From the Back of the Class | Issue 16

Posted 2:27pm Sunday 19th July 2015

Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, taking over 470 “prizes” in a career spanning just three years from 1719 to 1722. Three years is a pretty decent innings for an eighteenth-century pirate, and Roberts amassed a Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 15

Posted 2:52pm Sunday 12th July 2015

Dunedin is beautiful, the people are hospitable and, unlike in other so-called cultural metropolises, you can still get an actual pint for less than the down-payment on a house. However, it was not always so idyllic. Many of the streets we walk upon, like High Street, Stuart Street and the suburb of Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 14

Posted 2:37pm Sunday 5th July 2015

New Zealand women won their right to vote on 19 September 1893, a historic day that made Aotearoa the first self-governing nation to extend this right to all women over the age of 21. The signing of the new Electoral Act was the culmination of years of political agitation by the Women’s Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 13

Posted 2:16pm Sunday 24th May 2015

On 15 January 1919, Boston suffered one of history’s strangest disasters — a devastating flood of molasses. The “Great Molasses Flood” tore through the working-class North End district and deposited so much of the sticky stuff that apparently residents could still smell it on Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 12

Posted 2:49pm Sunday 17th May 2015

Much like Leslie Knope, Nellie Bly was a pioneer in her field and a woman before her time. She created a whole new brand of investigative journalism known as “stunt journalism”. She was also the first person to figure out that if you went undercover as a journalist you could actually Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 10

Posted 2:48pm Sunday 10th May 2015

I’m not usually much of a believer in conspiracy theories. I do not necessarily consider the phrase a dirty term as some do, conjuring up images of tinfoil-wearing loonies, but I do subscribe more to the “cock up, not cover up” theory of government than to the secret scheming Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 10

Posted 2:36pm Sunday 3rd May 2015

Have you ever paid a visit to a friend, acquaintance or even a stranger and had your host offer you a cup of tea or a biscuit or a line of prescription medication? I recently have, which — naturally — got me thinking of the ancient Greek tradition of xenia. Xenia roughly translates to Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 9

Posted 2:42pm Sunday 26th April 2015

Gin and tonic is my favourite cocktail. It is also the only one I know how to make, as it conveniently has all the ingredients in the name. Yet there is more to this noble drink than meets the eye; as that connoisseur of alcohol, Sir Winston Churchill himself, once said: “The gin and tonic has Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 8

Posted 3:54pm Sunday 19th April 2015

Kamikaze is perhaps the best known of Japan’s World War Two tactics, yet it was not used until late in the war. By 1944 the Allies had pushed Japan back to the Philippines, a vital conduit for petroleum for Japan, and now threatened the Japanese mainland. The leadership knew that they could Read more...

From the Back of the Class | Issue 7

Posted 2:51pm Sunday 12th April 2015

From a very narrow nineteenth-century British perspective, Edward Gibbon Wakefield might be described as the father of New Zealand, though a strange father he was. The driving force in his life was a hunger for wealth and influence. Wakefield took his first step towards this by eloping at the age Read more...