The image, depicting a group of Indigenous people resisting their enslavement, predates the next oldest image by 75 years.
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Articles on Australian history
Displaying 1 - 20 of 149 articles
Today, many Australian urbanites see rivers as little more than picturesque places for a paddle. But in the colonial era, rivers served as highways, drinking sources, sewers, and routes to discovery.
In the mid 19th century, kangaroo hunting was a sport. Colonial hunting clubs were established across Australia and everyone from Charles Darwin to Anthony Trollope tried their hand at shooting roos.
Australia still hasn't answered how Aboriginal people became protected by British law and lost all their land at the same time. If it can't be resolved here, it might be time for international courts to weigh in.
It is 50 years since anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner gave the Boyer Lectures in which he coined the phrase 'the great Australian silence'. How far have we come since?
Sydney's Parramatta is developing fast, building over a rich archaeological history. Finding ways to retain it can help visitors and residents feel a sense of physical connection with those who came before.
More than 100,000 records of live performance are on a database of our theatre history. They tell of corroborees, the first play staged by white settlers, and long-gone gracious theatres.
Australia's convict past and male-dominated sex ratios have long-lasting effects on attitudes, impacting women's working lives.
Australia's rich tradition of crime fiction is little known – early tales told of bushrangers and convicts, one hero was a mining engineer turned amateur detective – but it reveals a range of national myths and fantasies.
Ngár-go (Fitzroy), Quo-yung (Richmond), Yálla-birr-ang (Collingwood), and Bulleke-bek (Brunswick), are just some of the Woiwurrung names uncovered in the notebooks of a 19th century anthropologist.
In the forests around the Murray River, Victoria's Watti Watti people have trained trees to mark significant cultural locations in the landscape.
Thousands of Australian women took flight to the US in the early 20th century, escaping sexism at home for success overseas. They included architects, artists, dentists and an economist who advised JFK.
The federal government will spend nearly $50 million over four years to commemorate Captain Cook's first landing. But some have questioned the spend.
Essays On Air: Australia’s property boom and bust cycle stretches back to colonial days.
The Conversation, CC BY58.7 MB (download)
Australia's property market is slowing and many are contemplating a possible bust. But today's episode of Essays On Air reminds us that since colonial days, Australia's property market has had its ups and downs.
A Tasmanian Requiem brings together Western and Aboriginal voices to confront the violence of the state's Black War. It shows what a historical reckoning, and reconciliation, might look and sound like.
Fook Shing spent 20 years as a Melbourne gumshoe. He policed the thriving Chinese community – claiming opium as an expense – but was never promoted above his entry rank of detective third class.
Behind the built-up glitz of Surfers Paradise lies a deep history that has been written and overwritten in successive layers that have become thinner and thinner as time goes on.
More than 160 thylacine specimens lie in museum collections in the UK. The sight of their bodies is a shocking reminder of loss.
Events like the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony present history as a simplistic story of progress and reconciliation.
Lisa Reihana's video installation Emissaries combines Indigenous actors and performance techniques to reenact Captain Cook's encounters across the Pacific.
Top contributors
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Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
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Research Professor in the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, UNSW
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Associate Professor in History, La Trobe University
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David Myers Research Fellow, La Trobe University
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Senior Lecturer in History; Graduate Research Coordinator, School of Humanities; Course Coordinator, Diploma of History, University of Tasmania
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ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Sydney
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Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University
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Fellow in Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
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Adjunct Professor, University of Technology Sydney
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Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health, Victoria University
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Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History, University of Western Australia
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Senior Lecturer in Creative and Performing Arts, University of Newcastle
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Associate Professor, University of Tasmania
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Honorary Associate, Department of History, University of Sydney
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Associate Professor of History, Deakin University
