Past event resources

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  • Virtual Branch recording: Tudor Liveliness?

    Article

    In Tudor England, artworks were often described as ‘lively’. What did this mean in a culture where naturalism was an alien concept? And in a time of religious upheaval, when the misuse of images might lure the soul to hell, how could liveliness be a good thing? In this talk...

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  • Virtual Branch recording: The Women's World Committee against War & Fascism

    Article

    How did a group of women activists with varied ideological backgrounds construct several important campaigns against fascism in the interwar period? How did this Women's World Committee against War and Fascism (Comité Mondial des Femmes contre la Guerre et le Fascisme) undertake effective humanitarian and propaganda work and forge extensive...

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  • Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans

    Article

    How did descendants of Viking marauders come to dominate Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and Lisbon to the Holy Land and the Middle East? In this Virtual Branch talk Levi Roach, author of Empires of the Normans, tells a tale of ambitious adventures...

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  • Film: Medlicott Lecture 2023 - Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch

    Article

    The Medlicott Medal is awarded annually for outstanding services and contributions to history. This year the Medal went to renowned historian and author Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch who is currently Professor of the Church at Oxford. His 2008 book History of Christianity: the first three thousand years is the leading authority on the history...

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  • Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom

    Article

    How did a man born enslaved on a plantation triumph over Napoleon's invading troops and become king of the first free black nation in the Americas? This is the forgotten, remarkable story of Henry Christophe. Christophe fought as a child soldier in the American War of Independence, before serving in...

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  • Film: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire

    Article

    In the 1950s, Britain fought a series of brutal wars against insurgents in the colonies of Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus. How did people at home experience these wars? How did they learn about the use of torture and other unsettling tactics? And how did they respond to this knowledge? In...

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  • Virtual Branch recording: The survival strategies of the Near Eastern powers facing Mongol invasion.

    Article

    The Mongol invasions into the Near East had a devastating effect upon many societies, sultanates, empires and kingdoms. For decades, wave after wave of armies swept across the area, defeating every army sent against them and utterly reshaping the area’s complex political ecosystem. Some powers fell in battle; some submitted...

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  • Recorded Webinar: Mass-Observing Modern Britain

    Article

    Mass-Observation is probably the most consistently useful source for the study of mid and late 20th social lives Britain. It was established in 1937 with the aim of investigating ordinary life and developing an 'anthropology of ourselves.' It used a range of different methods to collect information, from recording overheard...

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  • Film: A short history of Islamic thought

    Article

    In his book of the same name, A short history of Islamic thought, Dr Fitzroy Morrissey provides a concise introduction to the origins and sources of Islamic thought, from its beginnings in the 7th century to the current moment. In this talk he explores the major ideas and introduces the...

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  • Recorded Webinar: Writing historical fiction - Research and planning 

    Article

    In this first webinar about writing historical fiction, author Tony Bradman will talk about how ideas grow from reading and thinking about history. Once you have a good idea, then you need to research it properly, starting with secondary sources for context, then moving on to more specific reading. Visits...

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  • Recorded Webinar: Writing historical fiction - Writing and revision

    Article

    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....

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  • Film: Berengaria of Navarre

    Article

    In this talk Dr Gabrielle Storey discusses the life and times of Berengaria of Navarre, queen of England, lord of Le Mans, and wife of Richard I. Berengaria of Navarre has been inaccurately labelled as the only queen never to have stepped foot in England. This talk will present new analysis...

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  • Recorded Webinar: Our Human Planet

    Article

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  • Film: Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea

    Article

    Professor Jan Rüger joined the Virtual Branch on 9th February 2023 to talk about his book Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea, tracing a rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War. For generations this North Sea island expressed a German...

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  • Recorded webinar: Maya ruler King Pakal II of Palenque

    Article

    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...

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  • Film: Building Anglo-Saxon England

    Article

    Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time the diversity of the Anglo-Saxon built environment. The book explores how the natural landscape was modified for human activity, and how settlements were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. It also shows how...

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  • Recorded Webinar: Ukraine and the Soviet Politics of Empire

    Article

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  • Recorded webinar: Ordinary people - Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

    Article

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  • Film: Death in the Diaspora

    Article

    As British and Irish migrants sought new lives in the Caribbean, Asia, North America and Australasia, they left a trail of physical remains where settlement occurred. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, gravestones and elaborate epitaphs documented identity and attachment to both their old and new worlds. In this Virtual...

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  • Film: The Ruin of All Witches

    Article

    Professor Malcom Gaskill joined the HA Virtual Branch on Thursday 10th December 2022 to discuss the subject of his book, The Ruin of all Witches, Life and Death in the New World, which was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize in 2022. His research explores the attitudes, beliefs and treatment of people as...

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