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Forbidden friendships: taverns, nightclubs, bottle bars and emancipation
Historian article
The modern gay-rights movement has its origins in a 1960s New York ‘bottle bar’, but as Ben Jerrit explains, drinking establishments have been centres of gay culture and social resistance for centuries.
Forbidden friendships: taverns, nightclubs, bottle bars and emancipation
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The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Historian article
The Nazis came to power in 1933 with an openly racist and antisemitic set of policies. In the years leading up to the start of the Second World War, those policies were carried out through legislation and governmental actions, with the support of many members of German society. Once the war started,...
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
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Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans
Virtual Branch Film
How did descendants of Viking marauders come to dominate Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and Lisbon to the Holy Land and the Middle East?
In this Virtual Branch talk Levi Roach, author of Empires of the Normans, tells a tale of ambitious adventures...
Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans
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‘Since singing is so good a thing’: William Byrd on the benefits of singing
Historian article
As the value of music education is again a topic of societal debate, Tudor composer William Byrd, the four hundredth anniversary of whose death is celebrated this year, was a powerful advocate of singing in early modern England, writes Katherine Butler.
Tudor composer William Byrd (c.1540–1623) is recognised today not only...
‘Since singing is so good a thing’: William Byrd on the benefits of singing
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A land without music?
Historian article
It is sometimes said that England was a ‘land without music’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – not so, according to David Fleming.
‘Between the age of Purcell and that of Elgar and Parry, we had to do without much musical life in our country.’ Or so wrote Simon...
A land without music?
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Arctic aspirations: Britain and Icelandic independence, 1917–18
Historian article
As it sought independence, Iceland gained a new significance for Britain during the latter stages of the First World War, writes Ben Markham.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Iceland was not an independent country. Isolated in the North Atlantic Ocean, it was nonetheless considered an integral part of...
Arctic aspirations: Britain and Icelandic independence, 1917–18
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Hearing the call to arms: Herbert Douglas Fisher
Historian article
The intellectual aristocracy of late Victorian and early Edwardian Britain constitutes a Venn diagram of familiar names – the Stracheys and the Stephens, the Wedgwoods and the Darwins, the Keynes and the Trevelyans. These affluent, upper middle-class pillars of public life espoused a secular, liberal view of the world. Their depth...
Hearing the call to arms: Herbert Douglas Fisher
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Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98
Historian article
On 28 June 1098, the forces of the First Crusade marched out from the great north Syrian city of Antioch to do battle with Karbugha, the Muslim ruler of Mosul. The odds were not in their favour: not only was the Muslim army vastly superior in size, but the crusaders had...
Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98
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Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom
The Black Crown
How did a man born enslaved on a plantation triumph over Napoleon's invading troops and become king of the first free black nation in the Americas? This is the forgotten, remarkable story of Henry Christophe. Christophe fought as a child soldier in the American War of Independence, before serving in...
Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom
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Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War
Historian article
The Second World War saw the development of significant anti-Americanism in Britain. This article locates the centre of wartime anti-Americanism in the politics of Conservative imperialists, who believed the USA was trying to deliberately dismantle the British Empire in order to fulfil its own imperial ambitions.
The Second World War...
Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War
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Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam
Historian article
Why did American military involvement in Vietnam fail? In this article, David McGill explains why the United States never had a realistic chance of defeating the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies.
The decision by the United States government to become involved in supporting the South Vietnamese government against the...
Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam
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Facing the Revolution: the other Americans
Historian article
The American Revolution presented all who lived through it with difficult choices about allegiance, identity, and self-interest. The responses of American loyalists, enslaved people, and Native Americans reveal much about the country’s revolutionary foundation and the United States of today.
The American Revolution was at once universal and narrowly nationalistic....
Facing the Revolution: the other Americans
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Women and the French Revolution: the start of the modern feminist movement
Historian article
Luke Rimmo Loyi Lego explores the role of women in the French Revolution, and how their challenges to traditional gender roles laid the foundations for the modern feminist movement.
The study of the French Revolution is often restricted to its impact on the Enlightenment ideas of influential men such as Rousseau,...
Women and the French Revolution: the start of the modern feminist movement
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Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon
Historian article
Matt Jux-Blayney explores the impact of the blues singer Muddy Waters against a backdrop of significant social and racial change in the United States of the mid-twentieth century.
On 3 July 1960, a man from Mississippi was introduced onto the stage of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. He...
Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon
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Film: Rome in the world/the world in Rome with Dr Lucy Donkin
Article
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...
Film: Rome in the world/the world in Rome with Dr Lucy Donkin
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Secular acts and sacred practices in the Italian Renaissance church interior
Historian article
Joanne Allen reveals a fundamental structural and architectural development in Italian churches in the Renaissance era, demonstrating that careful observation of structures and archives can substantially inform our appreciation of all church buildings.
In the opening to The Decameron (c. 1350), Boccaccio described how the ten young people who would become storytellers...
Secular acts and sacred practices in the Italian Renaissance church interior
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Philip Larkin: appreciating parish churches
Historian article
We pay tribute to one of Britain’s finest poets, at the centenary of his birth, and celebrate his sensitive recognition of the spiritual tradition to be found in parish churches.
There have been various tributes this year which have commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the celebrated poet, Philip...
Philip Larkin: appreciating parish churches
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The Spanish-American War revisited: rise of an American empire?
Historian article
Anthony Ruggiero reveals how United States foreign policy evolved from its effective adherence to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 into securing its own overseas ‘empire’.
The Spanish-American War of 1898 was pivotal in launching the United States into recognition as an empire. Following the war, the United Sates accepted its role...
The Spanish-American War revisited: rise of an American empire?
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Jewish settlements in Medieval England
Historian feature
The Jewish communities of medieval England lived in towns and cities directly connected to the crown, usually with a castle close at hand for protection. Due to the religious needs of the community, Jewish families stayed close to the key requirements of synagogue and butcher. However, they would live side by...
Jewish settlements in Medieval England
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Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
Historian article
Philip Woods discusses Evelyn Waugh’s contribution to understanding the nature of journalism before the Second World War.
This article compares the value to historians of the two books Evelyn Waugh wrote based on his experiences as a war correspondent covering the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36. The popular satiric novel Scoop (1938) is...
Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
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My great-grandfather and the Italian Campaign
Historian article
This remarkable item by a student at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield was the winning Young Historian entry in the Key Stage 3 Spirit of Normandy Trust category in 2022.
I’ve always known my great-grandfather fought in the Second World War, but never like this. When he left the army, he never...
My great-grandfather and the Italian Campaign
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Recorded webinar: Ordinary people - Holocaust Memorial Day 2023
Recorded webinar
To choose to act, to have no choice to be who you are, to live an ordinary life in extraordinary times? These are all questions that the Holocaust raises. Millions of people became victims of the Nazis, millions more choose not to act to stop the events around them, felt...
Recorded webinar: Ordinary people - Holocaust Memorial Day 2023
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Elizabeth I: ‘less than a woman’?
Historian article
Tracy Borman examines the femininity of the Virgin Queen.
Elizabeth I is often hailed as a feminist icon. Despite being the younger, forgotten daughter of Henry VIII with little hope of ever inheriting the throne, she became his longest-reigning and most successful heir by a country mile. In an age when...
Elizabeth I: ‘less than a woman’?
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A woman’s place is in the castle
Historian article
This article looks at the role of two fourteenth century Scottish noblewomen, on opposing sides in the strife between Bruce and Balliol, who were left to defend their properties during their husbands’ absences.
The Scottish Wars of Independence were fought over several decades of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as...
A woman’s place is in the castle
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Mountbatten in retirement: the abortive trip to rebel Rhodesia
Historian article
Adrian Smith investigates an abortive plan for the earl to intervene in Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
Earl Mountbatten of Burma boasted a unique CV: Chief of Combined Operations, Supreme Commander South-East Asia, Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord, Chief of the Defence Staff, and Viceroy of India. Yet somehow...
Mountbatten in retirement: the abortive trip to rebel Rhodesia
