In this second webinar in our series on writing historical fiction, author Tony Bradman talks about the actual process of writing the story, with examples. The difficulty of the first page - how to start your story with impact and make sure the reader is gripped from the first line....

Henry V - Henry the Conqueror? In this lecture former HA President Anne Curry Emeritus Professor of Medieval History Southampton addresses the question Henry V - Henry the Conqueror?'. She explores the relationship between Henry V, his court and those in France. (Please note: if you have HA Membership and are...

A series of free talks 2024 is an Olympic Games year. Held every four years (with the exception of during the World Wars and Covid-19 restrictions), the modern Olympics is the largest international sporting event in the world. However, historically it has not always been just the sports that are played...

Shakespeare’s first folio To mark the anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s first folio in 1623–24, the winter webinar series will focus on ‘The history that Shakespeare gave us’. The representation of the past in Shakespeare’s plays has shaped many people’s understanding of history. In this webinar series, leading academics...

In this webinar, Professor Robbie Aitken looks at the experiences of Black residents in Germany during the Nazi period. Why have they been largely written out of larger histories of the Third Reich? Professor Aitken suggests that there was a genocidal intent in Nazi policy towards them, signalled partly by...

Eighteenth-century Britons were ruled by a restricted oligarchy of landowners and plutocrats. Yet the wider population had a proud tradition of assertiveness and readiness to protest. ‘Britons never will be slaves!’ as the chorus of 'Rule Britannia' (1740) announced pointedly (if somewhat ironically, in view of Britain’s role in the...

This webinar was presented by Richard Rieser, who is a campaigner and champion for disability rights and the coordinator of UK Disability History Month. His presentation is part of our ongoing work to explore disability history and the arguments and representations of it and ensure that people from disability groups...

During his lifetime, Henry VIII journeyed throughout his kingdom in what are known as royal 'progresses'. In this webinar, Anthony Musson will share research from the AHRC-funded 'Henry on Tour' project which seeks to reassess these progresses by exploring archival sources, archaeology, music and material culture. In addition to contributing...

Would US President John F. Kennedy have avoided the catastrophe that became the Vietnam War if Lee Harvey Oswald had not assassinated him in Dallas on that fateful day of 22 November 1963? This question – or a version of it – has animated discussions of the Vietnam War for...

The discovery in 1952 of the tomb of King Pakal II of Palenque has been called the most important archaeological find in the history of the Americas. Protected by a magnificently sculpted stone sarcophagus depicting Pakal’s descent to the underworld and re-birth as the maize god lay the body of...

The HA has worked with film-maker,  historian and Legasee ambassador Martyn Cox on a series of webinars looking at untold stories from the Second World War. Many of these stories are taken for the oral histories provided in interviews given to Martyn on film.  In this filmed webinar, Martyn goes...

This year's Holocaust Memorial Day the theme is 'One Day'. In this webinar with historian Paula Kitching, we will use the one day Wannsee Conference of January 1942 to help explore the actions of the perpetrators, the Holocaust victims and how decision making by people can lead to genocide. This...

A Jewish community was established in England shortly after the Norman Conquest. Initially confined to London, from the 1130s onwards Jews began to settle in other parts of the country, where they lived as English Jews for more than two centuries. Their life in England came to an end in...

Professor Peter Mandler is the current president of the Historical Association. As part of our 'presidents season' for the HA Virtual Branch he gave a fascinating talk on The Origins of Mass Society: Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870. In this talk he explores the impact of the changes in...

The religious wars of the Crusades are renowned for their military engagements. But the period was witness to brutality beyond the battlefield. More so than any other medieval war zone, the Holy Land was rife with unprecedented levels of criminality and violence. In the first history of its kind, Steve Tibble explores...

Normandy originated from a grant of land to Rollo, a Viking leader, in the early tenth century. By the end of that century Normans were to be found in southern Italy, then in Britain and, at the end of the eleventh century, in the near East on the First Crusade....

David Carpenter brings to life the dramatic events in the last phase of Henry III’s momentous reign, provides a fresh account of the king’s strenuous efforts to recover power and sheds new light on the rebel figure Simon de Montfort. Professor David Carpenter is a Professor of Medieval History at King's College...

In this Virtual Branch talk, Dr Alvin Finkel challenges claims that egalitarian, peaceful societies disappeared with the founding of agriculture or with the founding of state-level social organisation.  Different authors have suggested that early human society was essentially egalitarian in nature, with hierarchies only later becoming common. The point at which...