It’s a new year and there’s lots to look forward to – new hopes and fortunes! Of course, we also like to look back (history being our business) and so we’re excited to see that 2025 is another year packed full of anniversaries. We will be commemorating several of these over the next few months in a variety of ways. For now, let us draw your attention to some of the key ones – starting with the oldest and moving forward.

Parliaments and kings

In January we see the 760th anniversary of the first official English Parliament – an early form of democratic government that challenged the authority of King Henry III, even if it didn’t last long and is clouded in controversy. 

A mere 360 years later we have the 400-year anniversary this March of Charles I becoming King of England and Scotland. Here is another king who will end up falling out with some of his leading subjects, will see the establishment of parliamentary rule, and eventually lose his head when it comes to who is in charge of governing Britain.

Writers and composers

2025 can’t all be about parliament and monarchs thankfully, as it will also mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of Britain’s greatest writers – Jane Austen (1775–1817). Providing endless generations with some of the most enduring characters of English literature, she has left her mark on many a school exam and a TV adaptor’s credit sheet. We will be marking her birth and her unique insight into Georgian society in all its gentility and inequalities.

Staying in the world of culture but moving to music, August marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875–1912), who had a remarkable life. He is one of the UK’s first (known and credited) Black British composers as well as being a musician and conductor.

Another great of literature with an anniversary this year is the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) who died 115 years ago in November – which gives us 10 months to get through War and Peace to mark the event! Alternatively, you can start on his complete works now, ready for the 200th anniversary of his birth in three years’ time.

War – and peace

At the start of the 20th century the British Labour Party was formed, making it 125 years old this year. Within a short time of its formation, it would become one of the key parties in British politics.

A large part of 2025 will be dedicated to marking the end of the Second World War, and with it the anniversaries of the liberation of the Concentration and Death Camps. Our free Holocaust Memorial Day lecture this year retraces the trajectories of young survivors in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust.

Eighty years on from the war its legacy can still be felt across the globe: physically, culturally and politically. This spring we will be running a short course on Britain and the Second World War, with subjects including fighting on the Polish front, events in the Indian sub-continent, the Mediterranean and the Far East - register your interest now. 

Perhaps one of the immediate knock-on events from the turmoil and international alliances formed following the Second World War was another conflict. 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War in June.

Of course, it is not all doom and gloom. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic ties between Cuba and the United States following 54 years of hostility. There you go – a positive event to commemorate this year – you’re welcome!