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Retired Foster police sergeant Jim Lowe at Waratah Bay in South Gippsland, where a windsurfer was last seen in the 1980s.

Victoria’s last fatal shark attack that maybe never was

Victoria’s last fatal shark attack has been misreported for years. Four decades after a windsurfer’s disappearance, a librarian, a scientist and a former police sergeant reveal the truth.

  • Cassandra Morgan

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A diver finds a tooth in the Beaumaris area from a prehistoric giant white shark, Cosmopolitodus plicatilis.
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Museum showcases fossils found out our feet.

A diver finds a tooth in the Beaumaris area from a prehistoric giant white shark, Cosmopolitodus plicatilis.

Peter Rainieri, who set up his family-run deli in Five Dock in 1981, has died.

‘Shop came first, everything else second’: The man behind Sydney’s viral $15 sandwich store dies

Before TikTok and Instagram, customers lined the counter of his Five Dock continental deli, shoulder to shoulder, arguing over who was next in line.

  • Kayla Olaya
The state government is being criticised for its schools funding.

History teachers are terrified by new hate speech laws, with good reason

Could explaining historical antisemitism be perceived as vilifying Jewish people? Newly enacted NSW laws could lead to silence.

  • Claire Golledge
It took decades for Patricia Sykes to find the courage to return to the Abbotsford Convent, where she lived in an orphanage as a child.

Art and ghosts meet as women reclaim the shadows of Abbotsford Convent

The faint echoes of the Magdalene laundries still linger in the convent’s walls. Some former residents have been brave enough to return; others will never cross the threshold again.

  • Cassandra Morgan
The 3800-year-old ‘lost city’ of Penico is located just over 200 kilometres north of Lima.

Ten newly discovered ruins and treasures to add to your bucket list

From entire lost cities to a collection of mysterious Victorian-era shoes, here are some of the most important historic discoveries of the past year.

  • Chris Leadbeater
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The windows of the former Homebush theatre have been boarded up and its facade vandalised.

Inside the abandoned 100-year-old Homebush Theatre

Photos reveal the extent of dilapidation – but what is next for the cinema shuttered in 1996?

  • Ellie Busby
The emu and the kangaroo can’t move backwards. Hence their place on Australia’s coat of arms.

On our 125th birthday, let’s rise to the test of our national character

Modern Australia has been built by countless individual acts of service, bravery, ambition and kindness – resources that we must call upon following the Bondi atrocity.

  • Anthony Albanese
The students should have been taught about Augustus.

Review of exam mix-up finds fault in authority’s website, memos to teachers

Every student affected passed the subject, a government spokesperson said, with more than 40 per cent receiving an A grade.

  • Julius Dennis
Historian Claes-Goran Wetterholm admires a replica of the Titanic.

‘A story that unites generations’: Why do Titanic artefacts draw crowds halfway across the world?

From the Hollywood blockbuster to documentaries exploring what occurred in the aftermath, and some weird yet entertaining spinoffs, the Titanic’s tale remains relevant more than a century on.

  • Holly Thompson