Muslim conversion is growing in Indigenous communities. In the 2001 national census, 641 Indigenous people identified as Muslim. By the 2006 census the number had climbed by more than 60% to 1014 people…
Mirrors of a magical scientist: Andromeda photographed through a Newtonian telescope. Flickr/JonBaglo.
The notebooks of Sir Isaac Newton, who was famously reported to have suffered a (scientifically) earth-shaking blow to the head from an apple, are being scanned and published online by the University of…
It’s December 15th, 1983. Around 13,000 people, a capacity crowd, are packed into the Sydney Entertainment Centre. This is the last of five Cold Chisel shows there. Fans had queued for blocks, some had…
Indigenous Australians systematically burnt grasslands to reduce fuel and stop fires raging out of control.
Flickr/pietroizzo
Aboriginal people worked hard to make plants and animals abundant, convenient and predictable. By distributing plants and associating them in mosaics, then using these to lure and locate animals, Aborigines…
Italian-Australians deserve an apology for their mistreatment in internment camps in World War II.
Australian War Memorial Collection
Last month, the South Australian parliament unanimously accepted a bi-partisan motion moved by Labor member, Tony Piccolo, to acknowledge the wrongful internment of Italian civilians living in Australia…
Mussolini made the trains run on time. But having a strong leader is risky.
Flickr/Galaxy FM
“If I Ruled The World” was a tune made famous decades ago by English comedian and singer Harry Secombe who sang of making every day the first day of spring as well as other miraculous improvements. It…
‘Generation’ is a slippery concept. More research is needed to tell real people’s stories.
Flickr/Mickey van der Stap
Generational difference is one of the major issues of our time. Game shows like Talkin’‘bout Your Generation assume that Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y contestants have very different attitudes and knowledge…
We are still learning about the Mongolian invasions, 750 years after they happened.
Hanoi History Museum, James Delgado
Archaeologists from the University of the Ryukyus in Japan have discovered part of a 13th century ship that apparently belonged to Mongolian warlord Kublai Khan. The ship is believed to be a remnant of…
Who will take over the family firm after Prince William is under discussion by Commonwealth leaders.
AAP/Lyndon Mechielsen
UPDATE: Commonwealth leaders have now agreed that laws will be changed to allow sons and daughters of any future British monarch to have equal right to the throne. The ban on the head of state marrying…
It’s wrong to assume that China makes no effort to reform its political system because its culture does not support such change.
Flickr/Katherina
The skepticism of contemporary China’s multilayered and painful efforts to achieve legal and political reform makes many wonder if democracy can really grow in the Chinese soil. This is such a haunting…
Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year-rule of Libya has come to an violent end in a manner reminiscent of the dispatch of Fascist Italy’s Benito Mussolini. Libya under Gaddafi, like Libya before him, had a complex…
The velocipede created one of several cycling booms in Australia.
Harpers Weekly (Dec 18, 1868)
CYCLING IN AUSTRALIA: Forget about the wild scenes of public adulation for Cadel Evans following his Tour de France triumph. Forget about the widespread admiration for champion cyclist Anna Meares following…
aapone italy world politics economy protest europe original.
The Occupy Wall Street protests that started in New York have proved contagious. Sit-ins and attempted occupations have spread to other major American cities including Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and Atlanta…
Francis Galton pioneered the concept of eugenics in this lab in London in the late 19th century.
Flickr/Science Museum London
Eugenics — the science of improving the race —was a powerful influence on the development of Western civilisation in the first half of the twentieth century. And Melbourne’s elite were among its chief…
While adding up your grocery bill in the supermarket, you’re probably not thinking how important or sophisticated our number system is. But the discovery of the present system, by unknown mathematicians…
Australian veterans of the Pacific theatre in WWII attend a VJ Day memorial.
AAP
Sometimes an historian will challenge one of the key ideological myths of Australian capitalism. Henry Reynolds does it in his work on the colonial treatment of Aborigines, a treatment some go so far as…