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Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
HA Conference 2019 - Keynote Speech
This film was taken at the HA Annual Conference 2019 in Chester and features the HA's President: Professor Tony Badger who presented Friday's keynote lecture.
Find out more about the HA Conference.
In a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism and its democracy, it is perhaps surprising that family...
Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
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The Tale of Two Winstons
Historian article
Winston Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century. As Prime Minister he led Britain to victory against the Nazi war machine, leading Time to name him ‘Man of the Year' in 1940 and ‘Man of the Half Century' in 1949. As recently...
The Tale of Two Winstons
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The Paris Commune of 1871
Classic Pamphlet
Although a century has passed since the red flag flew for 72 days over the twenty town halls of Paris, the 1871 Commune de Paris cannot be said to belong primarily to historians. The picture of the Communards 'storming the gates of heaven' continues to serve both as a model...
The Paris Commune of 1871
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Polychronicon 143: the Balfour Declaration
Teaching History feature
In a letter from the British Foreign Secretary, A.J. Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, the Anglo-Jewish leader, on 2 November 1917, the British Government declared its intention to ‘facilitate' the ‘establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'. The Balfour Declaration, as it became known, was endorsed by...
Polychronicon 143: the Balfour Declaration
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The history of bigamy
Historian article
Though people are still sometimes prosecuted for repeatedly marrying immigrants to rescue them from the attentions of the Home Office, while forgetting to get divorced between times, one uncovenanted result of the now common practice of living together without matrimony is the decline of that celebrated Victorian institution: bigamy.
In...
The history of bigamy
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Podcast Series: The Age of Revolutions
Multipage Article
This podcast series was commissioned as part of the HA’s education programme on the Age of Revolutions period, funded by the Age of Revolution legacy project. They were recorded with leading academic historians and are intended to shed light on a variety of perspectives on the period.
These podcasts were...
Podcast Series: The Age of Revolutions
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Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
Historian article
Daniel Goldhagen defines anti-semitism as ‘negative beliefs and emotions about Jews qua Jews.' Nazis believed Jews to be the source of Germany's misfortunes, and that they must be denied German citizenship and removed from German society. Hitler never compromised on the need to settle what he regarded as the Jewish...
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
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The development of the Department of Health
Historian article
Health as a specific feature of central government strategy is a relatively recent phenomenon and Hugh Gault identifies how this feature of everyday headlines in our newspapers has been managed until the present time.
At the start of the twentieth century Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet comprised four Secretaries of State –...
The development of the Department of Health
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Tank development in the First World War
Historian article
The emergence of the tank as a further weapon of war is inextricably associated with Lincoln where various early models were developed.
By 1915 the Great War had gone just about as far as it could and for the first time, the way an entire war was fought was described...
Tank development in the First World War
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Promoting the First World War, 1914-16
Historian article
The popular image of the First World War is of young men leaving the tedium of the factory or the mine to volunteer for service on the Western Front in one of Kitchener’s new armies. Less well known is the background effort that went into maintaining and strengthening morale as...
Promoting the First World War, 1914-16
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The Industrial Revolution in England
Classic Pamphlet
Revolutions of the magnitude of the industrial revolution in England provoke historical controversy: such a revolution is a major discontinuity which a profession more skilled in explaining small changes finds difficult to understand. A revolution that touches a whole society is so diffuse that its significant events are difficult to...
The Industrial Revolution in England
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Elementary Education in the Nineteenth Century
Classic Pamphlet
All schemes for education involve some consideration of the surrounding society, its existing structure and how it will-and should-develop. Thus the interaction of educational provision and institutions with patterns of employment, social mobility and political behaviour are fascinatingly complex. The spate of valuable local studies emphasizes this complexity and makes...
Elementary Education in the Nineteenth Century
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Medical aspects of the battle of Waterloo
Historian article
Michael Crumplin explores the medical facilities of the British Army and asks how likely soldiers wounded at Waterloo were to survive.
The road to Waterloo
One of the very few benefits of conflict is the advancement of medical practice. The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistanhave been dealing with relatively...
Medical aspects of the battle of Waterloo
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The Great Charter: Then and now
Historian article
Magna Carta is a document not only of national but of international importance. Alexander Lock shows how its name still has power all over the world, especially in the United States.
Although today only three of its clauses remain on the statute book, Magna Carta still flourishes as a potent...
The Great Charter: Then and now
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Filmed Interviews: The Women of Bletchley Park
The Women of Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park was the most important of the top secret intelligence sites during the Second World War. The quiet Buckinghamshire village hosted 10,000 people dedicated to defeating the Nazis, 75% of those were women.
In this podcast we are lucky enough to have some of those women talking about their...
Filmed Interviews: The Women of Bletchley Park
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Polychronicon 136: Interpreting the Beatles
Teaching History feature
‘The Beatles were history-makers from the start,' proclaimed the liner notes for the band's first LP in March 1963. It was a bold claim to make on behalf of a beat combo with one charttopping single, but the Beatles' subsequent impact on 1960s culture put their historical importance (if not...
Polychronicon 136: Interpreting the Beatles
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The Story of the African Queen
Historian article
Where fact and fiction intercept: the story of The African Queen(s) by C.S. Forester
When the Königin Luise was hull down over the horizon and the dhow was close in-shore the lieutenant left his post and went down to the jetty to meet his senior officer. The dhow ran briskly in,...
The Story of the African Queen
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Newcastle and the General Strike 1926
Historian article
The nine-day General Strike of May 1926 retains a totemic place in the nation's history nearly 100 years later. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill was among those who attempted to characterise it as anarchy and revolution, but this was hyperbole and largely inaccurate for, as Ellen Wilkinson (then...
Newcastle and the General Strike 1926
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Obituaries: the first verdict in history
Historian article
Last year marked the deaths of two world-renowned historical figures - Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela. Their obituaries reflected the marked contrast in the way the pair were viewed. Mandela ended up by being universally admired, while Thatcher was both adored and despised in seemingly equal measure. Writer Nigel Starck...
Obituaries: the first verdict in history
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The English Domestic Servant in English History
Classic Pamphlet
The history of domestic service in England has yet to be written. Hewers of wood and drawers of water there have always been, but historians have usually been little concerned with them. The material for their history is scattered and difficult to assess; even the word ‘servant' is not easy...
The English Domestic Servant in English History
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The Origins of the First World War
Classic Pamphlet
The First World War broke out suddenly and unexpectedly in midsummer 1914, following the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Hapsburg, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, at Sarajevo, in Bosnia, on 28 June. Since no war involving the European great powers had occurred since 1871, the possibility of...
The Origins of the First World War
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The world in 1913: friendly societies
Historian article
Friendly societies were designed to help members to cope with the illness, death or unemployment of a household's breadwinner. Each month members, mostly men, paid into the society, often at a meeting in a pub and in return payments from the pooled funds were made to ill members and to...
The world in 1913: friendly societies
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The Chapel and the Nation
Classic Pamphlet
The Noncoformitst chapel has played a crucial role in the history of the English and Welsh nations. When the great French historian Elie Halevy sought to explain the contrast between the turbulent history of his own country and the peaceful evolution of England in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...
The Chapel and the Nation
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Strange Journey: the life of Dorothy Eckersley
Historian article
Meeting in Berlin
Three days before the outbreak of the Second World War, William Joyce, the leader of the British Nazi group, the National Socialist League, was in Berlin. He and his wife, Margaret, had fled there fearing internment by the British government if war broke out. Yet as war...
Strange Journey: the life of Dorothy Eckersley
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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
