Why is storytelling so crucial to the journey of the lesson? How does powerful storytelling make knowledge memorable meaningful? How can I get better at storytelling? How does storytelling help children wrestle with disciplinary questions about cause, change and similarity and difference? This webinar will use stories from ancient Egypt,...

Modern, non-invasive scientific techniques have revolutionised knowledge of medieval inks and pigments - from the most exotic, such as lapis lazuli and Egyptian blue, to the most ordinary, indigo and ochres - and of how they were used to create magnificent illuminated manuscripts. This webinar will outline the techniques in question,...

In this Virtual Branch talk, Dr Alvin Finkel challenges claims that egalitarian, peaceful societies disappeared with the founding of agriculture or with the founding of state-level social organisation.  Different authors have suggested that early human society was essentially egalitarian in nature, with hierarchies only later becoming common. The point at which...

In this webinar, Jane Draycott shares her research on prostheses and assistive technology in ancient Greece, Rome and the neighbouring civilisations. She outlines the findings from her 2023 book on this subject, which arose from a grant to visit museums around the UK to access surviving ancient prostheses and modern...

Red Lion Square was long one of London's most genteel addresses, home to nobles, scholars, and professionals. But on 25 March 1818, one house on the south side opened its doors to quite another class of person, as the Mendicity Society began its business. Set up to solve the growing...

During his lifetime, Henry VIII journeyed throughout his kingdom in what are known as royal 'progresses'. In this webinar, Anthony Musson will share research from the AHRC-funded 'Henry on Tour' project which seeks to reassess these progresses by exploring archival sources, archaeology, music and material culture. In addition to contributing...

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 University College London. Professor Hall has a long-established academic record in feminist history and empire and post-colonial history. She was a...

In 1135 Stephen of Blois usurped the throne, stealing it from his cousin Empress Matilda and sparking a nineteen-year civil war that would become known as the Anarchy, one of the bloodiest periods in English history. On the one side is Empress Matilda. On the other side is her cousin,...

In this talk Professor Henrietta Harrison uses diary records to think about the experience of living through the revolution in China in 1949, focussing on what it meant to Chinese people, how they learned about its practices and ideology, and how this changed their lives - whether they were radical intellectuals returning...

This is the story of the Venice Ghetto, the corner of the city where Jews were exiled; free to walk the streets by day, locked behind gates and walls at night. Yet, gates and walls notwithstanding, from its establishment in 1516 until the fall of Venice in 1798, the ghetto...

Normandy originated from a grant of land to Rollo, a Viking leader, in the early tenth century. By the end of that century Normans were to be found in southern Italy, then in Britain and, at the end of the eleventh century, in the near East on the First Crusade....

This practical webinar identifies what confuses pupils in the teaching of chronology and the disciplinary concept of change and continuity and shows how such confusion and misconceptions can be avoided and challenged. Examples of careful planning and activities are given so that pupils can develop an accurate and nuanced understanding of...

The Dudleys thrived at the court of Henry VII, but were sacrificed to the popularity of Henry VIII. Rising to prominence in the reign of Edward VI, the Dudleys lost it all by advancing Jane Grey to the throne over Mary I. That was until the reign of Elizabeth I,...

Would US President John F. Kennedy have avoided the catastrophe that became the Vietnam War if Lee Harvey Oswald had not assassinated him in Dallas on that fateful day of 22 November 1963? This question – or a version of it – has animated discussions of the Vietnam War for...

In this webinar, Professor Robbie Aitken looks at the experiences of Black residents in Germany during the Nazi period. Why have they been largely written out of larger histories of the Third Reich? Professor Aitken suggests that there was a genocidal intent in Nazi policy towards them, signalled partly by...

What can the early history of the English East India Company tell us about the foundations of the British Empire, and where does that history sit within current debates about Britain’s imperial legacy? In this session Mark Williams offers a timely insight into the history of one of the most significant...

The Chinese regime never used to want to talk about their country’s experience in World War Two. The Japanese occupation of parts of China was felt to be a humiliating episode that was best forgotten, and the Communists were uncomfortable that their nationalist enemy Chiang Kai-Shek had been China’s main...

Eighteenth-century Britons were ruled by a restricted oligarchy of landowners and plutocrats. Yet the wider population had a proud tradition of assertiveness and readiness to protest. ‘Britons never will be slaves!’ as the chorus of 'Rule Britannia' (1740) announced pointedly (if somewhat ironically, in view of Britain’s role in the...

Decline, decadence, crisis, stagnation, and adversity are terms powerfully associated with the reign of Spain’s Planet King; sombre tones that contrast sharply with the glittering cultural and artistic achievements (enhanced by his patronage) that led the period to be dubbed ‘the’ Golden Age, a label consciously competing with France’s later...

In this webinar Dr Douds examines the nature of political authority in the nascent Soviet Republic and the institutional structures, practices and ideology of government in the Lenin period. She considers how Communist Party dictatorship and the monolithic party-state emerged in the early years following the October Revolution of 1917...