The lecture concentrates on 20th century Spanish history, including the Civil War, Franco and then the remarkable transition to a modern democratic nation.
Behind The Wall – Living with Communism in East Germany
by Major General Sir Robert Corbett
Tuesday 26 November 2013
What was life really like in the country ruled by a dictator – Erich Honecker – separated from us by the Iron Curtain and, in its capital, Berlin, by the Wall?
Lieutenant Godfrey Place was in command of the Midget Submarine X7 when it attacked the German Battleship Tirpitz in September 1943 – ‘one of the most audacious and gallant acts in the annals of the Royal Navy’.
Over 1.3 million civilians starved to death in Leningrad between 1941 and 1943. The lecture uncovers the facts of this little-known tragedy and proposes that the people prevailed because of the strength of Russian Orthodoxy.
Skirt dancing, Can-.Can and the invention of “Gay Paree” – 1840-1914
by Jonathan Conlin
Thursday 20 February 2014
A closer look at the history of the “French national dance” reveals a story of cross-Channel exchange and London’s forgotten contribution to the invention of “Gay Paree”.
‘Murder in the Balkans’ – marking the hundredth anniversary of the start of the First World War.
by Tim Butcher
Thursday 20 March 2014
The talk will focus on the assassination of the Hapsburg Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and the person who committed it. It will also look at the Balkan background.