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English history

  • SOURCE: Smithsonian
    7/14/2021

    The Many Myths of the Term ‘Anglo-Saxon’

    by Mary Rambaran-Olm and Erik Wade

    References to America's "Anglo-Saxon heritage" are often racist dogwhistles, and usually fully detached from the history of the Anglo-Saxon people. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    6/1/2021

    The Push to Preserve Where Wilde Was Jailed for Being Gay

    The local council in Reading has been thus far rebuffed in its efforts to purchase Reading Jail, the site of Oscar Wilde's incarceration for "gross indecency," to make it publicly accessible as a historical monument. 

  • 10/25/2020

    The Queen's Two Bodies

    by Ed Simon

    Queen Elizabeth's speech to English soliders in anticipation of the Spanish invasion of 1588 rallied the troops for a battle that never happened. But it anticipated today's cultural battle over the stability of gender categories. 

  • 10/20/19

    Trump and the Divine Rights of Kings

    by Ed Simon

    Nobody feels sorrier for themselves than a monarch who discovers that their divine right is an illusion; nobody is more liable to lash out and project the blame for their predicament.

  • 7/28/19

    Is Stonehenge a Tourist Rip-Off?

    by Ken West

    If Stonehenge is to be restored to its rightful heritage then it must be reengaged with the River Avon and its tribal lands. Only then can we interpret the astounding achievement of these prehistoric people.   

  • 6/30/19

    The Declassified History of Hitler's British Traitors

    by Tim Tate

    For all the genuine unity and determination of the vast majority of the British population to defeat Hitler, there was also a small – but dangerous – sub-stratum which yearned for the day when his troops could goose-step down Whitehall amid an orgy of swastika flags.

  • 3/10/19

    Robinson Crusoe’s Wall

    by Geoffrey Sill

    We can look to history, especially literary and cultural history, to explain the passionate desire of many Americans to build a wall.

  • 1/13/19

    A Tyrant's Temper Tantrum

    by Ed Simon

    How the History of England's 17th Century Civil War, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War Shows the Shutdown's Potential to Spur Radical Change

  • SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
    1-13-13

    Experts still fighting over the site of the Battle of Hastings

    It is the most famous battle in British history, fought, as every schoolboy knows, in 1066 at a site now marked by Battle Abbey, near the town of Hastings.But while the date of the Battle of Hastings might still be universally accepted, the location has been called into question, with two experts proposing not one but two different sites for where the fighting actually took place.They believe that for almost a 1,000 years, the battle has been commemorated at the wrong spot, with one historian claiming the fighting actually occurred a mile to the north, on Caldbec Hill, and another stating it was two miles away, to the south, at a place called Crowhurst....