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The origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Historian article
On 29 January 1949 there was a debate in the British House of Commons. When Winston Churchill, the leader of the opposition, interrupted Ernest Bevin’s history of the Palestine problem he was told by the Foreign Secretary: ‘over half a million Arabs have been turned by the Jewish immigrants into...
The origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
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Why did the Dome fail?
Historian article
History gives us a basis for understanding the groups which people belong to, the countries people live in and the institutions which govern them. It provides a sense of continuity and identity. However, on 31 December 1999 the Queen and Prime Minister opened an exhibition which made no reference to...
Why did the Dome fail?
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Benjamin Jesty: Grandfather of Vaccination
Historian article
Commonly hailed as a discovery or a ‘medical breakthrough', vaccination against smallpox with cowpox exudate was a development of variolation i.e. inoculation with live smallpox matter - a technique popularised amongst the gentry in the early eighteenth century by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who had observed the procedure in Turkey...
Benjamin Jesty: Grandfather of Vaccination
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The Tower and The Victorians: Politics and Leisure
Article
At the beginning of the nineteenth century about 15,000 people visited the Tower of London each year to enjoy a spectacle which had taken shape over the previous century and a half. Patriotic tableaux, trophies of victory, vast arrays of arms and armour, the menagerie and the Crown Jewels were...
The Tower and The Victorians: Politics and Leisure
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Home Rule for Ireland - For and against
Historian article
At a time when the United Kingdom continues to review its internal constitutional arrangements, Matthew Kelly explores how this constitutional debate can be traced back to Gladstone's decision to promote Home Rule for Ireland and how these proposals evolved over time and were challenged.
Irish political history decisively entered a...
Home Rule for Ireland - For and against
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War Plan Red: the American Plan for war with Britain
Article
John Major discusses an astonishing aspect of past Anglo-American history. All great powers have developed contingency plans for war with each other, and the United States in the early twentieth century was no exception. Each of Washington’s schemes was given a distinctive colour. Green mapped out intervention in neighbouring Mexico,...
War Plan Red: the American Plan for war with Britain
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Travelling the Seventeenth-Century English Economy: Rediscovery of Celia Fiennes
Article
Pam Sharpe reflects on the journals and expeditions of a 17th-century traveller. I first encountered Celia Fiennes (1662-1741), early modern traveller and journal writer, when I was an undergraduate. Being a keen traveller myself and studying social and economic history, Fiennes’ journeys fascinated me1. Here was a woman who travelled...
Travelling the Seventeenth-Century English Economy: Rediscovery of Celia Fiennes
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The Historian 102: 'Catch me if you can'?
The magazine of the Historical Association
5 Editorial
6 ‘The end of all existence is debarred me': Disraeli's depression 1826-30 - W. A. Spech (Read Article)
11 President's Column
12 Cartoons and the historian - Roy Douglas (Read Article)
19 Anorexia Nervosa in the nineteenth century - A. D. Harvey (Read Article)
20 "Catch Me Who Can"? Richard...
The Historian 102: 'Catch me if you can'?
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Smithfield's Bartholomew Fair
Historian article
On the north-western side of the City of London, directly in front of St Bartholomew's Hospital near the ancient church of St Bartholomew the Great, there once lay a ‘smooth field', now known as Smithfield. This open space of around ten acres had a long and turbulent history. In medieval...
Smithfield's Bartholomew Fair
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The Historian 100: A medieval credit crunch?
The magazine of the Historical Association
A medieval credit crunch? - Adrian R. Bell, Chris Brooks and Tony Moore (Read Article)
Fascists behind barbed wire: political internment without trial in wartime Britain - Stephen M. Cullen (Read Article)
Child labour in eighteenth century London - (Read Article)
Hats on Headstones - A. D. Harvey (Read Article)
Out and...
The Historian 100: A medieval credit crunch?
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The myths about the 1745 Jacobite revolution
Historian article
The harsh reality
The 1745 Rebellion has become part of the romantic heritage in both British and Scottish history. At the time there was little romance to it. The many myths and misconceptions about Bonnie Prince Charlie and his followers need to be corrected and the glamorous image of the...
The myths about the 1745 Jacobite revolution
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Dean Mahomet: Travel writer, curry entrepreneur and shampooer to the King
Historian article
The National Portrait Gallery in London is home to many thousands of portraits, photographs and sculptures of the great and the good, as well as those who travelled on the darker side of history.
In 2007 it hosted a small exhibition in the Porter Gallery entitled Between Worlds: Voyagers to...
Dean Mahomet: Travel writer, curry entrepreneur and shampooer to the King
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French chivalry in twelfth-century Britain?
Historian article
The year 1066 - the one universally remembered date in English history, so well-known that banks advise customers not to choose it as their PIN number - opened the country up to French influence in spectacular fashion. During the ‘long twelfth century' (up to King John's death in 1216) that...
French chivalry in twelfth-century Britain?
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The throne and the fairy tellers
Historian article
Fairy tale princesses and mysterious castles are just part of the way that historically story tellers have been connected to royalty. In this article some of the most famous story tellers are discussed with their royal patronage and experiences.
Hans Christian Andersen couldn’t believe his luck. In 1854, he was...
The throne and the fairy tellers
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What did you do in The Great War? A family mystery explored
Historian article
Research into family history is well-known as likely to dig up some uncomfortable evidence. Nearly every family has had its bastards; nearly every generation has had someone on poor relief. We had both. But more troubling was my recent suspicion that a hundred or so years ago not one but two...
What did you do in The Great War? A family mystery explored
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My Favourite Place - Beamish
Historian feature
Hopping off a tram at Beamish Museum, you're stepping straight into life in Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian times. What I really love about Beamish, the Living Museum of the North, is that it not only shows how communities in the region used to live - but also gives you a...
My Favourite Place - Beamish
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The death of Lord Londonderry
Historian article
Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, better known to his contemporaries and to history as Viscount Castlereagh, committed suicide on 12 August 1822, at the age of fifty-three, when Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons. He was one of the great statesmen of his age: as Chief...
The death of Lord Londonderry
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The Historian 97: Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
The magazine of the Historical Association
A Victorian deserter's family story: surviving a clash of loyalties - Donald Read (Read article)
Shipwrecks, Clocks and Westminster Abbey: the story of John Harrison - Sir Arnold Wolfendale FRS (Read article)
Wellington’s Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars - Zeta Moore (Read article)
Buffolo Bill and his Wild West show opens in London's...
The Historian 97: Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
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Out and About: Charles Darwin, a voyage of discovery
Historian feature
Dave Martin follows Charles Darwin’s journey from university back to his birthplace, Shrewsbury.
Cambridge
The bronze statue of Darwin as a young man perches elegantly on the arm of a garden bench in the grounds of Christ’s College, Cambridge where he was a student from 1829 to 1831. Of this...
Out and About: Charles Darwin, a voyage of discovery
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It's Murder On The Orient Express
Historian article
It was the most luxurious long distance rail journey in the history of travel. Royalty, aristocracy, the rich and the famous travelled regularly on the Orient Express. Gourmet chefs prepared exquisite meals, chandeliers, luxury compartments, staterooms and dining rooms on a par with famous hotels like the Ritz were all...
It's Murder On The Orient Express
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The Historian 93: Abolition
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
The Pennysylvanian origins of British Abolitionism - Brycchan Carey (Read Article)
The Slave Trade and British Abolition 1787-1807 - James Walvin (Read Article)
Attitudes of liberty and enslavement: the career of James Irving a Liverpool slave ship surgeon and captain - Suzanne Schawz (Read Article)
Poetry and the industrial revolution in the...
The Historian 93: Abolition
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The Historian 60: The Knights Templars
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 The Rise and Fall of The Knights Templars - Malcolm Barber (Read article)
10 The Resistible Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte - Malcolm Crook (Read article)
16 The Pilgrimage of Grace - Michael Bush (Read article)
21 The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait 1898-1899 (Read article)
The Historian 60: The Knights Templars
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The Historian 61: The Press and the Public during the Boer War
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 Vichy France and the Jews - Julian Jackson (Read article)
10 The Press and the Public during the Boer War - Jacqueline Beaumont Hughes (Read article)
16 Cambridge - Elisabeth Leedham-Green (Read article)
21 The Vikings in Britain - Henry Loyn
The Historian 61: The Press and the Public during the Boer War
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The Historian 63: Why did People Choose Sides in the English Civil War?
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
4 Why did People Choose Sides in the English Civil War? - Professor The Earl Russell (Conrad Russell) (Read article)
10 What's new about 'New Labour'? - Andrew Thorpe (Read article)
16 1939 after sixty years - Patrick Finney (Read article)
22 Louis, John and William: The 'Dame Europa'...
The Historian 63: Why did People Choose Sides in the English Civil War?
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The Duke whose life began and ended in a barn
Article
Though ill-luck came the way of the Harvey family last autumn when their hay barn was gutted by fire, they hardly expected it to become national news. The family run a dairy farm in the Jock River country south of what is now Ottawa in Canada – nothing extraordinary about...
The Duke whose life began and ended in a barn
