As so often in Australia’s history, Melbourne was founded through fraud when explorer John Batman, an Australian fluent in several aboriginal dialects, made a “deal” with aborigines to lease land on behalf of speculators.
While offering the Aborigines any compensation at all was progressive in a colonial culture that preferred to simply run them off [...]

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After climbing 508 metres up the Taipei 101 tower, the highest structure in the world, it can be seen easily from anywhere in the city, one can look down on the genuine Taipei amidst all the modern buildings: temples, markets, the National Palace Museum and in between them, the many old streets and lanes where [...]

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The Lithuanian city of Vilnius exudes southern charm under the northern sun. Positioned in the natural amphitheatre of the surrounding Lithuanian hills, Vilnilus has much to offer visitors besotted with classical buildings.
Vilnius, which can look back on a thousand years of Lithuanian history, can boast one of the largest historical town centres in Eastern [...]

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Located in the centre of Europe, Vienna is both a bustling city and a city known for its coffee houses, historic districts, beautiful parks, elegant squares and romantic courtyards.
Vienna means cafe culture, music and wine. Where else can one so happily spend all day sitting in a cafe, reading a magazine, sipping a Viennese [...]

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Almost everyone who comes to Copenhagen visits the little mermaid harbour. Hans Christian Andersen’s popular fairy tale is about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince.
Love is capricious. In the end, [...]

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Tehran is currently among the most densely populated capitals on the planet, yet for many centuries Tehran was nothing more than a small, insignificant city on the stage of world history.
Aga Muhammed Khan, founder of the Qajar dynasty, chose Tehran as the capital of the Persian Empire in 1795, largely because of its location on [...]

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Vanuatu consists of more than eighty islands, located about 2000 kilometres north-east of Queensland. The largest island, Espiritu Santo, is 4010 square kilometres. Australia is a mainly a flat land, but most of Vanuatu’s islands are dominated by mountainous regions. The highest peak, Mt Tabwemasana (1880 metres), is on Espiritu Santo. The Earth beneath Vanuatu [...]

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Thailand is a kingdom in southeast Asia on the Indochinese and Malay peninsulas. Through most of its history Thailand was called Siam. The people call themselves Thai, which in their language means “the free people.” In 1948 the Thai government changed the name of the country to Thailand.
Thailand has an area of about 511,770 square [...]

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