Europe 1901-present

While war seems to be a backdrop to events in Europe in this time period the articles collected here explore many of the wider impacts and elements to the war. Medicine and technology are explored alongside dramatic changes in social attitudes. The political events that disrupt and shape Europe of the 20th century are explored though a range of engaging articles that include Russia and the USSR, Fascism and European co-operation.

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  • Franz Ferdinand

    Article

    The Kapuzinerkirche (Church of the Capuchins) in Vienna's Neue Markt is one of the more curious attractions of the city, housing as it does the Kaisergruft crypt in which the Habsburgs are entombed, or rather in which their bodies are entombed: the hearts are usually kept in the Loreto Chapel...

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  • Polychronicon 153: Re-interpreting Liberation: the end of the Holocaust?

    Article

    In August 1945, Zalman Grinberg, a doctor from Kovno and spokesman for the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany, addressed 1,700 Jewish survivors. ‘What is the logic of destiny to let these individuals remain alive?!' he asked them: We are free now, but we do not know what...

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  • Helping Year 9 debate the purposes of genocide education

    Article

    Connecting the dots: helping Year 9 to debate the purposes of Holocaust and genocide education Why do we teach about the Holocaust and about other genocides? The Holocaust has been a compulsory part of the English National Curriculum since 1991; however, curriculum documents say little about why pupils should learn...

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  • An authentic voice: perspectives on the value of listening to survivors of genocide

    Article

    It is common practice to invite survivors of the Holocaust to speak about their experiences to pupils in schools and colleges. Systematic reflection on the value of working with survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides and on how to make the most of doing so is rarer, however. In...

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  • Helping Year 9 evaluate explanations for the Holocaust

    Article

    ‘It made my brain hurt, but in a good way': helping Year 9 learn to make and to evaluate explanations for the Holocaust Why genocides occur is a perplexing and complex question. Leanne Judson reports a strategy designed to help students think about perpetration and evaluate and propose explanations for...

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  • Building an overview of the historic roots of antisemitism

    Article

    ‘But I still don't get why the Jews': using cause and change to answer pupils' demand for an overview of antisemitism Research by the Centre for Holocaust Education has suggested that students need and want more help with building an overview of the historical roots of antisemitism and that they...

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  • Cunning Plan 152.1: visual sources

    Article

    The principles outlined here were developed in response to three key concerns. The first was consideration of the needs of students learning English as an additional language who face particular challenges with reading and writing. Images could perhaps offer them more direct, less abstract, ways into an understanding of challenging...

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  • Unsung Heroes: The British Merchant Navy WW2

    Multipage Article

    The British Merchant Navy was a term that applied to the employees of British shipping companies whose vessels ranged from the sleekest ocean liners to obsolete tramp steamers. Merchant seamen already included contingents of Black, Asian and Arab sailors and the British Merchant Fleet was swelled between 1939 and 1945...

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  • GCSE Podcasts: The Road to World War II

    Multipage Article

    Aaron Wilkes and Katrina Shearman of Castle High School in Dudley discuss one of the key topics for modern world history students: The Road to World War II.

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  • GCSE Podcasts: The World War 1 Peace Treaties

    Multipage Article

    Aaron Wilkes and Katrina Shearman of Castle High School in Dudley discuss one of the key topics for modern world history students: The Peace Treaties of World War 1. We have produced four podcasts with the first looking at the The state of Europe after the War, the second podcast examining...

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  • Women, War and Revolution

    Article

    On the surface, the period 1914 to 1945 seems to have encompassed massive changes in the position of women in Europe, in response to the demands of war and revolution. Yet historians have questioned the extent of the transformation, since the acquisition of the vote, as well as improvements in...

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  • Podcast Series: Britain's Cold War

    Multipage Article

    In this set of podcasts our author Dr Helen Parr examines Britain's role in the Cold War. Katharine Hudson, General Secretary of CND, looks at the history of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain.

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  • The Origins of the Second Great War

    Article

    This pamphlet provides a detailed account of  the events leading up to the outbreak of war in 1939, covering the various factors that played a role in the outbreak of war such as tension over Poland and the Spanish Civil War, as well as the nature and effect of diplomatic...

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  • GCSE Podcasts: The League of Nations

    Multipage Article

    Aaron Wilkes and Katrina Shearman of Castle High School in Dudley discuss one of the key topics for modern world history students: The League of Nations. We have produced three podcasts with the first looking at the Origins, Structure and Limitations of the League of Nations, the second podcast examining the League of...

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  • Muslim Rescuers of the Holocaust CPD

    Multipage Article

    This CPD unit focuses on the experience of Muslim rescuers during the Holocaust and the Second World War. It was written by Andrew Wrenn, Cambridgeshire Humanities Advisor, to complement  another unit published earlier on this website called Muslim Tommies which dealt with the experience of Muslim soldiers fighting for Britain...

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  • Kristallnacht

    Article

    Why Reichskristallnacht? In The Third Reich Michael Burleigh writes: ‘We should be cautious in seeing spontaneity where frequency suggests instigation from a central source.' He comments on ‘a dialectic between "spontaneous" grassroot actions and "followup" state sponsored measures.' These remarks relate to 1935, the time of the Nuremberg Laws [the...

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  • Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?

    Article

    Perhaps no other British figure of the twentieth century has been as vilified or as celebrated as Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. In 1999, a BBC Radio 4 poll of prominent historians, politicians and commentators rated Chamberlain as one of the worst Prime Ministers of...

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  • The Coming of War in 1939

    Article

    I. The Legacy of VersaillesThe Outbreak of a second world war on 1 September 1939 might have been expected to produce in due course a great controversy on ‘war guilt'. But there has been nothing comparable with the debate which took place during the 1920s on the 1914 issues. The angel...

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  • The German Revolution 1918-19

    Article

    Like other revolutions the German revolution of November 1918 was a product of different causes, some of which formed part of the events immediately preceding it, while other belonged to the less recent past. The revolution began as the improvised revolt of an exhausted and disillusioned population against an authoritarian...

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  • Triumphs Show 144: Active learning to engage ‘challenging students'

    Article

    Active learning to engage and challenge ‘challenging students' Historical significance may have been the ‘forgotten element' in 2002 when Rob Phillips first offered us the acronym ‘GREAT', but it has been seized upon with enthusiasm by the history education community. Christine Counsell's now famous five ‘R's (remarkable, remembered, resonant, resulting...

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