The Age has a lengthy and intriguing analysis of US diplomatic cables from the 1970′s made searchable by the Wikileaks team.
If you watched Canberra Confidential there are whole new worlds of dodginess on display here.

Canberra at Street Level is an exhibition of BMA Magazine’s 21 year history at the Gorman House Canberra Contemporary Art Space.
I was lured along by the promise of free grog, which there was in such abundance that I can make no complaint.
For anyone who was going out in Canberra in the 90′s it’s a fun [...]

Canberra Confidential screened on the ABC tonight and you can watch it via that link or soon enough on iview.
For the purposes of disclosure I should note I got a Burmese curry out of it to share my ideas on stories they could include, and I was invited to a preview screening at the National [...]

The National Film and Sound Archive has added this to YouTube:
Directed by Raymond Longford and filmed by Ernest Higgins, this film captures the formal naming of Canberra, on 12 March 1913. It has been digitally restored by the NFSA as part of the celebrations for the Centenary of Canberra.
The music was devised and [...]

A reader has sent in this remarkable shot from the Canberra of yesteryear.
Anyone want to have a crack at placing it in time and space?
Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it in to images@the-riotact.com .

This International Woman’s Day our friends at the National Archives are republishing a tribute to the works of Marion Mahony Griffin.
The new edition of A Vision Splendid: How the Griffins imagined Australia’s capital includes a fully
illustrated set of Marion’s artworks for the Federal Capital Design Competition and has been
republished to meet popular demand. The book [...]

[ 14 January, 2013 to 3 April, 2013. ] The Centenary team are letting people know about the foundation treasures of the city which are going on display at Parliament House:

Centenary of Canberra History and Heritage Advisor Dr David Headon today unveiled some of the treasures related to Canberra’s 1913 foundation stones and naming ceremonies.

Dr Headon acquired the items on loan from the [...]

Territory and Municipal Services are letting it be known they’re hard at work on the heritage-listed De Salis Cemetery located on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in Tharwa.
“The De Salis Cemetery is a rare example of a 19th century pastoral station cemetery. It is of unique construction, comprising a raised circular terrace with walls [...]

Meanwhile over on Facebook CanMeme’s had this to say:
The top pic was taken by WJ Mildenhall in the late 1920s in almost exactly the same spot as my pic taken during my lunch break today.
http://mildenhall.moadoph.gov.au/photo/1123

The ACT National Trust has announced their most concerning regions of heritage concern this year:
· Canberra’s Residential Housing Precincts
· ACT Supreme Court
· Lake Burley Griffin West Basin
· [...]

Thanks to google, I stumbled across this aerial shot of Canberra. The image was part of an article written by a German architect, with an interesting outside view of Canberra’s development.
Looking west from somewhere over Red Hill, I guess the shot was taken in the mid to late 70s. Woden is still half a paddock, [...]

This video came my way today thanks to the NFSA twitter account.
The voiceover is filled with gems of a bygone era, as is the title of this thread attests. Produced before Lake Burley Griffin came to be I thought the references to locations to the north or south of the Molonglo River was rather quaint.
The [...]

Hey guys,
Is there a list of how Canberra formed? Which suburbs came first, when they started to be lived in, all that kind of stuff?
When did Gunghalin come into being? I thought it was early 1990′s, but I just saw a picture of a bus that said Gunghalin on it, apparently from 1985…
So what were [...]

Rob Chalmers died in July during my time in the Press Gallery he was a reassuring presence. He provided a sense of continuity, the same face in all the historic photos on the walls still stalking the corridors muttering that young journos didn’t know who Menzies was (or, if they did, they hadn’t met Menzies [...]

Samuel Shumack’s autobiography written in the late twenties and first published in 1967, gives us an account of rural living in the Canberra district before federation. It offers detailed accounts of his recollections and conversations with other locals. There are a lot of tales about crimes, how people died and where they are buried. [...]

We love old video of Canberra. Today we’ve come across the swearing in of Sir William John McKell GCMG as the 12th Governor-General of Australia.
Sadly we’re not aware of any footage of his investiture as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George by King George VI, the only time [...]

On the weekend we took the long and slow drive to Mt Ginini and saw an amazing view on a clear clear day. On the top of the Mountain we saw the Air Traffic Control Building, which I later read was built in the 60s.
Subsequent to that I read some references that it might have [...]

Territory And Municipal Services are letting us know that local newspapers pre-1954 are now digitised and online:
“The ACT Heritage Library is very proud to have contributed the last three titles in the collection. This is a very exciting resource for libraries in the ACT and will vastly improve access for the world to one of [...]

Canberra is now host to a well-developed pizza industry, but John Moulis has been cleaning his shed and found this business card from 1972 when the newly opened Pizza Hut had a much simpler menu, and considerably lower prices.
Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it to images@the-riotact.com .

The Museum of Australian Democracy has put up a web gallery to promote their exhibition “Discovering Mildenhall’s Canberra, Photographs from the birth of our capital, 1921-1935“.
The Mildenhall Collection of photographs documents the early development of Australia’s capital city, Canberra, from the 1920s to the 1930s. The collection comprises more than 7,700 images on glass [...]

PDF GOLD! This has been doing the rounds at my husbands work.
I don’t like writing stories but I thought the RiotACT could enjoy this.

Here is a link to some home movie footage of Canberra taken in 1957 by my father.
The picture is grainy but hey it was 1957.

Rhyse has pointed us at a truly remarkable video from Film Australia on the construction of Lake Burley Griffin circa 1964.
A really amazing blast from the past for the local history buffs.

Aubergine has sent in the above photo of the city’s flats from 1957.
I think it’s the corner of Ballumbir and Ainslie Avenue as shown below today.
But if anyone wants to offer an alternative hypothesis I’d love to hear it.

Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it to images@the-riotact.com [...]

Lying abandoned in wastelands, next to the Molonglo river, behind Fyshwick, are some very interesting parts of Canberra’s history.
Maybe some of you could help fill in the blanks?
In the 1900s (?) before the Dairy Road bridge, to get over the Molonglo river you had to take a barge.
The barge is still there, [...]

[ 26 June, 2011; 2:00 pm; ]

Homes for the Workers – The History of the Narrabundah Prefabs’ will be launched next Sunday

Murray’s Dairy in Narrabundah was resumed in 1946 for housing for building workers’ families so that Canberra could be constructed.

75 cheap temporary housing with steel frames and plywood were originally constructed. Larger fibro houses were subsequently built.

The suburb was [...]

I chanced on Woolshed Creek at the weekend. Its on the ACT Heritage Place register. These special rocks were formed 420 million years ago during the Silurian Period when this region was a warm shallow sea. Imbedded in the grey mud stone are the fossilised remains of sedentry marine animals, mainly Brachiopods. During the [...]

Cool Urban Relics of Canberra
As suggested by Roadrage, and inspired by JB’s photo of the archaic VW sign embedded in the pavement on Mort Street, I would like to find out what other interesting, yet probably insignificant urban relics lie around this ever so young city of ours.
For instance, at the northern end of Lonsdale [...]

[First filed: Aug 31, 2010 @ 9:12]

Aussielyn has sent in these photos from the Chipperfield Collection with the following short note:
This flood destroyed the rail bridge over the Molonglo River and the rail link to Civic, in a siding at Garema Place.
More below the fold.

[First filed: July 31, 2009 @ 10:49]

When looking at old photographs of Canberra I’ll confess to wondering in the past “Where did the workers live?”
Yesterday I stumbled over the answer.
Nestled between the two ridges of Stirling Park, where they would never intrude on the sight lines of the great and the good are scant ruins [...]

There’s just a little bit of Canberra in this YouTube special (around 2:05). But the footage of the dedication of the American memorial at Russel is something I’ve never seen before.
It’s of particular interest if you’ve ever wondered why a giant eagle with a strange resemblance to bugs bunny looms over our defence establishment.
Also [...]

Up on the northern shore of Lake Burley Griffin, near Scrivener Dam, is some of the nicest walking country man and dog could ask for anywhere.
The other day I noticed a strange little structure hidden in the grass.
Closer inspection revealed it to be a long abandoned picnic area style garbage bin, still concreted in although [...]