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200 editions of Teaching History
23rd September 2025
Standing on the shoulders of giants
We're proud to announce the publication of the 200th edition of Teaching History, the UK’s leading journal for secondary history educators. This landmark issue marks over five decades of thought leadership, innovation, and community-building in history education.
Over the last 50 years, Teaching History has...
200 editions of Teaching History
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Triumphs Show 121: 60th Anniversary commemoration of the end of WWII
Teaching History feature
It’s early July 2004, and the history department of Harrogate Grammar School are chatting in the staff room enjoying a bit of spare time now that exam classes have disappeared. The subject of what the department will do next year when it comes to trips, speakers and special days comes...
Triumphs Show 121: 60th Anniversary commemoration of the end of WWII
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Developing enjoyable historical investigations
Primary History article
About 2,000 years ago, a baby was born. No, not that baby. Not Jesus. This baby was a girl. Where she was born and what she was called we don't know but I'll call her Helena - it feels rude to go on just calling her ‘she'. When Helena grew up she became wealthy. Perhaps...
Developing enjoyable historical investigations
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Primary History 99: Out now
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
Read Primary History 99
Welcome to Primary History 99! As the countdown to our 100th edition begins, it is pleasing to read the findings of the 2024 Primary History Survey, which shows that children (and teachers) continue to love learning about the past. We know that history is a diverse and inclusive subject,...
Primary History 99: Out now
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The Coronation of King Charles III
2nd May 2023
Saturday 6 May 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 coronation ceremony has its roots in traditions over a thousand years old.
Whether you are a Royalist or a Republican or...
The Coronation of King Charles III
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New X-ray technique sheds light on Syriac Galen Palimpsest
3rd April 2018
The Syriac Galen Palimpsest is a fascinating and (until now) frustrating historical manuscript. For several years it has been known to contain traces of a 6th-century translation of a treatise ‘On simple drugs’ by the renowned early physician Galen. However, this original text had been erased and overwritten with psalms in the 11th century, and despite...
New X-ray technique sheds light on Syriac Galen Palimpsest
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Twickenham as a Patriotic Town
Historian article
Twickenham from the 1890s onwards grew as a town with a special sense of history. Nobody in authority on the local council could quite forget the reputation which the district had acquired as a rural arcadia. The aristocrats and gentry who built villas in the parish in the late 17th...
Twickenham as a Patriotic Town
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The Armada Campaign of 1588
Classic Pamphlet
Between 1585 and 1588 a state of undeclared war existed between England and Spain. During the course of those years, Philip II devised a plan for the 'Enterprise of England'. It was probably the most ambitious military operation of the sixteenth century: a massive invasion to be mounted jointly by...
The Armada Campaign of 1588
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Populism, Progressivism and Trumpism
Historian article
Populism, Progressivism and Trumpism: third party, inter-party and intraparty candidates in campaigns for the American presidency
Michael Dunne explores the complexities of American presidential political campaigning over the last 200 years.
Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Since these words were first...
Populism, Progressivism and Trumpism
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1497, Cornwall and the Wars of the Roses
Article
Ian Arthurson reasseses the Cornish rising of 1497 on its 500th anniversary. On the 400th anniversary of this rebellion there was a good deal of agreement about the Wars of the Roses: ‘The slaughter of people was greater than in any former war on English soil ... The standard of...
1497, Cornwall and the Wars of the Roses
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Extending Primary Children's thinking through artefacts
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
A research project was carried out with Maltese primary school children at San Andrea Infant and Middle school to see if learning strategies could accelerate pupils' cognitive development. The research involved a range of historical sources:...
Extending Primary Children's thinking through artefacts
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Children writing history: The writing spectrum
Primary History article
"Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd to resign it to him, & to retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to be...
Children writing history: The writing spectrum
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The Historian 70: Myth and Reality: A necessary marriage at 12th Century Glastonbury
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 Novelty and Amusement? Visiting the Georgian Country House - Richard Wilson (Read Article)
10 The Tower and The Victorians: Politics and Leisure - Peter Hammond (Read Article)
15 The Duke of Wellington and the little man on the cob - Patrick Abbott (Read Article)
18 Myth and...
The Historian 70: Myth and Reality: A necessary marriage at 12th Century Glastonbury
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The Unfortunate Captain Peirce
Historian article
An apprentice biographer researches the career of an eighteenth-century sea captain
On a cold January afternoon in 1986, my neighbour announced that he intended to go to Dorset's Purbeck coast that night. Puzzled, I asked why. He explained it was the 200th anniversary of the wreck of the East Indiaman,...
The Unfortunate Captain Peirce
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The Englishness of George Orwell
Podcast
George Orwell is best known for Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four - one book an allegory of The Russian Revolution, and the other a science fiction dystopia about a globalized world. Before these two last works, the heart and soul of Orwell's writing had been about England and the...
The Englishness of George Orwell
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Polychronicon 147: Witchcraft, history and children
Teaching History feature
Witchcraft is serious history. 1612 marks the 400th anniversary of England's biggest peacetime witch trial, that of the Lancashire witches: 20 witches from the Forest of Pendle were imprisoned, ten were hanged in Lancaster, and another in York. As a result of some imaginative commemorative programmes, a number of schools...
Polychronicon 147: Witchcraft, history and children
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Jubilee and the Idea of Royalty
2002 Medlicott Lecture
The Medlicott Lecture delivered at the Historical Association Annual General Meeting on 27th April 2002, transcribed and featured in The Historian 76.
Jubilee and the Idea of Royalty
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Primary History 90
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
04 Editorial (Read article)
06 HA Update
10 Jubilee medals: celebration and creation – Polly Gillow (Read article)
12 The Queen in procession – Karin Doull (Read article)
15 Significance and interpretation: what are these concepts and why are they important in primary history? – Glenn Carter (Read article)
22 Happy and Glorious:...
Primary History 90
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Film: Party Politics 1714-1785
Film Series: Power and freedom in Britain and Ireland: 1714-2010
In Episode 2, Dr Robin Eagles (History of Parliament), examines the birth of Britain’s two party system in the form of the Whigs and the Tories; two parties, whose rivalry would define politics in Britain from the Restoration and Glorious Revolution to the middle of the Victorian Age.
During this...
Film: Party Politics 1714-1785
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Early Modern Britain 1509-1745
HA Secondary Resources (Key Stage 3)
While the 2014 Curriculum sets out the broad focus of each particular content area, considerable choice has been left to history departments in determining which particular events or developments to include and how they can best 'combine overview and depth studies to help pupils understand both the long arc of...
Early Modern Britain 1509-1745
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The Olympics: Origins to Paris 2024
History journal blog
Dr Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow, Clare College and Emeritus A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, talks to Richard Marranca about the ancient and modern Olympic Games.
What do the ancient Olympics have in common with the upcoming Olympics in Paris?
Sadly, very little indeed – beyond the striving for...
The Olympics: Origins to Paris 2024
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Pride: 50 years
1st July 2022
1 July is the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March in the UK. Pride was chosen to be the Saturday closest to the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Starting life as a small event, Pride is now an annual part of the London calendar and there are...
Pride: 50 years
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Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 4
Close-knit Communities?
In this episode, Dr Hailwood investigates what the relationship between villagers might have been like four centuries ago. There can be a tendency to romanticise the ‘close-knit’ communities of a past age, but through a case study of a pub crawl in a Somerset village we come to see that...
Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 4
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Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 3
Isolated and Insular?
In this episode, Dr Hailwood (University of Bristol) examines whether rural villages were really as cut off from the outside world as is often assumed. The evidence of court records not only shows that people often travelled quite far as part of their work, but also that surprisingly high levels...
Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 3
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Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 2
Working Life
In this episode, Dr Hailwood (University of Bristol) uses witness statements from court records to reconstruct a ‘typical’ working day for 17th century villagers. Contrary to our expectations that men toiled in the fields all day whilst women were occupied with work around the home, the evidence reveals that both...
Everyday Life in a 17th Century English Village Episode 2
