When Emperor Constantine woke up on May 28, 1453, it would have been to the depressing thought that it was likely his last day on Earth. Justinian was emperor of the Roman Empire (we tend to call them Byzantine, but they thought of themselves as Romans),… Read more
I’ve seen two cities that look like they were comprehensively destroyed. I don’t mean just ruins, but places where someone seems to have made a comprehensive, and successful attempt to wipe the place out. Warsaw may come to mind – it was practically obliterated in the… Read more
It is a macabre thought that in these days of GIS and databases, someone could probably come up with a map of Europe – colour-coded by the amount of human lives lost in battles over the past score of centuries or so. I wonder what… Read more
New Zealand school kids, at least when I was one, were taught to draw the Polynesian triangle. It has Hawaii at the top corner, Easter Island at another, and New Zealand at the third. Within this triangle, so we were told, are Polynesian cultures. Outside… Read more
Back in the days when Australia had just seven veterans left from the First World War, I made an effort to meet two of them. One was Ted Smout, and the other was Eric Abraham. Smout was a medic in the First World War, and… Read more