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Lednice Castle, Liechtensteins, Czech heritage - guest writer
I left Czechoslovakia at 3.5 years old, and remembered almost nothing. But my mother thought her homeland was the most beautiful country anywhere. So tours back home as an adult were very impressive,...
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1000 years of Hebrew books, Melbourne
Jews, Christians and Muslims, Peoples of the Book, shared a common basis of their religious beliefs in the Jewish Bible aka the Old Testament. Recognising the two older systems as precursors to their...
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magnificent Resurrection of Jesus Christ Church, St Petersburg
Czar Alexander II (ruled1855-81) was a great Russian royal, one of his successes was emancipating serfs in 1861, ending the obscene slavery of Russian peasantry. This was before the US finally...
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Capt Cook's Cottage Melbourne
James Cook Snr brought his large family from Scotland in 1736 where he had secured more reliable employment on estate farms. As a bonus, he could send young James to school at his employer’s...
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Could black men graduate from Oxbridge?
Cole at OxfordHistory ExtraThe first black man recorded as graduating from Cambridge was mixed-race violinist George Augustus Bridgetower (1778–1860). He was elected to Royal Society of Musicians in...
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Bluestockings: cultured, literary women!
A Bluestocking was a mid C18th intellectual woman with strong scholarly or literary interests. A group was founded to discuss the arts, started by two high society ladies in Britain: heiress...
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Police and protective services AFTER Jimmy Savile died.
The 7th child in a struggling Leeds family, teenage Jimmy Savile (1926-2011) worked in coalmines in WW2 when he suffered serious injuries in an explosion. So he moved instead to work as a dance hall...
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Krakow's world heritage Market Square
Kraków’s Market Square is the centre of the city’s medieval Old Town, designed in 1257 when Kraków won its charter. The grid-like layout of the Old Town and its central square has changed little in the...
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Passion for Life: artist Dame Laura Knight
Knight, The Fishing Fleet, 1900 Boston Museum & Art Gallery.Knight, The Boys Newlyn Cornwall, 1909, Johannesburg Art Gallery.Barbara Morden’s book dealt with the British artist born to the...
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Athens: ancient & modern Olympic Games
Greek royal family opening the 1896 Gamesfollowed by British Prince of Wales and Russian Duchess OlgaPinterestThe first Olympic Games in the Southern Hemisphere EVER were in Melbourne in 1956. These...
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Famous people close to Frida Kahlo
Born in 1907, Magdalena Frida Kahlo grew up in Mexico City in a blue house/Casa Azul built by her father. Father Guillermo Kahlo was a German-Jewish photographer and mother, Matilde Calderón,...
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Arts & Crafts Tassie: Markree House 1926
Cecil William Baldwin (1887–1961) was born in Melbourne and trained at the Burnley School of Horticulture, working as a landscape gardener until the outbreak of WW1. Cecil enlisted in the 40th...
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Victorian-Edwardian pubs in West Australia
600 ks east of Perth, the City of Kalgoorlie was a unique expression of gold fever. Unlike most goldmining towns, which last for perhaps a decade, Kalgoorlie includes the famous Golden Mile and has an...
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Yoram Gross: best Aus children's films
Yoram Gross (1926–2015) was born in Krakow Poland, to a Jewish family. He lived during WW2 under the Nazis, with his family on Oskar Schindler’s list of humans rescued from slaughter in 1944, but...
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British travellers on Grand Tour: C18th
The term Grand Tour first appeared in the Voyage or a Compleat Journey through Italy 1670, by Frenchman Richard Lassels. Published in London, the book became a guide for scholars, artists and...
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Medieval saints, pilgrims, souvenirs
In the Christian tradition, journeying was associated with conversion: all pilgrim roads potentially led to Damascus. All Christians were stained with sin in his life, but individuals’ motives for...
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Titanic memorabilia
Noted businessman John Jacob Astor (1864-1912), who made his fortune in the fur trade, was 47 when the Titanic sank in April 1912. According to survivor accounts, Astor didn’t believe the ship was...
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Honouring my late son, Israel & tourism.
Peter was the first child born to Helen & Joseph; first grandchild to Thelma & Les in Melbourne, and to Chaya & Yehuda in Sydney; and first great grandchild to Sarah and Peter. He was...
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capital city of spies: Berlin's Spy Museum
Today’s German capital, Berlin, was the Capital of Spies in the Cold War. The situation of the divided city, which developed after WW2, was unique. The historical heritage provided for exciting tours...
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Oliver Sacks: neurologist, pianist, scholar
Oliver Wolf Sacks (1933-2015) was born in London, youngest of four sons of two Lithuanian Jewish doctors. Oliver spent most of his childhood in London, though his GP father and surgeon mother sent him...
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