vanovac
Very little is known about suicide and suicide attempts during modern genocides – but we do know there is an aftermath of suicide among victims.
Gold Rush garbage.
S.Hayes. Artefact is part of Heritage Victoria's collection.
What we buy has defined who we are since the Gold Rush. In the 1850s and 1860s, people communicated their social status by buying stuff - dinner sets, junk jewellery - and throwing their old things away.