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Reliving history

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Doll Hospital owner Charles Philipp. The Doll Hospital is closing after more than 140 years.

Doll Hospital needs new homes for ‘patients’ as it prepares to shut after 140 years

The Doll Hospital has been a refuge for Melbourne’s chewed-up dolls, torn teddies and worn-out toys, but they are preparing their final farewell.

  • Rachael Ward

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Chris Shinners does a 50-kilometre walk around the old school VFL grounds of Melbourne which  offers a different perspective on footy and Melbourne history.

Olympian’s Aussie rules pilgrimage to 11 VFL grounds in eight hours on foot

Chris Shinners’ pilgrimage through Aussie rules history offers a ground-level insight into the evolution of the game and the city it took over.

  • Rachael Ward
Peter FitzSimons, Kate McClymont.

Kate McClymont has been threatened, ridiculed and abused. But that’s not what brought her to tears

Our youngest to our longest-serving journalists reveal what it means to work at the Herald and some of their big, memorable moments.

Who is granny?  The Herald failed to find out the real identify.of this witty columnist.  Where are investigative reporters Nick McKenzie and Kate McClymont when you  really need them?

Granny or grandpa: The person who knits together the purls of witdom

We tried to find out who Granny really is. And failed. Those who know will never reveal the secret. All we know discovered is that granny likes to knit and watch violent television with a cat on her lap. Clever Granny.

Historian Sean Reynolds at Old Melbourne Gaol.

More than mugshots: Project brings forgotten women in from the margins

Historian Sean Reynolds is calling for a re-think of women dismissed in the annals of history as villains or immoral.

  • Carolyn Webb
Historian Claes-Goran Wetterholm admires a replica of the Titanic.

‘A story that unites generations’: Why do Titanic artefacts draw crowds halfway across the world?

From the Hollywood blockbuster to documentaries exploring what occurred in the aftermath, and some weird yet entertaining spinoffs, the Titanic’s tale remains relevant more than a century on.

  • Holly Thompson
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Amateur historian Nick Russell on Tebajima island, off which the Cyprus was anchored in 1830.

How teacher’s Google search finally solved 195-year-old Australian mystery

The wild tale told in court had never been corroborated. Then, thousands of kilometres away and almost two centuries later, Nick Russell turned on his computer.

  • Lisa Visentin
Tasmanian convict descendant Julie Findlay (centre) and her family pictured with descendants of the samurais who repelled the Cyprus.

How a bunch of Australian convicts became ‘the most wanted men in the world’

When the Tasmanian convicts seized the colonial Cyprus brig and made a daring dash for freedom across the Pacific, they unwittingly set off the first known encounter between Japan and Australia.

  • Lisa Visentin
Recording Sydney’s buildings before being demolished.

The Sydney homes being knocked down, and the people keen to immortalise them

As tens of thousands of dwellings are flattened in the push for density, there are moves to document these soon-to-be-bulldozed buildings and streetscapes.

  • Julie Power and Nigel Gladstone
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‘Grave robber’ posed for cameras as he pillaged human remains

The bi-nation expedition in 1948 was launched amid great fanfare but quickly turned toxic with secrets, scandals and the pillaging of Aboriginal burial sites, as revealed in this edited extract.

  • Martin Thomas