23 November 2016
I first became interested in the variety of ways in which people and cultures remember their pasts while studying for a Master’s degree in Cultural Memory in 2008. Since then, my thoughts have mostly turned to mid-seventeenth century…
3 November 2016
It will come as a surprise to my students to learn that, contrary to the rumours, I don’t spend all my free time drinking wine, eating pizza, and binge-watching Mad Men. In between all of that I have…
31 October 2016
Crowds gathered in Moscow and in other Russian cities over the weekend to remember those who died as a result of Stalin’s purges in the 1930s and 1940s. The commemoration in Moscow took place in Lubyanka Square, where…
17 February 2015
On 31 December 1991, the Soviet Union was officially declared dissolved. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was officially created on 30 December 1922, following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The USSR was not immediately recognised by…
16 February 2015
The surprise pre-emptive air attack by the Japanese on the American Pacific Fleet in their base at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7th 1941 had momentous consequences. In a day which President Franklin Roosevelt said would…
14 February 2015
The Bolshevik Revolution of 25 October 1917 had a profound impact not only on the Western world but also on the global history of the twentieth century. During the Soviet period, the revolution was celebrated on 7 November…
13 February 2015
28 July 1914. Now there’s a date that changed the world! Or was that 11 November 1918? I guess it is the whole four years, isn’t it really? And the impact is so obvious that I’m not even…
12 February 2015
Can a single book change the world? In 1859, Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of the Species became an instant bestseller – and swiftly took its place as the lightning rod for controversy it has been ever since….
11 February 2015
On 4th of July 1776 the Declaration of Independence, a document drafted by Thomas Jefferson and other ‘framers,’ declared that the 13 former British colonies now formed the first independent nation of the Western world. Alongside the Constitution,…
10 February 2015
Oh dear; dates are funny things aren’t they – as this series has already demonstrated. Just when you think that you have hit on a genuine ‘game-changer’ then you are forced to think again. And so it is…