In Part 5 of our series on Social and Political Change in the UK 1800-present we look at religion in the U.K. This set of podcasts features Dr Janice Holmes of the Open University, Revd Dr Jeremy Morris, Dean, Fellow, and Director of Studies in Theology at King's College, Andrew Copson,...

In this podcast Dr Ursula Rothe & Dr Colin Andrews of the Open University discuss how social, moral and religious life in Rome differed from that of ancient Greece.

In this podcast Dr Joanna Paul & Dr Paula James of the Open University discuss the role and significance of the Latin Poets in Roman society.

In this podcast Dr Emma-Jayne Graham and Dr Ursula Rothe of the Open University examine Roman Imperial Society.

In this podcast, Dr Tommy Dickinson of the University of Manchester, looks at the historical medicalization of homosexuality and transvestism.  1. Introduction: the historical medicalization of homosexuality and transvestism  HA Members can listen to the full podcast here Suggested Reading:  Tommy Dickinson (2015) "Curing Queers": MentalNurses and their Patients  1935-1974.  Peter Conrad &...

In this podcast Dr Tommy Dickinson of the University of Manchester discusses the life and significance of Alan Turing. Please note this is only the first section of the full podcast which is available to HA Members Alan Mathison Turing, (23 June 1912–7 June 1954) was a British pioneering computer scientist, mathematician,...

Secondary history ought to pay more attention to stones: 1. they are accessible, logistically and educationally, and highly instructive. The Neolithic is everywhere, and generally speaking, free2. venture outside the classroom, into real space or cyberspace, and you stumble into it eventually.3. Archaeological interpretation is an accessible way into aspects...

Leisure time - like time itself - is fluid, and keeps changing its social meanings. From a ‘serious' high political perspective there is no history of leisure and leisure is trivial. Such perspectives have long lost their grip on the historical imagination, of course, and we have had histories of...

"He was The One, The Hero, The One Fearless Person for whom we had waited. I hadn't even realized before that we had been waiting for Martin Luther King, Jr, but we had." So spoke the novelist Alice Walker in 1972, looking back on her teenage years. And so wrote...

On the morning of Sunday 24 January 1932 convicts paraded in the exercise yards at Dartmoor Convict Prison in Devon. Suddenly, inmates began to break ranks, encouraging others to do likewise. Some prisoners were shepherded into cell blocks by officers but control mechanisms quickly collapsed and the remaining inmates had...

Controversial from the first year of its release in 1915, 'The Birth of a Nation' has been hailed as both the greatest film ever made and the most racist. On 8 February 1915, it premiered in Los Angeles as 'The Clansman', the name of the novel and play upon which...

The beginnings of the nationally organised campaign for women’s suffrage began with suffragists’ orchestration of the petition to Parliament in favour of female suffrage in 1866. The petition contained almost 1,500 names from across the country and was presented to parliament by the Liberal MP John Stuart Mill; it was...

Making a passionate case for teaching Black British history in the secondary school curriculum, Hannah shares here the personal journey she has travelled in planning for Black British history in her curriculum. She cites her inspirations and offers striking examples to illustrate her rationale and approach to teaching this history....

London has tended to dominate accounts of LGBTQ Britain… but how did local contexts beyond the capital affect queer identities and communities? This talk by Professor Matt Cook looks at Brighton, Plymouth, Manchester and Leeds to illustrate the difference locality makes to queer lives. * Please note: while this webinar...

Applicable to Britain 1066-1500, Britain 1500-1750, Britain 1750-1900, and many aspects of GCSE and AS/A2 courses. The version given in full here is for use in a study of Victorian Britain. This tackles the troublesome concept of relative status in a changing society. Exactly what is it that bestows status...

Although secondary education become an almost universal experience for British 11-year-olds after the Second World War, it is striking how rarely this key social transformation is used to engage current school-age pupils studying post-1945 British history. // Can't see the video? Download it here The lessons on these pages are...

History teachers frequently show pupils visual images and often expect pupils to interrogate such images as evidence. But confusions arise and opportunities are missed when pupils do this without guidance on how to ‘read’ the image systematically and how to place it in context. Barbara Ormond gives a detailed account...

Hannah Elias and Martin Spafford begin this article by explaining why they believe it is essential for young people to learn about the ‘heterogeneous, rich and complex’ history of the struggle for civil rights in Britain. Drawing on their diverse experiences of researching, writing and teaching history at school and university...

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are the largest minority ethnic group in some communities (and therefore in some schools) in the UK. Yet the past of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller people may rarely be part of history lessons. The result is that pupils of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage may not...