TimeGoggles

The Bayeux tapestry and a medieval illustration of a woman weaving. BL Royal 20 C V, f. 30v, illuminated manuscript/Wiki Commons/Canva For the first time in nearly 1,000 years, the Bayeux tapestry is returning to Britain. The 70-metre embroidery will be displayed at the British Museum from September. The tapestry depicts the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the battle of Hastings. In comic-strip form, it tells the story of Harold II and William the Conquerer.

The history of immigration policy in Australia is full of yes-no contradictions: fear jostling with hope, exclusion with openness. Australia has been pulled in different directions by the strength of its British ties and the demands of its Asia-Pacific geography. The British and their descendants, never meaningfully reconciling with the original sin of having invaded a continent, then constantly added people to it, most of them in their own image.

Time to dust off the gingham: Netflix is about to release a new adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved frontier stories. The series will revisit Little House on the Prairie (1935), the best-known of her books. For nearly a century, Wilder’s fictionalised accounts of her experiences on the American frontier in the 1870s and 1880s have been a staple of American culture. Her iconic children’s books – eight volumes originally published from 1932 to 1943 – quickly found an eager global audience.

How are you celebrating America’s 250th birthday this year? While we celebrate the Semiquincentennial, let’s hop back in time. A century ago, the nation was flocking to Philadelphia for the Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition. What did a massive 1926 birthday bash look like? We dug into our archives to find out. All Roads Lead to Philadelphia (Most of Them Paved!) Nothing puts the last century into perspective quite like a 1926 road map.

Amar/Pexels Even after decades of history wars, Australians still have a keen appetite for Australian history. According to recent research by UNSW, 83% of Australians believe history is relevant to society today – but only 57% feel we know much about it. Despite a welcome rise in history education through podcasts and social media, books are still among the best vehicles for it.

Two deaths related to Robin Hood have put the fictional medieval outlaw in the news recently. The release of The Death of Robin Hood featuring Hugh Jackman as the titular hero has coincided with the sad news of the death of the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, the tree that legend has it was one the outlaw’s hideouts. But why is Robin Hood a household name the world over when the names of other medieval outlaws remain largely unknown?

A recreation of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. meunierd/Shutterstock A supposedly unsinkable ship, an iceberg and a catastrophe that circulates through popular culture – the Titanic disaster is one of the most retold events in modern history. But familiarity comes at a cost. Repeated retellings tend to simplify what happened and reduce the real people involved to a basic story. Retellings of the Titanic disaster often focus only on the sinking itself and forget what happened afterwards.

US President Donald Trump’s “restoration” of the reflecting pool that stretches between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument has been dogged by questions over cost and now by the president’s claims it has been vandalised. This failure to bend nature to his will has been described as an “irresistible metaphor” for his critics. The landscaping of Washington, including the reflecting pool, builds on a tradition of organising nature into orderly lines and geometric shapes.

The agricultural economy was the backbone of wealth in ancient Greece. Food brought people together, whether in smaller groups at a wine-drinking symposium, or the entire community in a sacrificial feast of epic proportions. In The Odyssey, the ancient Greek epic poem, Odysseus’s son joins one of these early feasts – a community barbecue of 100 cattle. Researchers have long recognised the economic, political and social importance of food in ancient Greece.

The colonists' complaints listed in the Declaration of Independence are still relevant 250 years later. toddtaulman/iStock via Getty Images The Declaration of Independence, with its block of cursive letters scrawled onto parchment, looks like a relic from the distant past. Likewise, you might think the 27 grievances against King George III, his government and the British people listed in the body of the document would have little relevance to our lives today.