History

How do millions of dollars worth of diamonds go missing on a beach? Most Australians have never heard of the Dakota diamonds mystery, but the drama is still unfolding on the remote north-west coast.

Absinthe was once banned in some countries. It's back on shelves, but still courting controversy. 

A 700-year-old copy of the Magna Carta, the document considered one of the foundations of democracy, is back on display at Parliament House,

A rare glimpse inside Australia’s first nickel mine - the Silver Lake shaft at Kambalda - as this ABC News story from 1968 discusses the “latest magic metal of Western Australia”.

As the 170th anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion rolls around, experts say the true story of the event — and its iconic Southern Cross flag — need to be remembered.

In the 80s, hipster youths Michael Callaghan and Gregor Cullen screen-printed street posters in a park in Wollongong. Their posters are now sitting in collections in major art institutions. 

The bells of Notre Dame are chiming again, but scaffolding still clinging to the cathedral's exterior is puzzling some Parisians.

A tiny South Australian farming town is reactivating its huge collection of printmaking equipment as community members put their hands up to learn more creative skills.

This year marks a century since coal mined at Yallourn was first used to supply Melbourne, and in Victoria's coal country there is still a nostalgia for the good old days.

A few years ago, the University of Tasmania proposed about 1,200 dwellings including medium-rise apartment buildings above its Sandy Bay campus. It sparked a furious response — but the land is back on the agenda.

Steel fabricator Scott Campbell fondly remembers the "dying art" of working iron into unique shapes, a craft popularised in the outback city in the 1950s by the man who began the business Mr Campbell now owns more than six decades later.

Street names and monuments celebrating colonial figures are part of "ongoing colonisation", say Portland's Aboriginal people, who want the relics to be taken down and placed in a space where a fuller historical context can be shared.

In 1966 a salt-of-the-earth banana farmer saw something he couldn't explain that left behind a circular mark in some reeds which he called a "saucer nest". That moment became the inspiration for an international alien hoax and exposed him to the chaotic debate about UFOs.

For the first time, an Australian government has sat opposite a collective of Aboriginal communities in a bid to negotiate a treaty, in recognition of their sovereign rights over land colonised without their consent.

Inspired by footwear worn by construction workers in Japan, tabi shoes are turning heads from Hollywood to Melbourne. What makes them so special?

Commercial radio started with a bang in Adelaide after a live broadcast of federal election results in 1925 prompted a police response when 5,000 people gathered outside the studio of 5CL, which would later become the ABC. 

In lieu of a formal truth-telling hearing, members of the Cherbourg community have shared their experiences of life and restrictions in the Aboriginal settlement. 

When Shirley met the love of her life at age 19, Australian society didn't allow her and her soulmate to be together.

Tenzing Norgay was the Hobart Walking Club's guest of honour during this Easter trip to Mount Field in 1963.

Tenzing Norgay passing through Melbourne on March 29, 1963, nine years and 10 months after he reached the peak of Mount Everest.