It's 60 years since Gagarin's world-first return from space. The cosmonaut never did make it to Australia, but his huge feat was celebrated here by many, despite tensions with the USSR.
Tony Leon celebrates.
at the Democratic Alliance’s final election rally held in Johannesburg, in April 2004.
EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook
Leon mulls over the Democratic Alliance's biggest challenge: 'how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority'.
Both Russia and China are signalling they will only deal with the West where and when it suits them. They are also increasingly comfortable working together as close partners.
The New York Times Facebook site on Feb. 18, 2021 as seen in Melbourne, Australia: Empty.
Robert Cianflone/Getty Images
The battle between media companies and foreign governments over who controls the news dates back some 150 years, to when European and US wire services dictated the world's headlines.
One of the most common reactions during a crisis is the urge to help others. Here a health-care worker watches as the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are delivered to a long-term care facility in Montréal.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
While the world is dealing with the biggest health emergency in more than a century, the way people have reacted to the crisis is familiar and predictable.
Giant of literary fiction: John le Carré was both influenced by, and influential on, Britain’s secret services.
Matt Crossick/PA Wire/PA Images
High-power microwave weapons are useful for disabling electronics. They might also be behind the ailments suffered by US diplomats and CIA agents in Cuba and China.
While we might not think of the 1950s housewife as taking an active interest in Cold War politics, a close reading of the Weekly shows its female readers were encouraged to join in the discussion.
This man visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico City while Lee Harvey Oswald was in Mexico in 1963. Officials thought it might be Oswald.
Corbis via Getty Images
Gonzalo Soltero, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
In 1967 a Mexican reporter told the CIA he had met Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City just before the JFK assassination. New research and recently declassified intelligence pokes a hole in his story.
A STS-134 crew member on the space shuttle Endeavour took this photo of the ISS after the station and shuttle began their separation.
NASA
Wendy Whitman Cobb, US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies
Humans have been living on the International Space Station for two full decades. So what comes next for this ailing technology, and what does it mean for future International ventures in space?
It is tempting to look back to the Cold War to make sense of current US-China relations. But we are in unchartered waters — and need a better understanding where this competition is heading.
Decaying monument to the ‘people’s uprising against fascism’ at Petrova Gora in Croatia.
Ilija Ascic via Shutterstock
The author's novels, famous for their bleakly sociopathic depiction of American culture, testify to the insanity and abusiveness that surround us.
Winston Churchill giving his final address, during the 1945 election campaign, at Walthamstow Stadium, East London.
Wikipedia, the collections of the Imperial War Museums
Klaus W. Larres, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Even a highly popular and respected leader can lose an election, writes a historian – especially if they don't have a plan for the future. Churchill was one of them.
It’s difficult by design to identify disinformation campaign instigators and their agendas.
stevanovicigor/iStock via Getty Images
Many people who participate in disinformation campaigns are unwitting accomplices and much of the information they spread is accurate, which makes it all the harder to identify the campaigns.
In control: Vladimir Putin could remain as Russian leader until 2036.
EPA-EFE/Sergei Guneyev / Host photo agency
African policymakers should strenuously safeguard their right to choose from the widest possible range of technology options that suit their countries’ development needs.
Venezuela Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, center, greets the arrival of medical specialists and supplies from China in March.
AP Photo/Matias Delacroix
The US may want to rethink its anti-China policy as Beijing's focus on providing international coronavirus aid and digital and health care investments seems to be working.