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The Victorian Age
Classic Pamphlet
This Classic Pamphlet was published in 1937 (the centenary of the accession of Queen Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837).
Synopsis of contents:
1. Is the Victorian Age a distinct 'period' of history?
Landmarks establishing its beginning: the Reform Bill, railways, other inventions, new leaders in...
The Victorian Age
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History Abridged: The Berlin Conference 1884–1885
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
In 2020 there was lots...
History Abridged: The Berlin Conference 1884–1885
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How is the source base of the twentieth century different from that of earlier periods?
Article
Historians often debate when, exactly, the twentieth century began; that is, when the themes and trends that we have come to understand as defining this tumultuous, rapidly changing period first started, and when they ended. One place we can look to answer this question is the available primary resources that help...
How is the source base of the twentieth century different from that of earlier periods?
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Immigration and the making of British food
Historian article
Panikos Panayi explores the way in which immigration has transformed British eating habits over the last two centuries, whether through the rise of the restaurant and the development of eating out, or the culinary revolution at home.
Those people who voted to leave the European Union in 2016 because of...
Immigration and the making of British food
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The Somme: a last innings for Yorkshire and England
Historian article
Ronan Thomas explores a tragic sporting outcome of the Battle of the Somme.
At the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, the losses suffered by the British Army still have the power to shock. On 1 July 1916 alone nearly 60,000 men became casualties, of whom almost 20,000 were...
The Somme: a last innings for Yorkshire and England
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Film: Brezhnev's early life and career
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
In this film Dr Edwin Bacon takes us through Brezhnev’s early life and career: his birth in Ukraine in 1906, the opportunities brought by the revolution, his role in the battle of Ukraine and his eventual arrival to the Politburo at the end of the 1950s. Dr Bacon looks at...
Film: Brezhnev's early life and career
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What was Witchcraft in the Early Sixteenth Century?
Article
In this article, Dr Jonathan Durrant (Principal Lecturer in History, University of South Wales) argues that we know no more now than we did in the late 1980s about what witchcraft was as men and women of the early sixteenth century understood it. Dr Durrant looks at evidence from Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act of 1542 to explore British and European perceptions of witches...
What was Witchcraft in the Early Sixteenth Century?
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Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War
Churchill's Great Game
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...
Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War
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Anne Herbert: A life in the Wars of the Roses
Historian article
May I introduce you to Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke? I'm very fond of this modern imagined portrait by Graham Turner, partly because of the colour and detail but chiefly because it conveys a respect for the people who lived in the past and especially for Anne herself. My interest...
Anne Herbert: A life in the Wars of the Roses
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The 1620 Mayflower voyage and the English settlement of North America
Historian article
On the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims in New England on the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock explores the reasons for migration to the New World in 1620 and later, and the significance of those migrants, both at the time and their impact on the evolution of the USA...
The 1620 Mayflower voyage and the English settlement of North America
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Film series: Tudor Royal Authority
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film, Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford, discusses provides an overview of how Tudor Royal Authority developed and evolved from the first Tudor King, Henry VII, to the final Tudor Queen, Elizabeth I.
Film series: Tudor Royal Authority
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Podcast: End of the World Cults
Podcast
In this podcast Professor Penelope Corfield looks at the history of 'End of the World Cults'.
1. Why do people at times become urgently convinced that 'the End of the World is Nigh?'
HA Members can listen to the full podcast here
Short Reading list for End-of-the-World Cults:
Two wide-ranging introductions:...
Podcast: End of the World Cults
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Capturing public opinion during the Paris Commune of 1871
Historian article
In the year of its 150th anniversary, Jason Jacques Willems offers his thoughts on the importance of centrist opinion to our understanding of the Paris Commune.
2021 is the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune, when a revolutionary Parisian movement was pitted against the French government. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870...
Capturing public opinion during the Paris Commune of 1871
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Blood and Iron: the violent birth of modern Germany
Historian article
Katja Hoyer discusses Germany’s unification 150 years ago: an event that cast a long shadow over the troubled young nation and would alter the course of European and world history.
Shivering in the cold winter air that drifted in through the windows of his temporary residence in Paris, Wilhelm I, King...
Blood and Iron: the violent birth of modern Germany
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From Sail to Steam
Classic Pamphlet
From the time when primitive man first went adrift on a bundle of reeds or learnt to balance himself on a floating log, to the days where his descendants, no more than a few generations ago, raced scrambling aloft to trim the towering sails of a full-rigged ship, the skill...
From Sail to Steam
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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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My Favourite History Place: The Tenement Museum, New York
Historian feature
The Tenement Museum is not remotely like any museum I had previously visited. It is an old tenement building where generations of New York migrants lived and loved, worked and had families before moving both on and out. The Tenement Museum tells the story of the Lower East Side through the...
My Favourite History Place: The Tenement Museum, New York
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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
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Podcast Series: The Rise of an Islamic Civilisation
Early Islam
An HA Podcasted History of the Rise of an Islamic Civilisation featuring Dr Caroline Goodson of Birkbeck, University of London.
Podcast Series: The Rise of an Islamic Civilisation
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The Investiture Disputes
Classic Pamphlet
Historical labels are dictated by a wayward fashion; and the name which is still most commonly associated with the first struggle of Empire and Papacy (1076-1122). "The Investiture Disputes," is neither lucid or appropriate. It has been commoner for historians to name the great wars of history after the issues...
The Investiture Disputes
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Film: Black British History – 1714 to 1785
Power and Freedom in Britain and Ireland: 1714–2010
In Episode 4, Dr Montaz Marché (University College London) and Professor Ryan Hanley (University of Exeter), discuss the lives and experience of 18th century Black Britons.
In this discussion they look at the lives of both the exceptional and the ordinary, and reflect upon the politics of race and gender in...
Film: Black British History – 1714 to 1785
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The Battle of Monte Cassino and the D-Day Landings
Article
The Second World War is no longer a recent war. Very soon, there will be no veterans left to tell us how they saw things and what it was really like for them. While some eyewitnesses who were children at the time might be with us to see the centenary...
The Battle of Monte Cassino and the D-Day Landings
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Cathars and Castles in Medieval France
Historian article
Almost exactly 800 years ago, in September 1213, a decisive battle was fought at Muret, about ten miles south-west of Toulouse. King Peter II of Aragon, fighting with southern allies from Toulouse and elsewhere, faced an army largely made up of northern French crusaders who had invaded the region at the...
Cathars and Castles in Medieval France
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Recorded Webinar: Female slave-ownership in 18th- and 19th-century Britain
Article
There is a great deal of discussion at the moment about how we engage with and confront the history and legacies of slavery in twenty-first century Britain. A lot of attention has been placed on men like slave trader Edward Colston or merchant and slave-owner Robert Milligan, both of whom were memorialised...
Recorded Webinar: Female slave-ownership in 18th- and 19th-century Britain
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A probable silk heirloom from Central Asia...
Historian article
This article explores precious fragments of silk, manufactured in the Byzantine Empire and Central Asia, discovered in archaeological excavations in Dublin.
Dublin, situated on the east coast of Ireland, grew out of a fortified riverside camp (longphort) for overwintering marauding Vikings or ‘northmen’, who were plundering wealthy ecclesiastical establishments from the late eighth...
A probable silk heirloom from Central Asia...
