Ilona Aronovsky

NEWS: I’ve set up an independent anti-racist reporting and monitoring organisation. We’ll document racist attacks, support victims, pressure authorities to act, and amplify the voices of smaller, more isolated Black and Asian communities across Britain.🧵

Graphic from FT showing the speed of decline in the author's "backsliding scale".

Backsliding in the US happening quicker than other 21st century cases.

www.ft.com/content/b474...

Between 2018-21 we awarded Duncan Wright of @newcastleuni.bsky.social 3 grants totalling less than 5k, to explore Laughton en le Morthen castle. This led to an AHRC grant to investigate the transition of power btwn Saxons & Normans. This is what they found: castlestudiestrust.org/blog/2026/02...

Please join us and help make history at the Gorton and Denton by-election! 💚. We have a brilliant candidate, Hannah Spencer, we have momentum and we have a vital message - that the politics of hope *can* win over the politics of hate.
We can win this! @mcrgreenparty.bsky.social @greenparty.org.uk

By-election latest:

A Green Party source tells me the response in Gorton today has been so positive that they're reallocating resources to Denton.

They claim ex-Labour voters say they can't vote for the party with Starmer as leader, so tactical voting doesn't come into it.

They’re taking kids from Minnesota and sending them to detention camps. They’re shooting American citizens in the street and locking investigators out of the crime scenes. The world is watching what happens next.

I have problems with seaweed in the propellor.

😊

liking the focus 😊

Bibliophile Books

A snip! @carolinepennock.bsky.social 's book
ON SAVAGE SHORES: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe reduced at Bibliophile books www.bibliophilebooks.com

Trump: ‘We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not’ Trump said that if the U.S. doesn't take action on Greenland, "Russia or China will take over" the Danish island territory.

Trump: ‘We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not’.

"I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way."

US Constitution has failed to control the felon. The world is heading to a dark place.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s tweets were wrong, but he is no ‘anti-white Islamist’. Why does the British right want you to believe he is? | Naomi Klein I have no interest in defending his social media posts, but calls to strip the newly freed activist of British citizenship pile torment on top of torture, says Naomi Klein, Guardian US columnist and c...

Calls to strip pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah of his British citizenship pile torment on top of torture.

New piece by me on a dangerous and manufactured storm:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How delicately a Romanesque angel uses the lightest touch of a finger to wake one of the magi, snuggled with the other 2 under their embroidered circular blanket at St Lazare, Autun, c1130 (& how beautifully the textures of pillow & blanket are represented).

Season's greetings to you all!

On Savage Shores by Caroline Dodds Pennock: 9780593082539 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books AN ECONOMIST AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A landmark work of narrative history that shatters our previous Eurocentric understanding of the Age of Discovery by telling the story...

The recent book, On Savage Shores, by @carolinepennock.bsky.social www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646154...

it certainly wasn't a tablecloth. St Augustine's! The ruins are an English Heritage site, well worth visiting. Its Abbot Hadrian a North African was a famous scholar in the late 600's. Learnt about it when researching 'Cultural Connections' for EH published & somewhat blandified, about 25 yrs ago 😉

Here's the first in a series of posts looking in detail at the workshops for the Schools History Project's Developing Teachers' Conference, Sat Jan 31st '26. Kicking us off is the SHP legend, Dale Banham, who'll be helping you to motivate your secondary history students #DTC26

Hello, foreign oligarchs and corporations! Please come and sue the UK for billions | George Monbiot The case of a planned Cumbrian coalmine shows how governments around the world are being threatened by litigation in shadowy offshore courts, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Sovereignty? Democracy? Sorry, but we can't afford those anymore. We'll be sued if we try to defend them.
This week's column is about a massive but scarcely-covered scandal.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

YouTube video by Schools History Project DTC26 promo

Have you got 49 seconds to spare? Check out our latest promo video for @1972shp.bsky.social's Developing Teachers' Conference, 31/01/26. Early Bird Tickets available from here store.leedstrinity.ac.uk/product-cata... #skystorians #historyeducation #edusky
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4s6...

The UK has become one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

In this set of discussion papers, funded researchers discuss examples and approaches to deepen our understanding of place-sensitive nature recovery, exploring the links between people and nature.

Did you know HTEN has a website?

Our friends @histassoc.bsky.social have written a response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review. Take a look
www.history.org.uk/secondary/ne...

breakout discussion re Primary teachers need support & subject knowledge to teach Middle East history (at all). Need for curriculum development projects tb supported by likes of @histassoc.bsky.social @danlyndon.bsky.social 4 both sectors. Where does it figure in current rethinks re Empire History?

Honouring people who have been dehumanised Restoring agency of oppressed Representative and inclusive approach Address dehumanising language Histories evolve and require understanding of present

@htenuk.bsky.social conference today discussing the teaching of history especially linked to suffering and conflict in the present with principles from @victoriacrooks.bsky.social and @lauralondo1017.bsky.social
First session led by Rob Kanter from MMU

Brilliant to end with some provocations for our next steps as we head into breakout rooms to end the morning. #HistoryEducation #TeacherEducation

BBC board member quits after being ‘cut out’ of talks over liberal bias claims Shumeet Banerji was away during crucial discussions that led to resignation of director general and BBC News chief

'Banerji’s departure is significant because he was often seen as a counterweight to complaints from Gibb and others of bias. His departure means the BBC is even more depleted as it heads into the process of finding a new director general.'

Society launches call for new Applied History Fellowships, with the Institute of Historical Research and DC Thomson - RHS In November 2025, the Society joins with partners the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and publisher DC Thomson to launch a new Applied History Fellowship programme to support recent post-doctor...

This week we also launched a new Applied History Fellowship scheme, with @ihr.bsky.social and DC Thomson: bit.ly/4ijiuII

Fellowships will support recent post-doc historians and demonstrate the appeal of historical skills for employers. £12,000 for 6 months. Closing date: 31 Jan 2026 #Skystorians

Jane Ohlmeyer delivers the Society's 2025 Anniversary Lecture - RHS On 21 November, the Society was delighted to welcome Professor Jane Ohlmeyer to give the 2025 RHS Anniversary Lecture: ‘Visible | Invisible: Voices of Women in Early Modern Ireland’. Jane's lecture in...

Our great thanks to Jane Ohlmeyer who gave the Society's 2025 Anniversary Lecture on Friday evening.

Jane's lecture, 'Visible | Invisible: Voices of Women in Early Modern Ireland', charted new work to recover the lives of Irish women, c.1550-1700 bit.ly/43NZXhv. Video to follow soon #Skystorians

I don’t know what to say anymore other than to remind those in power that refugees are human beings with equal rights who, along with their children, deserve a safe, stable & integrated life in their communities and that what they’re breaking now with this performative cruelty can’t be fixed later.

First kiss dates back 21 million years, say scientists A new study looks at how the mouth-on-mouth smooch came into being, and concludes that Neanderthals also kissed.

'In this study, scientists found behaviour that matched their scientific definition of kissing in wolves, prairie dogs, polar bears (very sloppy - lots of tongue), and even albatrosses.'

Albatrosses?

Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage | George Monbiot The fundamental problem is this: that most of the means of communication are owned or influenced by the very rich, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." Malcolm X.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...