March: New resources, anniversaries and a virtual event
Sunday 14 March 2021
Site update
With May exams rapidly approaching, we have uploaded more quizzes over the past couple of months:
Also a reminder that we have a revision section for students which gives guidelines and suggestions on how best to revise, and links to our quizzes and essay planning pages:
And we have continued to update other pages with more resources such as Paper 3 Europe, Topic 13 on the First World War - where an extra section on the reasons for the US entering the war has been added:
Over the next few months we will be adding the following topics to the site:
Paper 3, Americas
Topic 5: Slavery and the New World (1500 - 1800)
Topic 10: Emergence of the Americas in global affairs (1880 - 1929)
Women's History Month
March 8th was International Women's day and the whole month is designated in the US, UK and Australia as Women's History Month; this gives historians and students a great opportunity to remember key women who have influenced history. The 2021 theme is a continuation of 2020's: "Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced."
See below for more information about this theme and also links to the National Women's History Museum which has great resources on women in US History:
Women's History (National Women's History Museum)
Explore topics and articles about women in American history.
Also please see our previous blog on International Women's Day for more links to important women who have often been overlooked in history.
Anniversaries
March sees the 75th anniversary of one of the most famous speeches of the 20th Century, and one that is crucial to our understanding of the development of the Cold War in 1946.
This article from the New Statesman magazine investigates the context behind Churchill's Fulton Speech, and argues that Churchill's intentions have been misunderstood.
And this podcast discusses the significance of the speech:
Meanwhile, as the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death approaches in May, there are discussions going on regarding how exactly Napoleon should be remembered:
Despot, genius or both? France argues about Napoleon (The Economist)
As his bicentenary approaches, tempers rise
This is good TOK topic - how the current political context changes our perception of historical events and people. The issue of Napoleon with regard to this question is also covered in our 'TOK: History in the News' page from 2017:
Book Reviews
In January's blog we gave a link to a new BBC 'In Our Time' podcast on The Cultural Revolution. This has also been added to the Paper 3 section on Mao's policies with questions to go with the podcast.
Your students might also be interested in this book on the Cultural Revolution by Yang Jisheng who took great risks in writing this book as you can see from this review. However, “He considered this task of a conscientious rememberer to be all the more urgent now in the face of the officially enforced historical amnesia in China.”
This also raises interesting questions regarding the role of historians in society and the extent to which they should go to write about the ‘truth’.
Historian's Latest Book on Mao Turns Acclaim in China to Censure (Published 2017) (www.nytimes.com)
Yang Jisheng's effort to uncover the history of the Cultural Revolution has become part of the struggle over China's Communist past, which has widened under President Xi Jinping.
Also...
The benefits of our new virtual world is that more organisations are holding online talks which any one can access. This is a talk coming up in April with Jonathan Dimbleby who has written a book on Operation Barbarossa, also due to be published in April.
LIVESTREAM EVENT | Jonathan Dimbleby - How Hitler Lost the War (How To Academy)
Hitler's invasion of Russia was a gamble with world-altering consequences. Drawing on never-before-seen sources, the legendary broadcaster and historian tells the fatal story of Operation Barbarossa.