Every three years, the election cycle comes into full swing and we are once again told that it will be the ‘most important election of our lifetime’. But for the federal election earlier this month, maybe it was actually true. With two major conflicts, a U.S. President who has upended the global economy and a cost of living crisis plaguing our country, 2025 was potentially shaping up to be the…
On 17 October 1979, President Jimmy Carter established the United States Department of Education with the intent to “improve the quality of education” and “strengthen equal education opportunities for students” across the nation. In the years since, the Department of Education has been the subject of intense criticism from Republicans since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who proposed “to dismantle two Cabinet Departments, Energy and Education” in his 1981 Address…
Carved by the indigenous Rapa Nui people nearly a millennia ago, the monolithic ‘Moai’ statues of Easter Island have risen to fame as an eccentric icon of modern culture. These vast, imposing structures made of volcanic ash can still be seen scattered throughout the island even to this day, where they have become a popular tourist attraction for visitors from all over the world. Despite their global influence, we actually…
Throughout the history of the past millennia, the English language has come to dominate every corner of the world. From business, to science, to media, to diplomacy, English represents the fundamental pillar that fosters international exchange and cooperation. Fuelled by the growth of the largest imperial power in human history, the language has spread its tendrils across every habitable continent and established itself as the international standard in our increasingly…
On 17th November 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a historic speech to the joint Houses of Parliament, praising Australia-China relations as reaching “a new and higher starting point”. Since then, China’s bilateral relations with the West have declined by almost every possible metric, fuelled by Xi’s relentless pursuit of establishing his nation as a military, economic and political superpower that seeks to challenge the world order created by the…
Last Tuesday, 60 million viewers across the globe tuned in to watch former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris face off in the second presidential debate of 2024. Notably, this was the first time that the pair had ever met in person, and the debate marked the most significant event of the election since President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race in July. With Biden's…
In the years after the First World War, Germany faced countless social, political and economic challenges that brought it to the brink of complete collapse more than once. Civil unrest and crippling debt plagued the nation, while the severe terms of the Treaty of Versailles caused prices to increase by over one trillion times from 1918 to 1923. After the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the end of the…
Last Sunday, America’s political landscape was radically transformed as President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race in a written address to the nation. As the oldest sitting president in history, the public had frequently raised concerns about Biden’s capacity to run for re-election and serve another four years in office, given his age and declining cognitive function. However, it was not until the world saw his stuttering,…
In the early evening of 13 July 2024, the world would witness one of the most heinous acts of political extremism in decades. Just minutes into Donald Trump’s speech at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the sound of gunshots rang across the stage as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks opened fire on the podium, determined to assassinate the former president. Yet in a stroke of luck so remarkable that it seemed an…
Spoken by some 800,000 people in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France, Basque is one of the most unique and bizarre languages that exists anywhere in the world. It is one of the few remaining language isolates and the very last in Europe, meaning it demonstrates no identifiable relationship with any other language and is very much one of a kind. The uniqueness of the Basque language has made…