Stan Shebs//wikimedia commons
The canal was under US control for nearly a century and was only recognised as Panamanian on New Year’s Eve 1999.
19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill was a leading thinker on free speech.
London Stereoscopic Company
The concept of ‘free speech’ is devilishly difficult, and depends greatly on a person’s political and philosophical viewpoint.
When did the Anthropocene epoch start?
Shutterstock
How long the Anthropocene will last, and what will be its most enduring attributes, will not be driven and decided scientifically.
Insulting Barack Obama made the headlines, but Rodrigo Duterte’s remarks referred to a long and dark history of US interference in the Philippines.
Narendra Shresthma, Mast Irham/EPA
The people of the Philippines and their president know all too well the hypocrisy of being lectured by the United States about violence, human rights and democracy.
AltLimbPro
A tool in place of your arm or a stereo for your leg? How our attitudes towards human enhancement have changed.
The future battlefield will look very different.
Josh Smith/Reuters
What is hybrid warfare, and why would Australia benefit from its technological developments?
BBC/Adrian Rogers
Poldark’s historical consultant on how she mulled over questions such as what an 18th century Cornish bank might look like and whether women would get drunk in taverns.
© Museum of London
Objects excavated from the ‘fire layer’ beneath London’s streets tell a story of intense heat, fear – and chaos.
Does this rock painting, featuring a long, white gun, depict first contact? Is it a work of history?
Author provided
Australian history is already a hotly contested discipline but is it time to broaden our definitions of the canon? Might an indigenous rock painting or a novel or a poem constitute a work of history?
watertownsurfer/flickr
Repatriation of cultural heritage is being debated at a time of mass migration – is heritage more important to countries that increasingly cannot be defined by their populations?
quinnanya/flickr
Germans like beer, French people wine and Italians coffee. Right?
Protesters wearing masks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump march in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dominick Reuter/Reuters
From Alfonso the Wise’s bawdy songs of slander to Ronald Reagan’s sunny smile, politics and humor have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. But no one seems to be laughing anymore.
Glenn Stevens upheld the independence of the RBA in his time as governor.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Glenn Stevens’ legacy shows how to maintain the independence of the Reserve Bank in crisis as well as the limits of monetary policy.
Hex code from the Blaster worm reveals the potential motivations of the worm’s creator.
Ward Moerman
How can archivists properly preserve computer programs often written specifically to destroy data?
Elizabeth I of England, the Armada portrait, 1590.
The value of the Armada painting, soon to go on show in Greenwich, lies in its masterful storytelling.
A bronze statue, ‘The Boxer of Quirinal.’ Sometimes ancient Greek boxers would bribe their opponents.
Wikimedia Commons
When fame and glory are at stake, human nature seems to dictate that some people will cheat.
jdlennon/flickr
In the West, the public perception of Stalin and the Terror lingers from the period immediately after his death in 1953. It shouldn’t.
FDR Presidential Library
Lucky Luciano, Al Capone and FDR walk into a Democratic convention…
Personal ‘hygiene sticks’ used in toilets on the Silk Road.
Hui-Yuan Yeh. Reproduced from the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
How a research team identified parasites in ‘hygiene sticks’ that travellers on the Silk Road effectively used as their toilet paper.
All accounted for in Babylon. Belshazzar’s Feast by Rembrandt.
Everett - Art/Shutterstock
The number crunchers who helped create our capitalist world have been measuring the world since ancient times.