History Internal Assessment Tips: What you don’t find in the Subject Guide

June 18, 2018

The most important thing for students to do is to choose a straightforward, answerable question on a suitable topic. The Subject Avoid ‘well worn paths’.  There is little new that you could add to our understanding of Hitler, Nazi Germany, Stalin’s five-year plans or...

The Depths of Despair: Long Winters and their Effect on History

February 9, 2018

In this era where there is a lot of talk about the climate and its effect on our lives, and as a signal of what we have done to the planet we inhabit, it is also worthwhile to discuss its effect on history. There are several notable situations that had repeated impact...

Halifax Explosion of December 1917: The Effect of War on the Home Front

January 22, 2018

There are certain subjects which warrant treatment of the subject even if they do not fit neatly into the envelope of the IB Subject Guide.  One such example of this is the collision of the SS Mont Blanc and the SS Imo on 6 December 1917. The Mont Blanc was a French...

Silent Night

January 17, 2018

In this week, when few are in school, and many are on break for a number of reasons, it seemed worthwhile to consider traditions.  Now, Eric Hobsbawm talked about the invention of traditions in his book of the same name, but he was thinking about something...

Happy Anniversary – or when is Wednesday?

November 13, 2017

On October 25 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd, beginning the process of Communist control in what would become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  Based on that information alone, most would think that we are currently marking the centennial of the...

Rights and Protest: 60 years since the Little Rock 9 entered Central High School

October 11, 2017

When I opened the paper today (yes, some of us still do that), there was a brief interview with some of the members of the Little Rock 9.  60 years ago today, 9 African-American teenagers entered Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, in a bid to begin...