November 2014 – Manchester Historian

1928 in 10 Pictures   The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris by 60 countries including France, Germany and the United States. The signatories agreed not to use war to resolve disputes. Countries began to wage war without declaring it instead.  (Wikimedia Commons)         Emelia Earhart greeting the Mayor of Southampton after Continue Reading

Your family has a well-document interest and passion for history and politics, was conversation around the dinner table dominated by these topics when you were growing up? The conversation at the table was very historical, very political. My mum’s a journalist, my aunt is Margaret McMillan who’s the head of St. Anthony’s College, she’s a Continue Reading

Kim Jong-Un’s recent more than month-long disappearing act has inspired many speculations. The most credible hypothesis is that the world’s youngest head of state’s love for cheese and alcohol has resulted in a pair of fractured ankles, supported by recent pictures of Kim with a cane. Such bizarreness may seem reminiscent of Team America: World Continue Reading

Charlie Chaplin was one of the most celebrated, influential, innovative and ultimately controversial film-makers of the twentieth century. As a star of silent films he became arguably the most important Hollywood figure of his era. Film critic Andrew Sarris called Chaplin ‘arguably the single most important artist produced by the cinema, certainly its most extraordinary Continue Reading

David Kitson (1919 – 2010) was an important anti-apartheid campaigner born in South Africa who demonstrated a lifelong refusal to compromise on his principles, even at great personal cost. After training as an engineer, Kitson served during the war as a ‘sapper’ in the South African army, an experience that was to facilitate his later Continue Reading