A Date with History

Rediscover the archaeological treasures of Roman York in this fascinating panel discussion, which focuses on a Roman burial custom that, until recently, was shrouded in mystery.

Our panel introduces a University of York project that challenges dominant, white, middle-class storytelling in archaeology and heritage, and spotlights the everyday stories of people who have immigrated to the UK.

Travel back in time on this guided walking tour focusing on York’s industrial heritage and its colonial significance as ‘chocolate city’.

Award-winning writer and historian Jill Liddington discusses Anne Lister’s 1836-38 diaries, focusing on Anne’s relationship with wealthy local heiress Ann Walker.

From Dracula to Twilight, explore the history of vampires in literature with award-winning broadcaster, writer, art educator and cultural historian Christopher Frayling.

From ancient Egypt and Nubia to the Zulu Kingdom almost two thousand years later, learn about Africa’s rich political and social history.

Join the East Yorkshire Regiment Living History Group to find out about the men, kit and vehicles involved in the 1944 Normandy landings.

Join us for an evocative journey through the acoustic world of 16th-century York that will allow you to view our city’s rich natural heritage from a fresh perspective.

Find out about medieval ‘dating’ culture in York in this entertaining and engaging performance including a Q&A session with experts from the University of York’s Department of History.

Art historian and curator Susan Owens takes a look at England’s invented histories, from the glamorous to the disturbing, from the eighth century to the present day.

Discover the hidden world of watchmaking with award-winning designer, watchmaker and historian Rebecca Struthers, who will reveal the ways in which timekeeping has shaped our attitudes to work, leisure, politics, and more.

From chopines to stilettos and Louis XIV to Louboutin, Senior Shoe Curator Rebecca Shawcross takes you on a fascinating journey exploring the history of shoes, from antiquity to the present.

This illustrated talk by Alan Turnbull, author of Who Shot Van Gogh?, follows the extraordinary story of his Sunflower paintings - from the artist’s easel to a London auction house a hundred years later.

(Re)discover York’s medieval city walls with archaeologist Barry Crump, who will make you see our city’s iconic landmark in a new light.

Egyptologist Jo Fletcher introduces you to some of North Yorkshire’s wonderful Egyptian treasures.

Archaeological chemist Stephen Buckley reveals the unexpected tales preserved on ancient Greeks’ teeth, showing how their chemical ‘fingerprints’ provide the earliest evidence for the use of coal in the western world.

Bring your family’s WWII stories and objects to this Digital Collection Day hosted by ‘Their Finest Hour’, a nationwide campaign to digitally preserve the stories and objects of the Second World War.

Join historian Gillian Waters for an exploration of a love triangle that may have been the inspiration for the medieval Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot stories.

Medievalist Eleanor Parker of the University of Oxford explores the fascinating history of Anglo-Saxon festivals, customs and traditions linked to the different seasons.

Discussing her book, ‘From Cave to Cosmos: A History of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’, author Sarah Sheils will explore the ideas and scientists forming part of the society’s distinguished 200-year-long history.

Writer and educator Philip 'Maty' Matyszak reveals the lost peoples and cultures who flourished and fought for survival alongside the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Come along to the York Trailblazers workshop to hear and share stories about local heroes that have been forgotten, ignored or overlooked, and to help shape a city-wide sculpture trail in 2024.

From Colombian emeralds in Tudor jewellery to Black voices in 18th-century novels, Lauren Working and Olivia Carpenter of the University of York invite you to reimagine and rediscover British art and literature.

Sally-Anne Shearn of the Borthwick Institute for Archives provides a unique look into John Bowes Morrell’s imaginative idea for preserving and presenting history by building a Folk Park for York.

This walking tour of York will transport you back in time, allowing you to discover the stories of Jewish people who have called this city their home.

Science writer Katie Spalding shares the hilarious stories of celebrated historical figures that demonstrate the fine line between ‘genius’ and ‘extremely lucky idiot’.

A panel of literature experts discuss the first ever anthology of Sri Lankan and diasporic poetry and how it reshapes our understanding of migrational poetics.

Take a journey through the Mint Yard’s centuries-old story and through York Explore's extraordinary archives.

Focusing on a curated selection of pagan art and artefacts, writer and researcher Ethan Doyle White explains the complex histories of paganism and how today’s Pagans are inspired by the pre-Christian past.

Join Alan Williams, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies, for a talk including a recitation and a performance by Seyed Ali Jaberi and the Hamdel Ensemble, centring on the story of an old musician, from the first book of Rumi’s ‘Masnavi’.

Queer science fiction writer and researcher Bee Scott explores how science fiction plays are reinvestigating and challenging our assumptions about the future of queer life.

Leading archaeologist Duncan Sayer of the University of Central Lancashire reveals how ancient DNA is helping us explore the movement of people in the early Middle Ages, between AD 450-750.

Come along to learn all about the story of the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire during the Cold War years.

Sports historian Duncan Stone discusses the history and future of English cricket in relation to social class, together with Kevin Tennent and Alex Gillett of the University of York’s School for Business and Society.

Join us for a day of interdisciplinary events focusing on the changing ways in which humans have lived and farmed in and around Heslington from the pre-Roman period onwards.

Our panel of experts investigate the ways women continue to be omitted from historical records, and discuss how we can better preserve women’s stories and voices.

Join us for an exhibition and activities surrounding the seventh-century, 90ft-long Sutton Hoo ship, which was discovered in 1939 and is now being rebuilt.

Join Master Shipwright Tim Kirk to find out about the Sutton Hoo ship’s design and build, and to discover how the project celebrates Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship, the art of rowing and the possibility of power under sail.

Join us for an exciting talk with Alex Jackson, Curator at the National Football Museum in Manchester.

Join us for an exciting opportunity to conduct real-time, interactive research - choose from a Census record for The Mount School York or information about World War 1 VAD nurses.

Explore the planned voyages of the Sutton Hoo ship with University of York archaeologist and Sutton Hoo Ship’s Company Chair Martin Carver, and discover how they are designed to help us learn more about the seventh century.

Join archaeologist Jim Leary of the University of York for a fascinating exploration of our past that will make you look at the landscape around you with fresh eyes.

Textile expert and author Clare Hunter discusses how Mary, Queen of Scots, used textiles to advance her political agenda, affirm her royal lineage and tell her own story.

Come along to learn all about the story of the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire during the Cold War years.

Award-winning writer Peter Ross shares the tales of our country’s churches, and through them a story of Britain, one that is about people as much as place.

Author and linguist Paul Anthony Jones explains the true nuts and bolts of language, and provides answers to a plethora of linguistic questions you’ve likely never thought to ask.

Join historian Gillian Waters of the University of York’s Centre for Lifelong Learning to rediscover the fascinating stories behind the City of York’s coat of arms, which tell us more about medieval York.

Learn about the lost art of baroque musical improvisation, and experience live how improvisation in classical music can increase accessibility, diversity and excitement.

Travel back in time on this guided walking tour focusing on York’s industrial heritage and its colonial significance as ‘chocolate city’.

Join historian and writer Caroline Dodds Pennock to find out what ‘discovering Europe’ meant for Indigenous Americans and how their worldviews and cultures impacted European civilisation.

Rediscover the Renaissance with Emily Stevenson and Lauren Working of the University of York, who, together with artist Loraine Rutt, will discuss how creating connections between art and archives can generate new ways of imagining the past.

Travel back in time with media scholar Joanna Starzynski to watch and reflect upon footage from Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and her tour of England.

This walking tour of York will transport you back in time, allowing you to discover the stories of Jewish people who have called this city their home.

Join Graeme Green, curator for The Royal Dragoon Guards Collection, to discover the role of tanks during the Normandy landings.

Join us to find out all about the curious and enduring relationship between one of Britain’s most renowned literary figures and his sister-in-law.

Join author and BBC Radio producer Phil Tinline for an insightful talk exploring the highs and lows of British politics over the past century.

Rediscover the intellectual and cultural value of art through a close encounter with objects from the historic collection at Castle Howard.

Our panel of experts discuss the world of complex and unexpected imagery that people throughout history have used to inscribe their identities on their bodies.

Join bestselling author, historian and broadcaster Tracy Borman to hear one of the most extraordinary mother-and-daughter stories of all time.

Inspired by the unique Pricke of Conscience window at All Saints North Street, historian Andrew Crome of Manchester Metropolitan University explores how people through time have imagined the apocalypse.

Dave Harper, US-UK Fulbright Scholar at the University of York, discusses how the relocation of the King’s Printer to York in 1642 invites us to consider anew the relationship of print and power.

Join us for an unforgettable evening of powerful spirituals performed by GRAMMY-nominated countertenor Reginald Mobley and acclaimed jazz pianist Baptiste Trotignon.

Join us for a walking tour of sites and stories of significance to York’s LGBTQI+ communities past and present.

Join Julius Bryant, Keeper Emeritus of Word and Image at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to discover some of the most influential and compelling illustrated books on topics ranging from religion to shopping, and natural history to fashion.

Our panel of historians, librarians and literary scholars revisits the work of York-born historian and public intellectual Christopher Hill, exploring the legacy and afterlife of radical traditions in local and national history.

From roses to rhubarb and from parsnips to pigs - this fascinating talk with garden historian, writer and researcher Twigs Way will explore the impact of WW2 on the garden.

Join geologist and science writer Nina Morgan to discover how every element of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History building was designed to teach science - and learn a lot about geology along the way!

Join author and perfumery expert Charles Sell for an engaging exploration of biblical perfumes that blends science, history and religion.

Historian Thomas Wright discusses the role of coercion and control in 1950s colonial Kenya through the lens of the rediscovered and controversial ‘migrated archives’.

Join archaeologist, educator and broadcaster Julian Richards for a captivating discussion on why science may not have all the answers to our questions about the past, and why we need imagination to bring it to life.

Come along to the York Trailblazers workshop to hear and share stories about local heroes that have been forgotten, ignored or overlooked, and to help shape a city-wide sculpture trail in 2024.

Historian Charlotte Lydia Riley of the University of Southampton asks how the 1957 Home Office surveys and police responses to it can tell us more about the Windrush Scandal, the Hostile Environment and cultures of policing in Britain today.

Pianist Lucy Parham and actor Tim McInnerny come together in this powerful performance celebrating the 150th birthday of composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff.