The werewolf topped the A-list of mythical creatures-of-the-night, until Darwin’s theory of evolution came along, and suddenly it was Bigfoot, the Yeti and the Sasquatch playing a starring role in our nightmares.
History
A history of the ALP’s hatred of the Greens in Tasmania
The latest animosity between Tasmanian Labor Premier David Bartlett and Greens leader Nick McKim is nothing new: the ALP has been loudly and proudly hating on the Greens in the Apple Isle for decades. Sue Neales explains the full bitchy backstory.
A timeline of Presidential plane crashes
Poland’s Lech Kaczynski isn’t the first world leader to plummet to his death a plane crash. Esquire looks at six other heads of state who met their makers mid-air, and the what Poland can learn from the subsequent fallouts.
Could the Polish Presidential plane crash actually help Russian relations?
Poland’s leaders were on their way to commemorate the 1940 massacre of Polish soldiers by the Soviet Union, when their plane crashed in Russia on Saturday. But historians say the tragedy may help the two countries finally move on.
Joseph Pulitzer was no prize
Newspaper mogul Joseph Pulitzer’s name may be synonymous with journalism due to the award he endowed, but the man himself was no model of media management, according to this fascinating biography of a man most of us have heard of but know nothing about.
The evolution of four fables
A beautiful and brillians data visualisation of how four classic stories — Pygmalion, Faust, Oedipus and Leviathan — have been written and rewritten in different countries and eras.
The history of the WSJ hedcut
The Wall Street Journal takes you through the history and evolution of its iconic hedcut drawings. Each is still hand-drawn by an army of artists and can take up to five hours to complete.
Watch the environmental movement’s first TV series
Our Vanishing Wilderness was a seminal and pivotal 1970s TV documentary series that first raised Americans’ awareness of pollution and environmental destruction, and the whole thing is now available free online.
Who answers the White House phone?
Everything you ever wanted to know about dialing the leader of the free world: Does he really have a secret number? Can you call it? And what about the iconic Cold War “red phone”?
Read the original handwritten, handdrawn Alice in Wonderland online
As the story gets a(nother) modern reworking on the silver screen, the British Library has posted the entire text and stunning images of Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland online.
leaked 
Larry Flynt’s History of Presidential Sex
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is writing a book about the history of sex in the White House, and Gawker has the whole 54-page proposal. “How did this president from Pennsylvania become so proslavery? In two words: Gay Love.”
How Texas is — literally — rewriting history
The Texas Board of Education is rewriting the State’s history textbooks with a decidedly more conservative bent: replacing Thomas Jefferson with John Calvin, defending McCarthyism, including the Moral Majority and the NRA, while excluding ideas like freedom of religion.
David Smith: Malcolm Fraser is lying about the Whitlam dismissal
Malcolm Fraser’s account of what then Governor General John Kerr said to him on the morning of 11 November, 1975, is not true, says Kerr’s former secretary David Smith.
How J.P. Morgan rescued the US dollar and bailed out a nation
Oh, the irony: over a century before his namesake company was bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of $25b, banker J.P. Morgan devised an enacted a risky strategy to pull America’s economy out of the Depression. John Steele Gordon explains how he pulled it off.
The evolution of comics
A fascinating essay by English Professor Brian Boyd on the evolution of comics from the late 19th Century into the form and style we’re familiar with today, and the profound influence of pioneers like Richard Outcault and Art Spiegelman.
The annual Anzac Day debate misses the point. Again.
Every year as April 25 approaches, the nation descends into squabbling over the significance of Anzac Day. But re-read your history books, says Erdem Koc: it was an empire-led invasion that had very little to do with us as a nation or the freedoms we enjoy today.
The secret story behind Windows
Former Microsoft Product Manager Tandy Trower explains how he transformed an unpopular operating system into one of the most popular and important products of all-time.
How we discovered the cure for scurvy — then lost it (then found it again)
A fascinating essay looking at how science can go backwards. A cure for scurvy — lemon juice — was found in 1747. So why did people start dying of it again in the 20th Century?
What the Tea Party and Woodstock have in common
Today’s right-wing Tea Party movement in the US and the left-wing hippy movement of the ’60s have more in common than you might think, explains David Brooks.
You say you want a referendum?
Kevin Rudd is threatening the states with a constitutional referendum on health, but history doesn’t bode well for his chances, explains Peter Brent.
10,000 schools, one curriculum
The new history draft was well received. But it’s not the nature of a published curriculum that is likely to be the real problem, it’s in the implementation that a curriculum stands or falls, writes Tony Taylor.
History’s time has come
Finally the importance of studying history has been realised, with the implementation of the national curriculum placing history as one of the top four subjects. But students care about people and stories, not stodgy facts, writes Greg Melleuish.
Australia’s grand history of Ministers not taking responsibility
If a minister had to resign every time somebody under their charge screwed up, the Cabinet would be bare, says Barrie Cassidy, with a great historical primer on when Ministerial Responsibility has and hasn’t be enforced wisely.
Internet Explorer 6: The True Hollywood Story
Internet Explorer 6: The True Hollywood StorySmashing Magazine tells the story of the widely maligned Internet Explorer 6, in comic form: the epic rise to fame in 2001, and the big crash to earth when upstarts Firefox and Safari hit the scene. The big cliffhanger ending: when will it die?
Here, boy! A history of “dog whistling” in Australian politics
“Dog whistle politics” is the catchphrase du jour amongst Australia’s political commentariat, who are using it to describe both Rudd and Abbott’s recent rhetoric. Ken Macnab has a great primer on “dog whistling” in Aussie politics throughout the years.
