Historian and author Martyn Whittock recently gave a lecture for the HA Virtual Branch on 'Mayflower Lives: building a New Jerusalem in the New World'. In 1620, 102 ill-prepared asylum seekers landed two months later than planned, in the wrong place on the eastern coast of North America. By the next summer, half of...

Professor Jan Rüger joined the Virtual Branch on 9th February 2023 to talk about his book Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea, tracing a rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War. For generations this North Sea island expressed a German...

Robert Pike joined the HA Virtual Branch to discuss the research for his latest book Silent Village: Life and Death in Occupied France. This work explores life in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane before, during and after the infamous massacre and destruction by Nazi Germany that took place on 10 June...

In the 1950s, Britain fought a series of brutal wars against insurgents in the colonies of Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus. How did people at home experience these wars? How did they learn about the use of torture and other unsettling tactics? And how did they respond to this knowledge? In...

Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire from 402 CE until 751 CE, then later, the capital of the immense kingdom of Theoderic the Goth and finally the centre of Byzantine power in Italy. In this talk Professor Judith Herrin explores the history of the city, its peoples...

In this HA Virtual Branch talk Professor Richard Toye explores Churchill’s response to the USSR and how his actions during the early Cold War years intersected with his views of traditional Anglo-Russian tensions and the legacy of the ‘Great Game’. Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University...

To give you a taster of the fantastic sessions on offer at the HA's annual conference, we've published one of the sessions from the 2022 HA Conference on Rome in the world/the world in Rome with Dr Lucy Donkin.   In many cultures, earth has been used to represent a place...

Karin Friedrich recently joined the Virtual Branch to discuss aspects of its complex history in her talk on the partitions of Poland, their repercussions for German-Polish relations and their legacy. Professor Friedrich is chair in Early Modern European History at the University of Aberdeen, co-director of the Centre for Early Modern...

Historian Robert Sackville-West joined the HA Virtual Branch in November 2021 to talk about the topic of his book The Searchers: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War. By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed...

Why is the term 'Armenian Genocide' controversial, with many countries still not acknowledging a genocide at all? What do we know about the event of 1915 and the plight of the Armenian community in Turkey? How can we grapple with a history that many people want to forget? In this...

Professor David Olusoga is a revered TV historian, a writer and a practising academic at Manchester University. In 2022 he was the recipient of the Historical Association's annual Medlicott medal, awarded for outstanding contributions to history. The recipient of the medal provides the closing lecture of the HA's annual awards evening. Professor...

Addressing issues of the legacies of racism created by the transatlantic slave trade and the narratives of its abolition  The Medlicott Medal is awarded annually for outstanding services and contributions to history. This year the Medal went to Professor Catherine Hall, who is Emerita Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at...

In this podcast Lucy Worsley of Historic Royal Palaces looks at the early Georgians, the changing relationship between Parliament and Monarchy and Court Politics under George I and George II.

In this podcast Dr Christina von Hodenberg of Queen Mary, University of London examines the allied occupation of Germany and the differing approaches to produce a denazified Germany.

In this podcast Dr Sue Doran discusses Henry VIII and Spain, relations with Ferdinand and Charles V an uneasy relationship, the problem of the annulment and overtures to Francis I of France.

In this podcast Professor Benjamin Ziemann of the University of Sheffield examines the stability of the Weimar Republic.

In this podcast Professor Benjamin Ziemann of the University of Sheffield talks about how the Nazi Party was formed.

In this podcast from 2013, Dr Elena Hore of the University of Essex discusses the ideological origins of the Cold War.

In this podcast Dr Matthew Grant of Teeside University examines the effect of the Cold War on ordinary people in the US and UK.

In this podcast Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith looks at the initial and long term effects of Crusades and examines how they have been treated by both western and eastern historians and thinkers over time.