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This article examines the complex and powerful relationship between the internet and public history. It explores how public history is being experienced and practiced in a digital world where 'you' – both public historians and laypeople – are made powerful through using the world wide web. Web 2.0 is a dynamic terrain that provides both opportunities and challenges to the creation of history. While it may facilitate more open, democratic history making, the internet simultaneously raises questions about gatekeeping, authority and who has the right to speak for the past. Though the web provides new avenues for distributing historical information, how these are used and by whom remain pressing questions.

The connection between history and COVID-19 might appear counter-intuitive. We are used to being told by media outlets and employers, government officials and friends that we are 'living in unprecedented times'. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the rhythms of our daily lives, but not every response to COVID-19 has been new. It has also been understood through history. This article comes from a roundtable discussion that was held as part of NSW History Week on 11 September 2020. Bringing together historians, curators and archivists, this panel explored the way that history has been used to understand COVID-19. Particular attention was paid to attempts to record and archive our experiences through the pandemic, comparisons between COVID-19 and the 'Spanish' flu as well as shifting understandings of temporality during the pandemic. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has ruptured our quotidian experience, it is not a moment beyond history. This panel examined how history is being used as an anchor point, a source of inspiration and an educational tool with which to tackle 'these uncertain times'.