Aashish Velkar (University of Manchester) On Brexit day (23 June 2016), The Guardian reminded its readers about the ‘Euro myth’ of how European metrication laws had criminalised the use of the Imperial inch such that even the Queen was forced to ‘obey Europe’.[1] Since then, there have been several reports in the popular media about…

Dr Anindita Ghosh at College Street, Kolkata, one of the largest book markets in the world, where books are precariously but perfectly balanced in high piles – a hallmark feature of the bookstalls in the area. Enjoyed listening to Anindita? Please complete our questionnaire, and feel free to ask any questions! BBC Radio 4: Broadcasting…

The armed forces descended on Norfolk last month. Around 200 troops descended on the seaside town of Great Yarmouth and began making their way to peoples’ homes. An invasion was about to take place. The people of Great Yarmouth were in imminent danger, and a hundred gunners from RAF Honington and a hundred troops from…

Teaching the Cold War at the Jodrell Bank Observatory Dr Kristy Ironside and Dr Thomas Tunstall-Allcock When asked to list the various battlegrounds of the Cold War, one might readily point to the 1962 showdown between Kennedy and Khrushchev over missiles in Cuba, as well as the Korean and Vietnam proxy wars, but not the…

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Sometimes ascribed to Mark Twain, this bonmot sounds like an increasingly banal truism. But it should give us food for thought and the possibility to ruminate what uses history can be put to in the light of current affairs. And by this…