Radical History Blog

One of our newer tea towel characters is . We chose him for what he has come to symbolise – in 19th century America.

Today is . Holocaust remembrance often foregrounds lessons about the human capacity for evil if racism, state power, and the process of dehumanisation are left unchecked. It evokes images of the pitch-black uniforms of Hitler’s SS.

Get new post updates It was 99 years ago today that died in Berlin. 89 years ago today, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

Get new post updates "I was left-wing, I am left-wing, and I will die left-wing." died today last year, a man of his word.

Get new post updates Last autumn, I decided we needed to make a Radical Tea Towel video. So I had a conversation with my childhood friend, , a writer and director.

My mother, , was a radical. A liberal, a feminist, a socialist. A fiercely loyal mother and grandmother. You'd always hear her sticking up for the downtrodden, whoever and wherever they were. She spoke her mind, but was polite about it.

We're going to be leaving behind a lot of big radical anniversaries in 2017: the hundredth anniversary of the ; the International Brigades' first combat experience defending the in 1937; seventy years since Indian independence.But 2018 has loads more in store for us.

In the First World War records of the 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment of the Imperial German Army, there's a lonely paragraph which stands out from the pages and pages of battle reports and casualty statistics.

We Brits like to think of ourselves as the true custodians of tea: enthusiasts - perhaps even connoisseurs. But let's not kid ourselves. We didn't invent it. The stuff comes from China. It's the national drink of Afghanistan.

Note from Luke: for today's blog post on , Pete tells the fascinating story of his family's arrival in Britain over 100 years ago and how the establishment of human rights has changed how we think about refugees. Over to Pete!