The Chapeltown Bonfire Night trial in Leeds, 50 years on. This looks interesting, at @leedslibraries.bsky.social next week.

Very pleased to be funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk to write a book on Britain’s colour bar 1900-1965 www.flipsnack.com/leverhulmetr...

We’re incredibly proud to see former student Gary O’Donoghue featured on Desert Island Discs. We’re so proud to celebrate his incredible success and the impact he continues to make in journalism. 👉 zurl.co/hr6qh #VisionImpairment #Inspiration #DesertIslandDiscs

Congratulations to Joachim C. Häberlen for his article 'Democracy at Play: Adventure Playgrounds in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1967–1984' which has been awarded the German History 2025 Article Prize! You can read the winning article here: doi.org/10.1093/gerh...

I’m curating a little exhibition at Fringe Arts Bath and the fabulous @wandaopalinska.bsky.social and @youngalison.bsky.social have joined me 🤩 www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/carnivale

Re previous post. Excellent book. Recommended on this site, coincidently. #ChrisSilver #RecordingHistory

Honoured to have contributed to this radio documentary by Noujoud Rejbi for France Culture: "Habiba Msika, une artiste libre aux multiples talents."

Hi John, a couple of people have been in touch to ask if I will offer links to further reading. Please find original research from 2014 attached. Pte. Jogendra Sen...David Stowe pelicanroad.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/p... Mary Cicely Wicksteed...Ruth Allison pelicanroad.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/m...

new chapter out! ive long been interested in histories that stretch periodisation. in this piece i focus mainly on a case from 1935, but it includes discussion of some archival material from the 17th century williamgpooley.wordpress.com/2026/05/27/d...

'A History of Goblins' examines the history of goblins from the Middle Ages to the present. It shows that goblins were historically contingent and grounded in an often-hazy interplay between folkloric and folkloresque traditions. bit.ly/4umaYSD 📚💙 #WyrdWednesday #MedievalSky

Summerisle summer school, art class with HR Pufnstuf

The glorious sound of thunder over Leeds. Me mam used to tell us kids it was "God moving His furniture around" so we wouldn't be scared of the noise. It worked. 😀

President of Finland Stubb: “Americans don't ask anymore. You go into Venezuela, you don't ask. You make claims on Greenland, you don't ask. You go into Iran, you don't ask.”

Do make space on your bookshelves for Jasper Heinzen's "Prisoners of War & Military Honour, 1789-1918" (2025). I read this at a slower pace than I usually do because I wanted a more rounded view of the concept of 'parole' in the earlier period. I'm glad I did. #Skystorians

Oh wow. Landhuis Eikenhoven in Driebergen (Willem Noorlander, 1916) staat te koop! 😍 www.funda.nl/detail/koop/...

Think I'll stick with my old profile pic for the time being. The new passport photo makes me look like a 60-something armed robber. I'm trying to think now where my life went in the last three or four passports. 😎

"When Bradford scaffolder Richard Dunn fought Muhammad Ali for the world title" www.itv.com/watch/news/w... ITV News. Good to see highlights of the fight between Dunn and Ali again after so many years. A formidable southpaw.

This beach could be anywhere - the Med or the near Middle East. It's actually Morecambe taken on Sunday.

News | Site of first smallpox vaccinations to reopen after restoration work Temple of Vaccinia at Dr Jenner's House museum was added to the Heritage at Risk Register last year

From her Robot Doctors series, The Sadist in the White Coat, created c.mid-C20th by Mary Bishop in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital where she was compelled to live. While there, she painted hundreds of works expressing distress at her experiences inside & outside of the psychiatric system

I’m finishing today my posting of recommended texts on the background, dynamics and politics of the 1926 General Strike in Britain - in this 100th anniversary year - with Nos. 27-35. Hope you’ve liked the overall series over recent weeks?!! @strikemap.org @keithbeard.bsky.social @sslh.bsky.social

In 1978, a German film-crew interviewed a Vietnamese woman at My Lai, who identified herself among the bodies in Ron Haeberle's photograph taken during the massacre on March 16, 1968. She pretended to be dead in order to survive. Today I found out that she's still alive and confirms the story...

It was nice to share a bench with Paddington Bear in Liverpool the other day - no bite of the sandwich though.

I've just come back from Inverness which is on par with Aberdeen for the most friendliest place I've visited in recent years. Even the cats are friendly - especially the cat I met near HMP Inverness...and the "Cromarty Cat" which escorted me on part of my brief visit to the village.

"Eighty-two years after his execution by the Gestapo on June 16, 1944, the Jewish historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch will be inducted into the Pantheon on June 23... His family requested that 'the far right, in all its forms, be excluded from any participation in the ceremony.'"

A Paris Beauty, created c.1940s, by an individual who was compelled to live at Netherne Hospital. This drawing on the fly leaf of a library book predates the art therapy studio there: such existing creativity using purloined & improvised materials led directly to the studio’s establishment in 1946

Some weekend reading. #Internment

So, part of my job is to see what people are making of the history of our Hospital. Bethlem partly exists in the gothic, horror-adjacent end of history, and so attracts a certain kind of presentation. Restraints, gore, electrodes, I thought I'd seen it all. Until... ...I stumbled onto this book.

And not just you: have you seen this statement from the ICRC? www.icrc.org/en/article/i... The implication is that people are accusing them of hiding records that AI insists exist but has actually just hallucinated.

Our first talk of 2026 is on 21 January at the Grosvenor Museum by Prof Tim Grady of @HistArchChester on German War Graves and the British: The Great Exhumation Mission of 1962. Non-members very welcome [£5 cash/cheque at the door].

Josep (2020). Powerful animated film about Catalan artist Josep Bartolí's experiències after the Spanish Civil War in a French concentration camp and his relationship gendarme, and later in Mexican exile with Frida Kahlo. www.theguardian.com/film/2021/ja...

Welcome to the Public Domain, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) 🎖️ 🎬 The third film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards is a realistic look at World War I. Experience the first filmed adaptation now in the #publicdomain. Learn more ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai... #PublicDomainDay

Sports but make it art Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua (2025) / Francis Bacon, “Self Portrait with Injured Eye” (1972)

Hans Baluschek (German, 1870–1935) "Cold", 1917. Gouache and Colored Crayons on Vellum, 49.5 × 33 cm. Private Collection. #art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt

Delighted to have received my De Montfort University 35 year long service award. Thank you to all staff and students who have helped me on the way.

Machine gun cartridge box. Sent by Mexico to Spanish Republic. An artifact reminding of positive role played by Mexico helping the Republic. Mexico never recognised the Franco regime, and didn't reestablish diplomatic relations with Spain till 1977. Part of the collection of my friend Alan Warren.

Today’s Oscar-qualified short is 'The Girl Who Cried Pearls,' a hauntingly beautiful gothic stop-motion fable of love and greed. Directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, the TIFF-winning short was produced by the NFB and Clyde Henry Productions. www.cartoonbrew.com/awards/the-g...

Lest We Forget www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz0q... "The corner of northern France that is forever Yorkshire". This is a piece I did for ITN News with John Irvine in 2016. (with special thanks also to @profalisonsfell.bsky.social and Legacies of War at the University of Leeds ) #Fricourt

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller November 08,1945

I've set a couple of hours aside this afternoon to watch Peter Watkins' Edvard Munch (1974). I like this type of documentary-style cinema where the plotline and characters are given time to develop. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3s...

One for the Christmas stocking - if available in Oz! @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social www.waterstones.com/book/cat-on-...

Bonfire Night when I was younger (w/out wanting to sound too nostalgic) was mostly about pie and peas, jacket potatoes, and parkin. It was also a community event, involving 'chumping' (collecting firewood) or 'raiding' the rivals' stockpile, and then getting together to make the biggest bonfire.

Delfshaven - one year ago today! #Netherlands

“In Peter Watkins’s world, no amount of time can bury the cry for freedom.” Rest in power Peter Watkins, socialist hero. tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/cryi...

Happy Halloween - a perfect tune for the approaching All Hallows' Eve! [Wold Newton Triangle - The powers of parkin and the cake-eating dragon of Filey is one of my favourite legends.]

The SS Rohilla Disaster 🧵 29 October 1914 – Through the Evening and Night As the Rohilla steamed down the east coast, the fierce storm increased in severity. With wartime blackouts hiding every coastal and ship’s light, the captain was forced to navigate by dead reckoning guessing his 1/2

#NationalGeographic has named #Hull, #England, one of the top 25 destinations in the world for 2026, thanks in part to the city's embrace of its rich #MaritimeHistory. Hull is in the midst of a massive restoration of several sites, including a maritime museum and the 1927 Spurn #Lightship.