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History of ballroom dancing. Great books
Energetic couples,Arthur Miller Dance StudiosCrows Nest Sydney In the post-war era and till 1960, my late parents went square-dancing every week. I, on the other hand,...
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Ernest Seton Vs Robert Baden-Powell: Woodcraft Indians
Woodcraft Indians: Ernest Thompson SetonAmerica Comes AliveErnest Seton (1860-1946) was born in County Durham. Having lost a significant money in Britain, his dad left for Canada to try farming. Much...
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How to recycle Hitler's birth-home safely?
Braunau am Inn is on the lower river Inn where it borders the German state of Bavaria, 160 ks from Linz and 60 km from Salzburg. Adolf Hitler was born there in 1889 and although his family moved after...
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Red Dirt Road: great Australian crime novel 2023
S.R. White's bookHeadline PublishersHaving worked for a UK police force for 12 years before returning to academic life at Nottingham Trent Uni, author S.R White was a British policeman who moved to...
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Meiji Golden Age cloisonné enamels, Japan
Thank you to History of Cloisonné in Japan. In Japan, enamelling was employed primarily on architectural fittings eg door-pulls and to decorate small objects. The samurai needed fine decoration of...
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Gold Mines Hotel Bendigo and other Victorian treasures.
The Gold Mines Hotel BendigoBendigo in Central Victoria was literally built on a mid C19th Gold Rush legacy. The wives of 2 workers from the Mt Alexander North pastoral property changed history in...
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Jorn Utzon spectacular architecture in Australia & Denmark
The inspiration for Jorn Utzon’s unique Sydney Opera House was in the architect’s former hometown. Aalborg, northern Denmark’s largest city, is c5 hours from Copenhagen, bisected by Limfjord...
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Australia's oldest, most beautiful Royal Arcade: Melbourne
I was not only the first grandchild for my grandparents; I was also a girl followed by my brothers and male first cousins. One of my fondest memories of the mid-late 1950s was going with my grandmother...
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beautiful Aleppo: lost history
Ancient hammams/baths renovated during the Ottoman periodWiki 2010 Madrasa Halawiyebuilt in C12th alisariramThe Syrian city of Aleppo/White or Halep/Milk takes its name from a local white limestone...
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stunning Canfranc Railway Station on the Spanish-French border, now a hotel
Royal opening of Canfranc Railway Station1928In 1853, the Spanish and French governments agreed to boost their trade links via a new rail line. Spain already had two main border crossings with France,...
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Thank you Albania for great WW2 heroism
Brothers Hamid (left) and Xhemal Veseli,whose family saved Jews from the Holocausthonoured in Yad Vashem.saving Jewish Families of Kavajë.JGuideEuropeIn the late C15th Spanish Inquisition, the Turkish...
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Wealthy visitors "toured" Bedlam asylum
Note the well dressed tourists in BedlamThe Rake’s Progress: Scene 8, by William Hogarth, 1735 Sir John Soane’s Museum. Originally Bethlehem was founded in 1247 as the Priory of St Mary in Bishopsgate...
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Jack Levine: realist artist, US 1930s-50s
Jack Levine (1915-2010) was born in south Boston, the youngest of 8 children born to Jewish Lithuanian migrants. He first studied with Harold Zimmerman in 1924-31 while still a teenager, and his...
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great Art Deco hotel in London: Beaumont
Front entrance of The BeaumontLeft and below: Antony Gormley sculpture. The greater number of cars in the early C20th were requiring a quick expansion of services like petrol stations &...
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Shetland Islands Scotland - surprising tourist attractions.
In 1468, King Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden pawned the Orkney Isles to Scottish King James III in lieu of a royal dowry for 50,000 florins. And the Shetlands were then pawned for more...
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Mourning for Nepal's university students, massacred near Gaza
After the end of Year 12 in high school, I was too young to enter university so I looked for a Gap Year programme that my parents would be happy with. The best was a youth leadership course in...
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Hampstead: sensitive romance, not for teens
Hampstead was my favourite suburb in the entire world – my spouse and I ate at the vegetarian restaurant there every week for two years! But I had never seen the disused hospital on the edge of the...
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Ronald Ryan hanged, 1967. Obscene, Australia!
The gallows on which Ryan was hangedHerald SunI have written about capital punishment before. Dr Hawley Crippen was hanged in Pentonville London for killing his wife (1910); Eddie Leonski was hanged...
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Melbourne's gorgeous Flinders St railway station: clocks & towers
Flinders St Station was commenced in Sep 1854, the first steam railway station built in Australia, part of Melbourne’s late C19th urban expansion. Just a collection of weather-board sheds then, the...
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Straw hat riots of New York, 1922: a teenage prank or dangerous riots?
A baseball crowd showed how popular straw boaters were in summer. Ripley'sThroughout history, social mores have helped dictate personal styles. Straw hats in America appeared in the 1890s and early...
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