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A day of mourning, a day to protest invasion or a public holiday: however Australians mark the date, community leaders say it’s time for ‘a lot of listening’

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

Despite the inherent chance and coincidence of Australian history, there’s a certain sense of inevitability when we trace our national narrative in hindsight. The sequence of chapters in our textbooks and syllabuses seems logical and coherent. Colonisation follows European imperialism and exploration. Suffrage follows the discovery of gold. Federation is…

January 26 is a ridiculous national day for Australia Day, but it’s the one we’ve got, and we’re stuck with it.

Louis Nowra’s inspired biography of Sydney starts with a surprise visit to the city. He grew up in a housing commission estate in Melbourne. In 1959, while on a trip with his father to Wollongong in a truck to pick up a load of coke (for fireplaces, not drinking), his…

In July 2021, Jack Dempsey, the mayor of Bundaberg, delivered an official apology for Northern Queensland’s past reliance on the indentured labour of Pacific Islanders, many of whom were kidnapped (or “blackbirded”) and forced to work on the state’s cane plantations. “To say sorry,” explained Dempsey, “is a start in…

If it wasn't for a series of events in Britain, France and at sea, Australia could have a very different history.