May Blog: Is the biggest march in English history a myth?
Congratulations to all students who have just finished their IGCSE exams!
Anniversaries
Anniversaries provide an ideal opportunity to revisit significant historical events on the syllabus and last month saw the 40th Anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986.
This is relevant for students studying Core Option B and the collapse of the Soviet Union under ‘How secure was the USSR’s control over Eastern Europe, 1948–c.1989?’
The Chernobyl catastrophe led to a radioactive cloud spreading over large parts of the Soviet Union, (now the territories of Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation) and exposing nearly 8.4 million people to the radiation. The human and environmental impacts were thus profound.
It also had a dramatic political impact as it accelerated the process of ‘glasnost’ under Gorbachev as he reflected in his memoirs:
‘The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.’
This BBC article summarises the key events and the significance of the explosion:
History: always changing?
IGCSE students may also be interested in the following - particularly if they did Year 7 History in British schools where this topic is part of the curriculum!
It could also lead to a discussion on how historians work and how a re-interpretation of primary sources can change our understanding of history; good for the source paper and a taster of the kind of debates that they will have in TOK if they go on to do the International Baccalaureate Diploma.
There is now new evidence that the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in England in 1066 were not as we have always thought them to be. It is a story which as this Guardian article writes is one that ‘has been taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of the most famous and pivotal events in the country’s history.’
In the article and video below, University of East Anglia's Professor Tom Licence, Professor of Medieval History and Literature, explains how he came to the conclusion that King Harold did not in fact march his army 200 miles North to defeat the Viking King Harald Hadrada before marching 200 miles back again to face William of Normandy.
This new narrative, based on a reinterpretation of key phrases in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, impacts not only our understanding of what Harold did, but also assessments of his skills and character. Historians have previously considered Harold's actions ‘reckless and impulsive’ (Allen Brown). However, now Professor Licence concludes that:
‘No longer that desperate, land-locked defender as traditionally depicted, assaulted on all sides from the sea, this research shows that Harold was a seaborne commander equal to his foreign foes – and no less sophisticated in combining warfare on sea and land in England’s defence.’
Is the biggest march in English history a myth?
Once I had spotted a 200-year-old error, I was able to join the dots.