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The Knights Templars
Article
Professor Malcolm Barber explores the rise and fall of the Knights Templars.
"The master of the Temple was a good knight and stout-hearted, but he mistreated all other people as he was too overweening. He would not place any credence in the advice of the master of the Hospital, Brother...
The Knights Templars
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The Battle of Waterloo: Sunday 18 June 1815
Historian article
John Morewood explores the events of 18 June 1815 in detail and asks just how accurate is our view of what happened on the field of Waterloo.
Summary
Waterloo is the most famous battle in a four-battle campaign fought from 15 June to 19 June 1815. On one side were...
The Battle of Waterloo: Sunday 18 June 1815
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The Monarchies of Ferdinand and Isabella
Classic Pamphlet
On 12 December 1474, the news reached the Castillian city of Segovia, north-west of Madrid, that Henry IV, king of Castile, had died. After the proper ceremonies had been conducted in memory of the deceased monarch, his sister, Isabella, was proclaimed queen of Castile in that place. There was much...
The Monarchies of Ferdinand and Isabella
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Podcast Series: The French Revolution to the Fall of Napoleon
The French Revolution
In this set of podcasts we look at the origins and the development of the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon, the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo.
These podcasts feature: Professor David Andress, Emeritus Professor Malcom Crook, Emertius Professor William Doyle, Emeritus Professor Alan Forrest &...
Podcast Series: The French Revolution to the Fall of Napoleon
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Magna Carta and the development of the British constitution
Historian article
Robert Blackburn explains why, 800 years on, Magna Carta still has relevance and meaning to us in Britain today.
Magna Carta established the crucial idea that our rulers may not do whatever they like, but are subject to the law as agreed with the society over which they govern. In...
Magna Carta and the development of the British constitution
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Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
Pamphlet
This lucid survey of the history of witch trials in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth century focuses on the question of ‘why did the formal prosecution of witches cease?' Accusations of witchcraft can be found throughout the nineteenth century yet the last conviction was in 1712. Clive Holmes explores...
Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
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The English Captivity of James I, King of Scots
Article
This booklet tells the story of James the first, with the events leading up to his capture and detailing the eighteen years spent in it. Balfour-Melville puts into writing the colourful, if not tragic, life of the capture and mere 13 year reign James. Brought alive in words, a King...
The English Captivity of James I, King of Scots
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Assessing the Battle of Waterloo in the classroom
Teaching History article
Defying the Iron Duke: assessing the Battle of Waterloo in the classroom
The approaching bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo has stimulated debate about how it should be commemorated. This article reports a collaboration between the Waterloo200 Committee and Tom Wheeley, history teacher, to create a lesson sequence analysing the...
Assessing the Battle of Waterloo in the classroom
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Gary Sheffield: Origins of the First World War
Podcast
Gary Sheffield, Professor of War studies, the University of Wolverhampton, is one of the UK's foremost historians on the First World War. He is the author of numerous books and previously held posts at the University of Birmingham and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In April 2014 he spoke at an HA event for teachers...
Gary Sheffield: Origins of the First World War
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Polychronicon 153: Re-interpreting Liberation: the end of the Holocaust?
Teaching History feature
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...
Polychronicon 153: Re-interpreting Liberation: the end of the Holocaust?
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Helping Year 9 debate the purposes of genocide education
Teaching History 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...
Helping Year 9 debate the purposes of genocide education
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Building an overview of the historic roots of antisemitism
Teaching History 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...
Building an overview of the historic roots of antisemitism
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The Life & Significance of Alan Turing
The History of Science
In this podcast, Dr Tommy Dickinson of the University of Manchester, discusses the life and significance of Alan Turing.
The Life & Significance of Alan Turing
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Podcast Series: Origins of the European Financial Markets
Multipage Article
In this podcast Dr Anne Murphy of the University of Hertfordshire looks at the early origins of the European financial markets from the Italian Renaissance to the present day. Dr Murphy also provides a useful introduction to finance, the stock market and the bond market.
Podcast Series: Origins of the European Financial Markets
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Developing awareness of the need to select evidence
Teaching History article
Let's play Supermarket ‘Evidential' Sweep: developing students' awareness of the need to select evidence
Despite having built a sustained focus on historical thinking into their planning for progression across Years 7 to 13, Rachel Foster and Sarah Gadd remained frustrated with stubborn weaknesses in the evidential thinking of students in...
Developing awareness of the need to select evidence
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Reflecting on rights: teaching pupils about pre-1832 British politics using a realistic role-play
Teaching History article
Ian Luff’s discussion of role-play and his many practical examples (Ian Luff (2000) in Issue 100) drew a huge and positive response from readers. Luff emphasised the simple and the realistic, and, at the same time, showed how to get maximum value from these winning activities through a tight learning...
Reflecting on rights: teaching pupils about pre-1832 British politics using a realistic role-play
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Year 7 explore the story of a London street
Teaching History article
One street, twenty children and the experience of a changing town: Year 7 explore the story of a London street
Michael Wood and others have recently drawn attention to the ways in which big stories can be told through local histories. Hughes and De Silva report a teaching unit through...
Year 7 explore the story of a London street
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the English Reformation
Teaching History feature
Since the first stirrings of religious reform in the sixteenth century, people have been writing the history of the Reformation, debating what happened and why it happened. John Foxe arguably became the first historian of the English Reformation when he published Actes and Monuments in 1563. Better known as ‘The...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the English Reformation
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Punk, Politics and the collapse of consensus in Britain
Podcast
2012 Annual Conference LectureShot by both sides: Punk, Politics and the collapse of consensus in BritainMatthew Worley: Reader in History, University of ReadingThis paper examines the way in which organisations of the far left and far right endeavoured to appropriate elements of British youth culture to validate their analysis of...
Punk, Politics and the collapse of consensus in Britain
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We Also Served: British Asian Veterans of WW2
We Also Served
In search of the story of British Asian Veterans of World War Two.‘We also served' is a moving short film, which follows pupils from Beardwood and St Bede's high schools as they research why the contribution of these soldiers is not more widely recognised.
We Also Served: British Asian Veterans of WW2
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Polychronicon 145: Interpreting the history of the modern prison
Teaching History feature
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...
Polychronicon 145: Interpreting the history of the modern prison
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John Wilkes 1725-1797: A Man of Principle
Historian article
For Lord North in 1775, one John Wilkes was enough, ‘though ... to do him justice, it was not easy to find many such'. The impact of Wilkes between 1760 and 1780 was profound, a cause as much as a person. For Philip Francis, thought to be the satirist ‘Junius',...
John Wilkes 1725-1797: A Man of Principle
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Bonnie Prince Charlie: The escape of the Prince in 1746
Historian article
Thirty thousand pounds was an enormous sum of money in 1746. That was the reward offered by the British government for the capture of Prince Charles. Many Highlanders knew where he was at various times and places after Culloden, but they did not betray him. As one of his helpers...
Bonnie Prince Charlie: The escape of the Prince in 1746
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How does history shape our perceptions of national identity?
History, Perceptions & Identity
A series of podcasts of British students and their peers around the world discussing how a study of history has influenced their perceptions of their national identity and how it has influenced their perceptions of each other. This project has been started by The Mount and Millthorpe Schools in York and Philipp Melanchthon Gymnasium...
How does history shape our perceptions of national identity?
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The Pennsylvanian Origins of British Abolitionism
Historian article
It can have escaped the attention of very few people in the United Kingdom that 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in British ships. Slavery itself continued to be legal in Britain and its colonies until the 1830s, while other nations continued both to...
The Pennsylvanian Origins of British Abolitionism