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Marianne North - Victorian traveller and painter of plants: by Sue Purkiss
(Apologies - life has caught me on the hop, and I don't have a new post for today. However, I'm happy to have the opportunity to repost this one, from seven years ago: it's about one of my favourite...
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FIGHTING FOR SPACE: A VISIT TO LEEDS ROYAL ARMOURIES. Penny Dolan
Back in the late Nineties, and new to the North, I visited the Royal Armouries Leeds. I recall parking on an empty brownfield site, among broken brick outlines of past industrial buildings. Around...
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November 9th, 1989 - Celia Rees
There are a few dates in history when the world turned. June 28th, 1914, when shots fired by Govrilo Princip in Sarajevo, set off a train of events which resulted in the outbreak of the First World...
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In Praise of Martial By LJ Trafford
Author's own pumpkin carving effort.Alas the month of October has passed. October is a great month, it is the bridge between autumn and winter, the final resting point before the shops decide it’s...
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"Goings-on" in medieval nunneries by Carolyn Hughes
I have just finished writing the next book in my Meonbridge Chronicles series, set in medieval England. This story centres, not on Meonbridge, as the other novels do for the most part, but on a priory,...
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Cornelia Africana - What a woman! by Elisabeth Storrs
My previous posts about Roman women have centered on victims (Lucretia and Virginia) and villains (Tarpeia and Tullia Minor) whose virtues and vices served as exemplars both good and bad. Today I write...
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More Venetian than the Venetians - Michelle Lovric
There is a little corner of Venice that is forever Slav. I’m devoting this blog to that corner, which is best known for its jewel-box of paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, the artist commissioned by the...
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Foundling Stories - Stacey Halls and Rose Tremain by Judith Allnatt
In 1747, in a fine room at the splendid buildings of London’s Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright holds her one-day-old baby girl. Alongside other mothers, Bess draws a ball from a bag in a lottery held to...
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THE FAMILY DOLL
In the earlier days of THE HISTORY GIRLS, we used to have a 'Cabinet of Curiosities.' I think this family heirloom I am briefly going to talk about would make an interesting addition to the said...
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The London Under London by Miranda Miller
This is a photo of the Great Hall of the Guildhall which has been the City of London’s civic and ceremonial centre since the 12th century. In the Middle Ages the Lord Mayor of London was almost as...
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Entertaining the Troops in World War II, by Carol Drinkwater
A very proud me on Remembrance Sunday, 9th November 2024, in London.Below, I am in the company of: (left) Alan Wolven in the chair. Alan is a pianist. Now in his nineties, he is...
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The Armada at Anstruther by V.E.H. Masters
Early one morning in November of 1588 the villagers of Anstruther on the East coast of Scotland awoke to find a ship in their harbour with over 250 starving Spanish Armada sailors and soldiers on...
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Mattia Preti: Italian Baroque Artist by Kathryn Gauci
Mattia Preti: Italian Baroque Artist by Kathryn GauciDetail: Mattia Preti’s Self Image - a painting by the southern Italian artist acquired by Heritage Malta. Photo:Times of Malta. Having recently...
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January Floods by Maggie Brookes
On Boxing Day it was 20 years since the terrible tsunami in the Indian ocean. Remembering our shock on hearing about that disaster, which killed 230,000 people, started me thinking about floods which...
View ArticleRethinking history with the help of K-drama
I started watching K-drama because I realised that, when I watched US, UK, or Australian television or read most books, I sympathised with the hero. This was not because I had anything in common with...
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The Lesser Key of Solomon ... by Susan Stokes-Chapman
During the 18th century, Europe witnessed a growing fascination with the occult, fuelled by a mix of Renaissance magic, medieval mysticism, and Enlightenment-era curiosity. Among the most infamous...
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Tom Lehrer is Still Alive - Joan Lennon
Tom Lehrer in 1960 (wiki commons)We live in insane times. And the Cold War was an insane time. And so I guess it's not surprising I've been thinking a lot about what it was like growing up during that...
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A Broch Blog by Susan Price
The broch of Mousa: by kind permission of David Simpson.Mousa is a small island off the coast of mainland Shetland with a Norse name. The 'a' at the end, as in many British place-names, means...
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All Women's History Matters by Janet Few
Here on the History Girls’ website you will read posts about women’s history, posts about the history of women and sometimes, accounts of the lives of individual women. If you are a woman reading...
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'A Happy Accident of War' by Karen Maitland
Daffodils in the hedgerow in Tamar ValleyPhoto:Tony Atkin‘Daffy-down-dilly is new come to town, with a yellow petticoat, and a green gown.’A traditional nursery rhyme recorded in Songs for the Nursery,...
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Medieval Women (and a few men) by Mary Hoffman
The Middle Ages are having a bit of a moment, at least in the UK. This is a boon for me, as I am writing a "Plantagenet novel" covering the rough half century from 1352 to 1403. In January, I went to...
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A taste of Homer, Virgil and Ovid by Caroline K. Mackenzie
Five years ago, almost to the day, in March 2020, the pandemic had taken hold and daily life as we knew it was turned upside down. Everyone scrambled to find ways of keeping in touch, since meeting up...
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Spitfire Women by Rebecca Alexander
At the start of the second world war, the government realised that the Royal Air Force (RAF) would play a pivotal role in defending Britain. The German air force, the Luftwaffe, had been devastatingly...
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The Fake Gestapo Cell in London in WW2
by Deborah SwiftDuring WW2 the government did its best to suppress the British Union of Fascists (BUF), but MI5’s effort to prevent fascist activities was hampered by the government’s advisory...
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Japan’s Jazz Age: Flappers and Feminists ~ by Lesley Downer
‘In the beginning, woman was the sun.’ Hiratsuka RaichōMoga, pictured in Mainichi shimbun ‘Modern gals’If you had visited Tokyo in the 1910s and 1920s, you would have met Japanese women stepping out...
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