Social and Cultural History Archives

How the Gunpowder Treason was discovered

by History Guild | Sep 25, 2023 | Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 9 minutes
On the night of 4 November 1605, a man calling himself John Johnson was found in the vaults beneath the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Under questioning, Johnson – whose real name was Guy Fawkes – admitted that he and his co-conspirators planned to use the gunpowder to blow up the House during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November. If successful, this plot – which became known as the Gunpowder Treason, or Gunpowder Plot – would have killed not only King James I (and VI) but members of his family, his chief ministers, and the Members of Parliament in attendance at the state opening. This was treason on an unprecedented scale – an attempt to destroy both the king and his government.

The story of HMT Empire Windrush (1930–1954)

by History Guild | Sep 18, 2023 | Military History, Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
This june will mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Harbour, carrying on board some 800 passengers who gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the West Indies, and many of whom would migrate as workers and would settle in Britain and help steer its economic recovery after the Second World War. But this was only one journey in the vessel’s history and this article examines its colourful, chequered, and varied life since its maiden voyage was made in 1931 to its sinking in 1954.

The dark history of slavery and racism in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period

by History Guild | Sep 14, 2023 | Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
The region near Medan is famous for its Deli tobacco, and colonial planters researched how to boost tobacco production. Behind the golden age and success of Dutch research, I found enormous human casualties that built plantations in North Sumatra. Widespread racism and slavery occurred in plantations managed by colonial companies.

Vikings were never the pure-bred master race white supremacists like to portray

by History Guild | Sep 7, 2023 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
In contemporary culture, the word Viking is generally synonymous with Scandinavians from the ninth to the 11th centuries. We often hear terms such as “Viking blood”, “Viking DNA” and “Viking ancestors” – but the medieval term meant something quite different to modern usage. Instead it defined an activity: “Going a-Viking”. Akin to the modern word pirate, Vikings were defined by their mobility and this did not include the bulk of the Scandinavian population who stayed at home.

A slave state – how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism

by History Guild | Sep 6, 2023 | Advocacy, Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 46 minutes
The French historian Ernest Renan described forgetting as “an essential factor in the creation of a nation”, since patriots do not want to remember the “deeds of violence” at the origin of all political formations. In the Australian context, a strange contradiction contributes to the ongoing amnesia about slavery and its consequences. From the very beginning, enslavement shaped white settlement in Australia – and so, too, did abolitionism. That paradox, a peculiar entwinement of two ostensibly antagonistic impulses, makes for a complicated narrative, one that cannot be grasped simply as a local version of the better-known American story.

Pickett’s Charge: What modern mathematics teaches us about Civil War battle

by History Guild | Aug 31, 2023 | Military History, Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the American Civil War, and Gen. George Pickett’s infantry charge on July 3, 1863, was the battle’s climax. Had the Confederate Army won, it could have continued its invasion of Union territory. Instead, the charge was repelled with heavy losses. This forced the Confederates to retreat south and end their summer campaign.

Black troops were welcome in Britain, but Jim Crow wasn’t: the race riot of one night in June 1943

by History Guild | Aug 28, 2023 | Military History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
More a mutiny than a battle, it led to the death of Private William Crossland in nearby Mounsey Road, and four other injuries to black American soldiers in a five-hour confrontation which spread from the thatched Olde Hob Inn at one end of the town to the Adams Hall army camp, where from early 1943 the US Eighth Army Quartermaster Truck Company, a black company apart from a few white officers, had been based. The event was officially downplayed, in order not to undermine morale on the home front, but the events of that night led to the conviction of 27 black American soldiers.

Volcanoes, plague, famine and endless winter: Welcome to 536, what historians and scientists believe was the ‘worst year to be alive’

by History Guild | Aug 24, 2023 | History News, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
536 is the current consensus candidate for worst year in human history. A volcanic eruption, or possibly more than one, somewhere in the northern hemisphere would seem to have been the trigger. Wherever it was, the eruption precipitated a decade-long “volcanic winter”, in which China suffered summer snows and average temperatures in Europe dropped by 2.5℃. Crops failed. People starved. Then they took up arms against each other.

Slavers in the family: what a castle in Accra reveals about Ghana’s history

by History Guild | Aug 22, 2023 | Historical Sites, Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
The Castle is situated on the West African coast, formerly and notoriously known as the “White Man’s Grave”. The castle’s origins can be traced to a lodge built by Swedes in 1652. Nine years later, the Danish built a fort on the site and called it Fort Christiansborg (“Christian’s Fortress”), named after the King of Denmark, Christian IV.

A brief history of lion taming

by History Guild | Aug 21, 2023 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Britain’s last lion tamer, Thomas Chipperfield, was recently refused a licence to continue performing with his two lions and one tiger. The decision – which Chipperfield intends to appeal – marks the end of a long tradition of lion taming in Britain. It reflects a gradual shift in public attitudes towards circuses and a growing sense that making wild animals perform unnatural tricks is both dangerous and cruel.

While it has taken nearly 200 years for such views to result in a formal ban, these sentiments have been around for a long time. From its origin in the early 19th century, lion taming has elicited both awe and horror. It has also attracted a socially diverse range of tamers, whose performances have been both praised and condemned.

Lead up to the Jonestown Massacre

by History Guild | Aug 17, 2023 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
Most people have heard Jonestown Massacre in 1978, when 918 members of the Peoples Temple committed suicide by drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid under instructions of the leader of their cult, Jim Jones. How did Jones get this kind of influence over his followers, though, and why would they even consider suicide?

Fresh clues to the life and times of the Denisovans, a little-known ancient group of humans

by History Guild | Aug 14, 2023 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
We know that some modern human genomes contain fragments of DNA from an ancient population of humans called Denisovans, the remains of which have been found at only one site, a cave in what is now Siberia.

Two papers published in Nature today give us a firmer understanding of when these little-known archaic humans (hominins) lived.

Category: Social and Cultural History