This year's Holocaust Memorial Day the theme is 'One Day'. In this webinar with historian Paula Kitching, we will use the one day Wannsee Conference of January 1942 to help explore the actions of the perpetrators, the Holocaust victims and how decision making by people can lead to genocide. This...

The importance of historical understanding might seem self-evident at a time when statues are toppled and demonstrators are protesting against current manifestations of age-old wrongs. Yet history in schools and universities is often compared unfavourably with STEM subjects, which are depicted as more rigorous, useful and valuable in the workplace....

This round table discussion took place on Saturday 15th May 2010.  The panel includes: Dr Katharine Burn (Editor of Teaching History), Dr Michael Riley (Director of the Schools History Project.); Colin Jones (President of the Royal Historical Society and Professor of History at Queen Mary, London); David Evans (Former Head of Eton).

Keynote Speech from the Historical Association 2013 Annual Conference - Podcast Dr Marc Morris - Historian, author and television presenter 1066 is the most famous date in English history. Everyone remembers the story, depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, of William the Conqueror's successful invasion, and poor King Harold being felled...

Professor Peter Mandler is the current president of the Historical Association. As part of our 'presidents season' for the HA Virtual Branch he gave a fascinating talk on The Origins of Mass Society: Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870. In this talk he explores the impact of the changes in...

Lecture from the Historical Association 2013 Annual Conference - Podcast Professor Bill Sheils - University of York The Reformation comprised a range of regional and local experiences, each with its own character and chronology. This talk will examine the broad characteristics of religious change in the north of England between...

The religious wars of the Crusades are renowned for their military engagements. But the period was witness to brutality beyond the battlefield. More so than any other medieval war zone, the Holy Land was rife with unprecedented levels of criminality and violence. In the first history of its kind, Steve Tibble explores...

In his recent book The Monastic World, Andrew Jotischky looks at how from the late Roman Empire onwards, monasteries and convents were a common sight throughout Europe. The history of monasticism is defined by the fierce and passionate abandonment of the ordinary comforts of life, the most striking being food and drink....

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....

David Carpenter brings to life the dramatic events in the last phase of Henry III’s momentous reign, provides a fresh account of the king’s strenuous efforts to recover power and sheds new light on the rebel figure Simon de Montfort. Professor David Carpenter is a Professor of Medieval History at King's College...

Henry V - Henry the Conqueror? In this lecture former HA President Anne Curry Emeritus Professor of Medieval History Southampton addresses the question Henry V - Henry the Conqueror?'. She explores the relationship between Henry V, his court and those in France. (Please note: if you have HA Membership and are...

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...

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...

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...

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 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,...

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 Virtual Branch talk Professor Emma Smith provides a preview of her current research, which explores the lives and cultural undercurrents of Elizabethan England. What was influencing their cultural tastes and how much of it was new, or had it all been seen before? Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare...

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...

In February 2021 we were delighted to continue the HA Virtual Branch with Stephen Bourne, author of a number of books including Black Poppies: Britain’s Black Community and the Great War and Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television. In 2017 South Bank University awarded Stephen an Honorary Fellowship for...