Jack Crutcher investigates the histories of the foods that now cover our tables in the festive period. From mince pies to turkey to yule logs, the history of eating at Christmas is extensive and international. A medieval Christmas had both religious and pagan elements. James Brannan explores how Cristes Maesse was celebrated, referring to carolling, […]
Mary Wollenscraft is one of the most famous people you’ve never heard of. Her presence in the school curriculum is minimal; her only appearance comes as a contextual note for ‘Frankenstein’ – the popular book written by Mary Shelley, her daughter. Born in 1759 in Spitalfields, London, Wollenscraft’s early life was complicated by an erratic […]
The history of European integration can be traced back to 1306, and the idea proposed by Pierre Dubois that European princes should form an assembly in order to attempt to secure a lasting European peace. 706 years later, much of the continent is tied, to some degree, to the European Union evidenced by Greece’s recent […]
A quick glance at the Premier League table sees Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City backed by the foreign billions of Sheikh Mansour, sitting smugly at the summit. Following closely are city rivals Manchester United, who can reasonably claim to be the planet’s best supported club. United, by winning their 19th league title in May 2011, overtook […]
On May 3rd, 2021, Northern Ireland commemorated its 100th anniversary as a separate legal entity within the United Kingdom. This raised the question: how do we commemorate a state with a history of violence and discrimination? This essay doesn’t attempt to answer this question but explores Northern Ireland as a case study to demonstrate the […]
Few can claim to have had an impact on as much social change and emancipation as Bayard Rustin. For decades, unrecognised for his work and deliberately forgotten, Rustin made possible many of the key cornerstones of civil rights, like the March on Washington, which would otherwise have not seen the light of day, or at […]
Constance Markievicz (1868 – 1927) seems an unusual figure for a revolutionary. Markievicz was born into a privileged, landholding family that owned estates in both Ireland and England. When she first met what would become the influential republican group, the Daughters of Ireland, she came to the meeting in a ball gown and tiara. Existing […]
It is nearly seven years since Bruce Jeffrey Pardo killed nine members of the same family and injured three others, before taking his own life, in a brutal Christmas Eve massacre. The mass murder, which took place at a family party in Covina, Los Angeles, featured a series of shootings and a severe arson attack. […]
Want a new archive to track down those elusive ‘primary sources’ your lecturers keep nagging you about? Writing an essay on the history of radical politics? Well, you’re in luck because this week the Manchester Historian travelled to Salford to take a look around the Working Class Movement Library. The easily accessible site houses an […]
2017 will mark the 102nd anniversary of Edith Louisa Cavell’s death. Born on the 4 December 1872 in a small Norfolk town, Cavell began training to become a nurse at the age of 21 and finally qualified in 1896. After moving to Belgium, her career went from strength to strength; she became matron of The […]
The Haitian Revolution (1791) was the first successful rebellion of enslaved people against colonial rule. Haiti became the first country to be founded by formerly enslaved people, resulting in the end of slavery throughout the former French colonial empire in 1794. Approximately 4000 enslaved people victoriously defeated colonial authorities in battle as the French attempted […]
Got to Be Real: A History of Drag For as long as people have worn clothes, they have been dressing in outfits designed for the opposite gender. However, drag as we know it began when it was adopted by LGBT pioneers who turned it into an art, rubbing more than a few people up the […]
In an English Literature Modernism module somewhere inside a Science Faculty building on Oxford Road in 2022, we are being asked to consider how much the Harlem Renaissance was a modernist movement. My lecturer notes that the likes of T.S Eliot, James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield were exiles from their home countries. By choice, they […]
With the theme of this issue being gender and sexuality, Manchester’s Steven Pierce, a senior lecturer in African history, talks to Dane Massey about one of his specialist research areas. Steven, this semester, you run a course on gender and sexuality in modern Africa. Could you tell us a bit about this course, […]