Ask any young woman whether she feels embarrassed by her periods and she’ll likely deny it. Her grandmother might have hidden all evidence of "the curse" but not today’s liberated women. Right?
The life Adams was leading 100 years ago was far from a Hollywood fantasy.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC.
This Remembrance Day, spend some time with Claire Adams Mackinnon – the silent Hollywood movie star who stole the heart of Melbourne bachelor and lived the last 40 years of her life in Victoria.
Gallows legacy. Albert Pierrepoint and the nature of the executioner.
Global Panorama
President Obama's recent condemnation of the Confederate battleflag mirrors the current and rapidly-changing public mood on this artefact. But attitudes to the flag have deeper roots.
Transgender is an umbrella term, encompassing a number of different identities and practices.
'Umbrella' via www.shutterstock.com
It's easy to dismiss fashion as trivial but the clothes we wear have stories to tell. Fashion is part of everyday experience and our memories are often stitched into the seams of our favourite dresses.
The images that appear on our stamps tell a powerful story about the nation – so why don’t we pay more attention?
Chris/Flickr
For most of us stamps have become infrequent objects of daily life but they continue to be produced, and collected by devotees – so what do they say about us as a nation?
In William Shakespeare’s comedy Merchant of Venice, the play’s heroine Portia sings: Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head. If you look at Valentine’s Day cards, it’s clear fancy…
Selma director and co-writer Ava DuVernay has crafted a new and important vision of an oft-examined era in our nation’s history.
Stanley Wolfson/Library of Congress
Hollywood films that depict American history deeply influence our sense of national identity. Films that portray Civil Rights and Black Freedom history are particularly important. Beyond entertaining moviegoers…
Spices and other aromatics have been a driving force in human history.
Wikimedia Commons
Traditional Christmas and winter food and drinks such as mulled wine, eggnog, ginger bread and fruitcakes often call for more than a dash of what Jamie Oliver calls “festive spices” – cloves, cinnamon…
The Trinidad-born Australian novelist Ralph de Boissière migrated to Melbourne in 1948 to escape Trinidad’s colour/class hierarchy.
Breakdown Press
Growing up with a Jamaican grandmother in 1970s small-town Australia was unusual. There weren’t any other Caribbean (or West Indian) people living nearby and a Caribbean community did not exist in Newcastle…
At least no one got their head cut off …
Emilio Lavandeira Jr/EPA
Another game, another bite. That’s the allegation against Uruguayan Luis Suárez, anyway, who has been accused of sinking his teeth into an opposition player. For the third time. But a mid-game nibble on…
Ritzy red wine has come to represent political influence-peddling in the resignation of NSW premier Barry O'Farrell.
AAP/Julian Smith
Political scandals, the perennial product of the grinding gears of greed and governance, proliferate in the age of digital media, the 24-hours news cycle and anti-corruption bodies with wide powers. Constant…
Lehrer… were we meant to forget this?
Bernd Weissbrod/EPA
German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children…