history archive
Highlights from this category
Wow, that’s an amazing collection of interesting facts about the US/Canada border
Canada and the United States: a set of bizarre borders tales
Propaganda: Power and Persuasion – great exhibition at the British Library
This afternoon I took a look round the British Library’s latest exhibition, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion. I was about to go on and type that I enjoyed it greatly, but that’s not quite right, as the footage from Nazi anti-Jewish films was sickening. Part entertaining, especially the ineptness of the Saddam Hussein radio station during the [...]
Brains & Bullets: How psychology wins wars by Leo Murray
A crucial curio of warfare is that whilst huge numbers of people get killed in military conflicts, it takes huge numbers of troops and ammunition to kill even a single enemy soldier because very often soldiers hold back, with a mixture of factors such as fear, self-preservation, aversion to killing and confusion making them do [...]
Political infographic, 1980s style: how the Liberal Party was structured
See how the early 1980s Liberal Party described its own organisational structure in this fascinating diagram.
See how the world’s economic centre of gravity has shifted
Here's a fascinating piece of analysis showing how economic development has shifted around the world over the centuries, first heading west and now heading back east.
5 common historical misconceptions (features chocolate)
Also on YouTube here. There’s some overlap between this and the fun book One in the Eye for Harold: Why everything you thought you knew about history is wrong. It’s well worth a look if you like this sort of thing.
Forgotten liberal heroes for a governing party: hear my choice
A couple of years back, I was one of the speakers selecting a forgotten liberal hero for an event at the National Liberal Club. The person I’ve picked is still mostly forgotten, still a liberal and still rather heroic (perhaps all the more so given our most recent experience of being in power). So I’ve [...]
How leaflets used to look: Colchester 1951
A gem from the Labour Party for the Colchester constituency in 1951: You can see all the other leaflets in this occasional series about political leaflets here.
David Lloyd George: the legacy
From the Liberal Democrat History Group’s spring conference meeting: Also on YouTube here.
One in the Eye for Harold: Why everything you thought you knew about history is wrong
Phil Mason’s book is stuffed full of Lots of bite-sized chunks of myth busting, covering the sorts of topics even people not really interested in history are likely to have heard of, such as how Harold didn’t actually get shot in the eye with an arrow at Hastings and how there was a very important but [...]
