Search results

Listed under:  History  >  World history  >  Australian history
Text

Magna Carta - Is it a part of your life today?

This unit of work consists of five classroom activities that introduce students to the Magna Carta, or Great Charter that describes the civil liberties granted by King John of England in 1215. The activities explore the key concepts established in the Magna Carta, including the rule of law and the parliamentary system of ...

Text

Eureka: Protest, riot, rebellion or revolution?

This unit of work consists of four activities that examine the causes and consequences of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion. The activities include a decision-making exercise through which students consider the rebellion from the point of view of the diggers and the realities of life on the goldfields. A short video provides background ...

Video

ABC Open: Anzac Day and the unseen costs of war

Discover the unseen costs of war. Many people experience fear, anxiety, bereavement, shock and other forms of psychological trauma that do not end when they return home. Watch this clip as residents of Violet Town in Victoria reflect on the personal cost of war.

Video

ABC Open: Australians recognise past sacrifices on Anzac Day

Share the memories of Australian war veterans and discover their thoughts about Anzac Day's significance. In this clip, veterans living on Queensland's Gold Coast express their ideas and feelings about what Anzac Day means to them.

Video

Untold Stories, Ep 12: The submarine that ran amok at Gallipoli

Alec Nichols was a farm boy from the Sunshine Coast who joined the navy at the age of 18. During World War I, he was one of 35 men on the AE2 submarine that broke through enemy lines in the Dardanelles strait. After five days of sustained attacks from the Turkish navy, the submarine had to surface. The men were captured ...

Video

Journey into Japan: Modernising Japan in the Meiji era

The restoration of Emperor Meiji in 1868 ushered in a period of rapid change in Japan. The country not only borrowed practices and technologies from Western countries, in less than forty years it too had become an imperialist power. This clip is fifth in a series of six.

Video

The convict voyages

What do you think it was like for convicts on their voyage from England to Australia? Would you be surprised to discover that their life expectancy on board a convict vessel was actually higher than that of free settlers? Watch this video to discover why this might be, and learn about the convicts themselves.

Video

ABC 7.30: Chinese ANZACs

When World War I broke out in 1914, the 'White Australia Policy' had been in place for 13 years. Despite this attempt at exclusion, many Chinese Australians chose to enlist and fight the war with their fellow countrymen. Do you think you would have done the same? Why/why not? Watch this video to find out more about the ...

Video

Rogue nation, 2009: Democracy and the colony of NSW

This clip is an excerpt from the 2009 documentary 'Honour among thieves', the first of a two-part television series entitled 'Rogue nation'. In a dramatised re-enactment, British Commissioner John Thomas Bigge investigates the colony of NSW in 1819. He is advised by John Macarthur, a member of the 'exclusives' class of ...

Video

Cold War games,1999

'Cold War games' is an excerpt from the documentary 'Lies, Spies and Olympics', produced in 1999. 'Lies, Spies and Olympics' studies the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, which have become etched in Australian mythology as a watershed in the nation's sporting, cultural and civic history. But behind the myth is a far more revealing ...

Video

Rogue nation, 2009: NSW in 1819, convict gulag or place of opportunity?

This clip is an excerpt from the 2009 documentary 'Rites of passage', the second of a two-part series entitled 'Rogue nation'. The clip begins with historian Michael Cathcart providing contextual information about England in the early 1800s. He says that in the midst of the industrial revolution, millions of people were ...

Video

Ben Chifley: the aftermath of the miners' strike, 2008

This clip is an excerpt from the documentary 'Infamous victory: Ben Chifley's battle for coal', produced in 2008. This documentary about coal, communism and the Australian Labor prime minister who went to war against his own during the national miners' strike is a Screen Australia Making History production, made in association ...

Video

Counted: Marcia Langton on racism

Marcia Langton, a teenager in 1967, reflects on her experiences of racism. What does she say about the language of racism? How have Marcia and Stan Snr experienced racism? And what does Marcia say are its effects? What do you think are the effects of racism?

Video

Counted: Faith Bandler on voting yes in the 1967 referendum

In 1967, after 10 years of campaigning, Australia voted yes in the referendum on changing the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were referred to in the Constitution. Faith Bandler played an important role in campaigning for the yes vote. Do some research and find out more about this remarkable activist.

Video

Impact of European settlement on Aboriginal Tasmanians video

Aboriginal Tasmanians had inhabited Tasmania for over 40,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. What do you think life was like for Aboriginal Tasmanians before then? Why might have they embarked on a war, called the 'Black War', once settlers began arriving in Tasmania, despite existing relatively peacefully ...

Video

Journey into Japan: Tokugawa shogunate is overthrown

How did Japan's Tokugawa shogunate come to an end? The entry of the US fleet into Tokyo Bay in 1853 and the events that followed exposed the shogunate's policy of isolation as a potential threat to the country. Western influence, and Japan's response to it, would have an enormous impact on the country's future. This clip ...

Video

The House In Session, Ep 3: The Westminster system and borrowed traditions

Annabel Crabb explains the interesting traditions that the Parliament of Australia has borrowed from the parliament of Westminster in the United Kingdom. Who is Black Rod, and what is a serjeant-at-arms? What is the Mace, and why is a hood placed over it when entering the presence of the Governor-General? And why would ...

Video

Tour of NSW Government House

This resource is a YouTube playlist containing a series of videos taken as a group of senior high school students are given a guided tour of NSW Government House in 2010. The tour covers primary sources such as architecture, furniture and images significant to the history of Australia and NSW.

Video

Ben Chifley's Australia, 2008

This clip is an excerpt from the documentary 'Infamous victory: Ben Chifley's battle for coal', produced in 2008. This documentary about coal, communism and the Australian Labor prime minister who went to war against his own during the national miners' strike of 1949 is a Screen Australia Making History production, made ...

Video

ABC Open: Veterans reflect on the meaning of Anzac Day

What does Anzac Day mean to you? For some older Australians, Anzac Day recognises loyalty to the British Empire. To others it is a time to remember sacrifice and to take pride in Australian character. Watch this clip to discover what Anzac Day means to a number of veterans in the 21st century.