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Historian Sean Reynolds at Old Melbourne Gaol.

More than mugshots: Project brings forgotten women in from the margins

Historian Sean Reynolds is calling for a re-think of women dismissed in the annals of history as villains or immoral.

  • Carolyn Webb

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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
Amateur historian Nick Russell on Tebajima island, off which the Cyprus was anchored in 1830.

How teacher’s Google search finally solved 195-year-old Australian mystery

The wild tale told in court had never been corroborated. Then, thousands of kilometres away and almost two centuries later, Nick Russell turned on his computer.

  • Lisa Visentin
Tasmanian convict descendant Julie Findlay (centre) and her family pictured with descendants of the samurais who repelled the Cyprus.

How a bunch of Australian convicts became ‘the most wanted men in the world’

When the Tasmanian convicts seized the colonial Cyprus brig and made a daring dash for freedom across the Pacific, they unwittingly set off the first known encounter between Japan and Australia.

  • Lisa Visentin
Recording Sydney’s buildings before being demolished.

The Sydney homes being knocked down, and the people keen to immortalise them

As tens of thousands of dwellings are flattened in the push for density, there are moves to document these soon-to-be-bulldozed buildings and streetscapes.

  • Julie Power and Nigel Gladstone
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‘Grave robber’ posed for cameras as he pillaged human remains

The bi-nation expedition in 1948 was launched amid great fanfare but quickly turned toxic with secrets, scandals and the pillaging of Aboriginal burial sites, as revealed in this edited extract.

  • Martin Thomas
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Nina Fiorenza is on a mission to save a Verona treasure trove.

It’s survived plagues, fires, invasions and bombing. Now an Australian woman is scrambling to save it once more

The remarkable 1500-year-old Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona is widely viewed as the world’s oldest continuously operating library. Nina Fiorenza is on a mission to preserve it.

  • Rob Harris
Paul Freeman

In attempting to deport a troublemaker, Australia helped create a martyr

Prospector Paul Freeman lies in an unlikely grave – at the foot of the Kremlin wall beside Soviet leaders and revolutionaries.

  • Rob Harris
A street musician plays a violin outside the Sant’Angelo castle as the sun sets in Rome on Sunday.

As I cover the world’s biggest stories, my mind always returns to that Australian classroom

So often during my time in Europe, I have been struck by deja vu – only to realise that Ms Needham had brought me here once before, through the pages of a history book.

  • Rob Harris
RBA archives exclusive: Bernie Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Sir Peter Abeles.

The inside story of the recession we didn’t have to have

As Australia deals with Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil, secret documents show the Reserve Bank board had its own plans to deal with economic disaster in the early 1990s.

  • Shane Wright