The Christmas Controversy is a media and social talking point every year during the festive season. As a culture which often has an unquestioned excitement about Christmas, the Christmas Controversy provides a counterbalance to the status quo. One part of the Christmas controversy is its decreasing connection to Christianity and being seen as an increasingly […]
20 years it took for their cherished novel to finally reach television screens were most likely spent anticipating the disappointment they would inevitably feel. How could a TV adaptation of a tale that pushes all human emotion to the very brink of despair, embodied in the charming Stephen Wraysford (played by Eddie Redmayne), ever replicate […]
The Watergate scandal was a major political catastrophe, which created a constitutional crisis in America. It not only removed the trust between the American public and the political system, it also had ramifications across the world. Hence, why major crises now carry the suffix ‘-gate’, such as in the recent political fiasco featuring Andrew Mitchell, […]
The Prayer Book rebellion, also referred to as the Western Rising, took place between 6th June and 17th August 1549, in Devon and Cornwall. This was a response to widespread opposition to the authorisation of the Book of Common Prayer in January of the same year.
On Thursday 30th of September 2021, a blue English Heritage plaque was unveiled in Hammersmith, commemorating the residence of Ellen and William Craft. The Crafts were an African American couple who married as slaves and did everything in their power to flee to Britain. Their escape began in 1848 and after their arrival in 1850 […]
To an outside onlooker, it seems simple. The clever logo above clearly says that the University of Manchester was (Est)ablished in 1824, right? Wrong. Well, kind of. It is well known (or at least I think it is), that in 2004 the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST merged together to become one conventional university, […]
In an era when six of the world’s continents had been traversed, conquered or mapped, there remained one area of which little was known. Known attempts to reach the southernmost point of our globe began with Captain Cook’s voyages in the eighteenth century. However, what is now termed ‘the heroic age of Antarctic exploration’ began […]
In conversation with the History department’s latest addition Lunchtime Seminars. Feel free to bring a packed lunch. Everybody welcome. All enquiries to [email protected] 27th February: Chris Manias, ‘Public Presentations of Deep Time Evolution in the early-twentieth century’, 1-2pm, Mansfield Cooper 4.05. 13th March: Jenny Spinks, ‘Civil war, print culture and violence in sixteenth-century France’, 1-2pm, […]
Speaking in London in February, Somalia’s newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud noted that his victory marked “the first time in recent Somali history that a leadership that has not practiced violence has come to power”. He heads the first Somali government to be recognised by the USA in over twenty years, a breakthrough which […]
Lord Kitchener was appointed Minister for War in August 1914 and, unlike many of his contemporaries, forecast a prolonged stalemate upon the declaration of war. He recognised the importance of mass recruitment and drew up significant manpower requirements in order to meet such high demands. Volunteers were required, and tapping into powerful sentiments of loyalty […]
I’m still unsure myself what the title of my postgraduate dissertation will be – but, at the moment, the most enjoyable part of doing a Masters is having the complete freedom, if not infinite time, to decide. My undergraduate degree was English and History, so this year I was really drawn to research an area […]
The Neolithic (or ‘Agricultural’) Revolution is a label that is placed on the period of time starting from around 12,000 years ago, where there was a transition within many human cultures from a lifestyle of nomadic hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and permanent settlement, allowing the ability to support an increasingly large population. […]
The date April 24th, 2015, marked the centenary of the beginning of the horrific Armenian Genocide. Both the event and the commemoration of it accompanies a highly controversial debate over the nature of genocide and the acceptance of it as such.
In October 2023, when the cast of the iconic play Les Misérables performed at the Sondheim Theatre in London, they launched into their famous protest song, ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ as a part of their act. But what happened after that was entirely unscripted. The stage was abruptly taken over by activists from […]