
For enslaved people, the holiday season was a time for revelry – and a brief window to fight back
During the era of slavery in the Americas, enslaved men, women and children also enjoyed the holidays. Slave owners usually gave them bigger portions of food, gifted them alcohol and provided extra days of rest. Those...

Fifty years ago, Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin. The lessons from it have still not been learnt
It is hard to comprehend the force with which Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin early on Christmas Day, 1974. It was so ferocious that it killed 66 people, partly or completely destroyed 10,000 homes, and wiped out most public...

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Muslims undertake the Hajj the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. In 2024, the pilgrimage took place in mid-June, the start of the Saudi summer. But this year, more than 1,300 pilgrims never...

How a Cold War satellite and Robert Menzies changed the way Australian schools are funded
As students and teachers prepare to go on holidays, theres a disagreement raging over a new school funding deal for 2025. Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria have all refused to sign up to the...

Australia has an ongoing GP shortage. Why can’t we just train more GPs?
If you have Australia is critically short of GPs and the shortfall is growing, predicted to be 8,600 GPs by 2048. So why cant we just train more? Despite new programs to attract medical graduates, there are multiple...
Where does Santa live? It’s a trickier question to answer than you may think
Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland. Roman Babakin/Shutterstock Sending a letter to Santa can be difficult as no one can agree on where exactly Santa lives. Several countries are competing to claim Santa as...
What will you be reading this summer? We asked 6 avid readers
Lawrence Chismorie/Unsplash Summer reads are often advertised as fat paperback page-turners: romance, adventure or crime fiction. But everyone has their own definition of the summer read. It might be catching up on a...