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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have lived in Australia for at least 65,000 years, making their culture the oldest continuous civilisation on Earth, built around a profound spiritual connection to Country.

Over three thousand years, Polynesian navigators settled the entire Pacific Ocean using only the stars, ocean swells, wind patterns, and the behaviour of birds and sea creatures, achieving one of the greatest feats of exploration in human history.

Between 1096 and 1291, European Christians launched eight major military expeditions to capture and hold Jerusalem, a series of wars that left a complex legacy of religious conflict, cultural exchange, and political transformation.

From a small principality in northwestern Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire grew to rule three continents for six centuries, controlling the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa at the height of its power.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal sent its ships further into the unknown than any European nation before, charting the coasts of Africa, reaching India by sea, and opening the age of global commerce.

Rome began as a small city on the Tiber and grew into an empire that ruled the entire Mediterranean world for five centuries, leaving behind a legacy in law, language, architecture, and governance that shapes the modern world.

The Berlin Wall, built overnight in August 1961, became the most potent symbol of the Cold War's division of the world. Its fall on 9 November 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet era.

A finely cast blue faience ushabti from the Egyptian Late Period (664–332 BCE), inscribed with Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead to serve the deceased in the fields of Osiris. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A cast brass plaque from the royal court of the Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, depicting a senior warrior flanked by attendants in full ceremonial regalia. Produced by Benin palace guilds using the lost-wax technique, 16th–17th century.

A large Ethiopian bronze processional cross (qäqwami mäsqäl) from the Amhara or Tigrinya tradition, 15th–16th century, used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church — among the most distinctive sacred objects of African Christianity.

A magnificent earthenware horse with three-colour (sancai) lead glaze from the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), representing the Silk Road culture of cosmopolitan Tang China. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A richly pigmented Mughal miniature painting on paper depicting royal lovers in a garden landscape, ink, colours and gold on paper. Mughal period, India, 17th century — from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access collection.