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  • Virtual Branch recording: A Life Revealed in Letters: Catalina Micaela

      Article
    What was life really like for a Spanish royal woman? Catalina Micaela, the younger daughter of Philip II of Spain, wrote extensively to her husband Carlo Emanrele I of Savoy giving fascinating insights into the events at court and the pressures on the families, providing a glimpse into sixteenth-century Spain and...
    Virtual Branch recording: A Life Revealed in Letters: Catalina Micaela
  • Art and ecology

      Historian article
    Artworks and objects from the past provide us with a compelling record of human interaction with the natural world. In this article, art historians Carla Benzan and Samuel Shaw explain how they are using collections from galleries and museums to bring environmental history to new audiences and to increase awareness...
    Art and ecology
  • The Chinese National Anthem

      Historian article
    The history of the Chinese national anthem gives Derek Ying a new perspective on society and culture from the era of the Qing dynasty to the People’s Republic of China. It reveals the strengths and weaknesses of different regimes, and the power of song to unite and divide...
    The Chinese National Anthem
  • Out and About in Derry/Londonderry

      Historian feature
    Jenni Hyde was out and about in Derry in 2016 and describes how the sights of the city tell the story of a history which is so much more than just the legacy of the Troubles.
    Out and About in Derry/Londonderry
  • Real Lives: the long life of Old Tom Parr

      Historian feature
    Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. If you have any people that you think might also fit this category and would like to write about them, please do contact: martin.hoare@history.org.uk  In this article, Dexter Plato tells us about the...
    Real Lives: the long life of Old Tom Parr
  • The Coronation of King Charles III

      Historian feature
    2023 will see the first coronation of a British monarch for 70 years. Only those now in their 70s or above will remember the last one. The UK is the only country in Europe still to carry out a coronation, a ceremony that has its roots in traditions over a...
    The Coronation of King Charles III
  • Film: The ladies-in-waiting who served the six wives of Henry VIII

      Virtual Branch
    Every queen had ladies-in-waiting. Her confidantes and chaperones, they are the forgotten agents of the Tudor court. Experts at survival, negotiating the competing demands of their families and their queen, the ladies-in-waiting of Henry VIII’s wives were far more than decorative ‘extras’: they were serious political players who changed the...
    Film: The ladies-in-waiting who served the six wives of Henry VIII
  • Cartoons and the historian

      Historian article
    Many historical books contain cartoons, but in most cases these are little more than a relief from the text, and do not make any point of substance which is not made elsewhere. Political cartoons should be regarded as much more than that. They are an important historical source which often...
    Cartoons and the historian
  • ‘Zulu’ and the end of Empire

      Historian article
    In this article, Nicolas Kinloch examines the 1964 film Zulu. He suggests what it might tell us about the reality of the British Empire and asks if it has anything to say about the era in which the film was made. One of the most successful British films of 1964...
    ‘Zulu’ and the end of Empire
  • Enduring Civilisation: cities and citizens in the ‘Aztec Empire’

      Historian article
    Katherine Bellamy explores the cities and citizens at the heart of the so-called ‘Aztec Empire’, a vast and complex network of distinct indigenous communities who endured despite Spanish colonisation. The term ‘civilisation’ is derived from the Latin, civilis (civil), and closely connected to civitas (city) and civis (citizen). The cities...
    Enduring Civilisation: cities and citizens in the ‘Aztec Empire’
  • Filmed Lecture: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution

      A Fistful of Shells
    In this Virtual Branch webinar we were joined in conversation with Dr Toby Green on his acclaimed book 'A Fistful of Shells'. Shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson Prize and winner of the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the book explores West Africa from the Rise of the...
    Filmed Lecture: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
  • Occult and Witches

      Historian article
    Occult and Witches: Some Dramatic and Real Practitioners of the Occult in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods One purpose of this paper is to show a correspondence between real-life Elizabethan and Jacobean practitioners of the occult and the depiction of their theatrical counterparts, with particular reference to perceived differences between,...
    Occult and Witches
  • Virtual Branch Recording: The Fall of the English Republic

      Article
    Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658 sparked a period of unrivalled turmoil and confusion in English history. In less than two years, there were close to ten changes of government; rival armies of Englishmen faced each other across the Scottish border; and the Long Parliament was finally dissolved after two decades.  Why...
    Virtual Branch Recording: The Fall of the English Republic
  • Real Lives: Alexander Stewart

      Historian feature
    Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. If you have any people that you think might also fit this category and would like to write about them, please do contact: martin.hoare@history.org.uk  Alexander Stewart’s life combined hardship, resilience and moral conviction....
    Real Lives: Alexander Stewart
  • Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen

      Historian article
    Khadija Tauseef introduces the first of four successive sultanahs of Aceh during the seventeenth century. As the sun sets on the glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth II, we pause and look back at the many queens that have contributed greatly to our historical heritage. While female sovereigns in Islamic kingdoms were a...
    Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
  • Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?

      Article
    After a revolution to remove the monarchy did the French revolutionaries create another leadership of power over ideals? William Doyle re-evaluates the reputation of the so-called architect of terror during the French Revolutionary years. Two recent books reflect a seemingly endless fascination with the man whose downfall brought the end...
    Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
  • After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?

      Historian article
    This article examines the aftermath of three epoch-making periods of change – the English, American, and French Revolutions. A comparison of the trio of military commanders who gained power as a direct consequence of these upheavals reveals how the very political radicalism which brought them to power also threatened to...
    After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
  • Film: Attic Inscriptions

      Ancient Athenian Inscriptions
    Public Museums, National Trust Properties and private homes across the UK contain thousands of antiquities deriving from the ancient Greek world. Many of these were obtained by those who ventured upon the Grand Tour, a cultural expedition to Europe undertaken by wealthy young men in the eighteenth and ninteteenth centuries. In...
    Film: Attic Inscriptions
  • The ripple effect: reaching new readers

      Historian article
    Philip Browne tells the story of his continuing journey with an eighteenth-century sea captain. My book had been published and for the first time I held a copy in my hand. A warm sense of achievement and relief washed over me. My work was done. Now with a little encouragement from...
    The ripple effect: reaching new readers
  • Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?

      Pamphlet
    This lucid survey of the history of witch trials in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth century focuses on the question of ‘why did the formal prosecution of witches cease?' Accusations of witchcraft can be found throughout the nineteenth century yet the last conviction was in 1712. Clive Holmes explores...
    Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
  • Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy

      Classic Pamphlet
    During the past four centuries, the processes of nature have come to be viewed in a new light through the progressive acquisition of the systematized, verifiable knowledge that we call science. The associated advances in technology have profoundly affected the circumstances of our daily lives, and have revolutionised the mutual...
    Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy
  • King James’s Book of Sports, 1617

      Historian article
    Forty years after his higher degree research into the history of sport, Trevor James explores the much wider context in which that research now stands. Four hundred years ago, in 1617, James I made a decisive intervention into the simmering debate which had existed since the puritanical upsurge in Queen...
    King James’s Book of Sports, 1617
  • The Darien Scheme - Pamphlet

      Classic Pamphlet
    The colonisation project that became known as the Darien Scheme or Darien Disaster was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s. This pamphlet...
    The Darien Scheme - Pamphlet
  • Joseph Banks and his travelling plants, 1787-1810

      Historian article
    Jordan Goodman takes us on a botanical journey to the ends of the earth. Joseph Banks never commanded a ship. In 1773, aged 30, he went on his last voyage, a short crossing from Hellevoetsluis, south Holland, to Harwich. Yet not only was the sea always at the centre of his...
    Joseph Banks and his travelling plants, 1787-1810
  • Out and About in Madagascar

      Historian feature
    Madagascar is one of the world’s more intriguing destinations. If it is famous for anything – apart from sharing a name with a truly terrible film franchise – it is probably for its wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else. But whereas most people have at least an idea of...
    Out and About in Madagascar