This year [2020] will see the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. The anniversary is on 12 May (not very convenient for Women’s History Month in March but I’ll come to that in a moment) and there will be events and talks in her honour. When I was...

Last year we announced that the 2020 Medlicott award would go to Professor Rana Mitter. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions of 2020 we were unable to host an event that would allow us to present the award to Professor Mitter; we have decided, therefore, to hold the award over to...

In the spring edition of HA News Paula Kitching looks at VE day 75 years on, there is an inspiring 'What got me into history' and our Glasgow Branch share their experience of capturing memories from the First World War. We're also introducing a new Book Club feature to explore books that...

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place on 27 January each year, the date in 1945 when the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners. It is a time to remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the genocides which followed in...

Read The Historian 143: Literature Back in May, at the Historical Association Conference in Chester, Fern Riddell’s keynote lecture on ‘Uncomfortable Histories’ set out to overturn the commonly-held view that the Victorian age was naïve and prudish. In the twenty-first century, the instantly recognisable image of Queen Victoria is that...

Last month the Georgian Papers Programme released a new virtual exhibition available online. Exploring the myth and reality of the alleged ‘madness of King George III’, the exhibition is an interesting step in examining the past and exploring its relevance for contemporary discourses. Entitled ‘George III: the Eighteenth Century’s Most...

The Berlin Wall was one of the most important symbols of the political and ideological divisions in Europe during the Cold War. The physical presence of a wall that quite literally cut a city, a country and Europe into two sides was a constant reminder of how separate East and...

Right now some of you are thinking ‘but China is far older than 70’, and while you are correct, the China we know today – Modern China – is indeed only 70 years old. The Ancient China of the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors and priceless Ming vases was upended and...

Congratulations to Charlotte Lee who got married earlier this year and decided to remember her late father in the most incredible way. Stephen J Lee was Head of History at Bromsgrove School in Birmingham, UK. His publications include Russia and the USSR (Routledge, 2005) and Hitler and Nazi Germany, 2nd...

Each year the Historical Association partners with The Spirit of Normandy Trust to award young historians who have shown excellent knowledge and demonstrated historical argument around a subject associated with a series of themes. The competition is divided into age brackets and the entry at secondary level is by essay judged...