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Press Conference

In 1989, political changes in Eastern Europe and civil unrest within Germany put increased pressure on the East German government to make reforms to some of its policies.

On 9 November 1989, government spokesman Gunter Schabowski announced at a press conference that every citizen of East Germany would be allowed to travel to the West, effective immediately.

He failed to clarify that some travel regulations would remain in place and that applications for travel would still need to be made.

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On 9 November 1989, government spokesman Gunter Schabowski announced at a press conference that every citizen of East Germany would be allowed to travel to the West, effective immediately. Discover 8 photos from IWM's collection illustrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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SCW Paper 2 - Edexcel Walkthrough videos on what you can expect!

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SCW Paper 2 - Edexcel Walkthrough videos on what you can expect!

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GCSE History Summer 2024 student walkthrough videos

We are working with Harris Federation to create a series of pre-recorded student walkthrough videos to help your students prepare for this summer's exam series.

There will be one recording for each component, and in them we'll remind students about the structure and focus of each paper, the specific questions and what they are assessing, and we'll suggest some general revision tips as well.

Student walkthrough videos for GCSE History Paper 1

You can now view the Paper 1 walkthrough videos for Section A Historic Environment and Section B Thematic Study.

Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 Student Walkthrough Part 1: Paper 1 Section A Historic Environment

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Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 Student Walkthrough Part 2: Paper 1 Section B Thematic Study

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Coming soon: student walkthrough videos for Paper 2 and Paper 3

We hope to release the Paper 2 and Paper 3 student walkthrough videos over the Easter holidays. We will update this news item to provide links to the videos when they are available.

Thank you to Katie Matthews from Harris Federation and Ben Armstrong (one of our GCSE History specialist trainers) for creating these fantastic student resources!

Subject advisor

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Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 student walkthrough videos

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This update contains news about pre-recorded student walkthrough videos for Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 exams, created in collaboration with Harris Federation.

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Unit 2: Czechoslovakia - Hungarian Uprising

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Unit 2: Czechoslovakia - Hungarian Uprising

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President Reagan & Changing Attitudes to the Cold War

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Premier Gorbachev & Changing Attitudes to the Cold War

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Unit 3: The Collapse of the Soviet Union

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Unit 3: The Collapse of the Soviet Union

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Studying archaeology is about exploring the past and uncovering the stories of ancient civilisations through the study of artefacts, structures, and cultural landscapes. It not only builds an understanding of human history but develops skills in research, critical analysis, and cultural interpretation.

Studying archaeology gives you the opportunity for hands-on excavation and preservation work, meaning you gain practical experience in the field. It can lead to exciting careers including roles in cultural resource management, museum curation, heritage preservation, and even forensic archaeology.

You could also contribute to urban planning, environmental impact assessments, or community engagement projects using your archaeological skills and experience.

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Thinking about studying archaeology? Find out why you should study it, entry requirements, and what jobs you can do with a archaeology degree.

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The importance of historical understanding might seem self-evident at a time when statues are toppled and demonstrators are protesting against current manifestations of age-old wrongs. Yet history in schools and universities is often compared unfavourably with STEM subjects, which are depicted as more rigorous, useful and valuable in the workplace....

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A history degree gives you the skills that can take you into a variety of careers from museum and heritage work to teaching or accountancy

Job options

Jobs directly related to your degree include:

Jobs where your degree would be useful include:

Remember that many employers accept qualifications from graduates with any degree subject, so don't restrict your thinking to the jobs listed here.

Take a few minutes to answer the Job Match quiz and find out what careers would suit you

Work experience

Pre-entry work experience is highly valued in the museum and heritage sector. Look for volunteering or work experience opportunities within the area in which you're interested. For example, if you'd like a career in curatorship, try to get experience working with museum collections.

Use any opportunities to build up a network of contacts as well as provide the skills required for your chosen job.

If you're looking for a career in a different area, such as banking or law, internships offer the chance for more structured work experience and are usually well advertised, making them easier to find. Competition for places is strong so research the company well before applying.

Search for placements and find out more about work experience and internships.

Typical employers

History graduates are valued by a range of employers and organisations including heritage organisations, museums and libraries. Other typical employers include:

accountancy firms

archive and records offices

banks

charities

higher education institutions (HEIs)

international development organisations

law firms

management consultancies

publishing companies

retailers

schools

television and radio broadcasters.

National and local government and the public services also attract history graduates, particularly the civil service (with some graduates applying to the Civil Service Fast Stream), NHS management, the police and armed services.

Find information on employers in creative arts and design, public services and administration, teaching and education and other job sectors.

Skills for your CV

A degree in history develops your:

critical reasoning and analytical skills, including the capacity for solving problems and thinking creatively

intellectual rigour and independence, including the ability to conduct detailed research

ability to construct an argument and communicate findings in a clear and persuasive manner, both orally and in writing

capability to work without direct supervision and manage your time and priorities effectively

ability to discuss ideas in groups, and to negotiate, question and summarise

capacity to think objectively and approach problems and new situations with an open mind

appreciation of the different factors that influence the activities of groups and individuals in society.

PGCE secondary history

Able to tackle controversial issues? Teach history to 11 to 16 year olds and push the boundaries of learning

Further study

Some history graduates go on to further study at Masters level in order to specialise in an area of history and cultures of interest to them.

However, many postgraduate courses accept graduates from any subject and this allows history graduates to enter careers as diverse as:

These courses provide you with vocational training skills in discrete occupational areas.

Courses of further study include law conversion courses, one-year teacher training courses, Masters courses in information management and museum studies, and certificates in corporate finance and personnel practice.

For more information on further study and to find a course that interests you, see Masters degrees and search postgraduate courses in history.

What do history graduates do?

The top ten jobs held by history graduates employed in the UK 15 months after graduation include teaching professionals, sales, marketing and related associate professionals, business, research and administrative professionals, media professionals and finance professionals.

For a detailed breakdown of what history graduates are doing after graduation, see What do graduates do?

Graduate destinations data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

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What can I do with a history degree? | Prospects.ac.uk

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A history degree gives you the skills that can take you into a variety of careers from museum and heritage work to teaching or accountancy Jobs directly related to your degree include: Jobs where your degree would be useful include: Remember that many employers accept qualifications from graduates with any degree subject, so don't restrict your thinking to the jobs listed here.

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Archaeology & Anthropology at Bournemouth University

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Archaeology & Anthropology at Bournemouth University

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Access excellent facilities and study archaeology or anthropology in a South Coast location, close to some of the UK's most prestigious historical sites.

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Historical Association Events - What's On?

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Historical Association Events - What's On?

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The HA Virtual Branch is a great way to keep your history up-to-date, whether you are working or relaxing, all from the comfort of your home. The branch is available to everybody, and recordings of the talks are made available online after the event for HA members. Upcoming talks *...

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Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University

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Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University

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You can focus on historical, forensic, artistic or cultural areas. Wherever your interests take you, our expert staff will support and inspire you.

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History of the Police and Policing - SOCI6750

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The curriculum principally concerns the historical development of police forces and policing in England and Wales from the mid-18th century to c.1980. The issues of police accountability, finance, operational practices, legitimacy and the politics of policing are all covered in this context. Policin…

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United States

Master's Degree in Law and Diplomacy, International Relations and Humanitarian Assistance, Tufts University, Massachusetts, United States

Bachelor's Degree in Asian Studies, International Environmental and Art History, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, United States

English, German

A regular day's work in emergency environments consists of making hard choices; sometimes with limited information, and almost always with limited time. I faced this reality while I was deployed to Liberia in 2003. In the last stages of the civil war, thousands of displaced people were finding shelter in parking lots, abandoned schools and churches, and stadiums. We had to confront the immediate challenge of trying to figure out how to assist them. Providing food, water, and medical care in those temporary settlements meant both drawing more people into an area where safety could not be guaranteed and possibly prolonging the time they would spend living in terrible conditions. Not assisting them, however, meant not meeting critical needs or forcing them to go back to other insecure areas to find assistance.

You learn that the solution often lies in bringing together the right people and asking them the right questions, rather then trying to find the answers by yourself. In many cases, the answers come from the people you are trying to help. In Liberia we decided to do a joint mapping of safe areas where we could provide assistance and offer people a chance to move to those locations. This took coordination with everyone: from the people who were displaced to Government officials, religious groups, and many members of the humanitarian community. You realize what is possible when people come together to work on a challenge.

Providing humanitarian assistance after an emergency does not only involve operations at the field level, it involves the dedication of hundreds of people working hundreds of miles away in various headquarters locations. I have been fortunate; in my eight years with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), I have worked in many different roles assisting with emergency responses from Headquarters. From New York I have prepared briefings for the Security Council on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and worked with a dedicated team as far away as Timor-Leste to help put together operational emergency response strategies. From Geneva I have helped coordinate funding appeals for emergencies in southern Africa, and worked to establish six offices as well as hire staff to work in remote locations of Pakistan. The tasks are varied and often unpredictable, but the opportunities are limitless. During the Pakistan earthquake in 2004, there was one week I was helping to draft the briefing by the Under-Secretary-General to member-states in Geneva. The next week I was deployed to Islamabad and Muzaffarabad in Kashmir to try and establish a system to ensure non-governmental organizations were better coordinated in relation to United Nations relief efforts.

When you work on an emergency response for the United Nations you are part of a team that works across time-zones, broken phone-lines, and different locations to find collective solutions. In these instances, you realize you are never alone, no matter how big the challenge. This became apparent to me during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. While I was in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, trying to figure how I could get aid to the areas where it was most needed, someone else was in Jakarta, the capital city, organizing helicopters to deliver aid. And while the press release was being drafted in New York announcing that delivery had taken place, a donor briefing was being organized in Geneva to get additional funding for a future delivery. Working in this type of team, you begin to look at problems not as barriers, but as common issues that need to be solved. You learn the truth behind the Japanese proverb that states, "None of us is as smart as all of us."

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United States Master's Degree in Law and Diplomacy, International Relations and Humanitarian Assistance, Tufts University, Massachusetts, United States Bachelor's Degree in Asian Studies, International Environmental and Art History, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, United States English, German A regular day's work in emergency environments consists of making hard choices; sometimes with limited information, and almost always with limited time.

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Complete University Guide - History & its various pathways!

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Complete University Guide - History & its various pathways!

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Your Privacy We use cookies, which are small text files placed on your computer, to allow the site to work for you, improve your user experience, to provide us with information about how our site is used, and to deliver personalised ads which help fund our work and deliver our service to you for free.

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Meet Joe, 26, a freelance art historian based in Yorkshire. Find out more about how they use Japanese in their role. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.
Joe specialises in Japanese art and so their ability to speak the language is invaluable, especially when putting together art exhibitions with Japanese artists. Joe also writes articles about East Asian artwork so their understanding of the language is a real asset, enabling deeper research.

I've never come across a downside to learning a language.

Video Transcript Video Transcript

Joe:
My name is Joe and I'm an art historian.

私はジョーと申します。私の仕事は美術史家でございます。 - * My name is Joe. I work as an art historian.*

私の家族がイギリスでいるので、安心します。 - * I feel secure in the UK because my family live here.*

ふーん、そうですよね - * Ah, that makes sense*

I specialise in Japanese and Korean art history. I write articles about art and history. I also put together art exhibitions, working closely with artists to showcase their work.
Joe:
お久しぶり。 - Long time no see.
Joe's colleague, Eren:
あー！ジョーさん、お久しぶりです。 - Ah! Joe, long time no see.

Joe:

こんにちは。 - Hi.
Joe's colleague, Eren:
今日は。 - Hello.

Joe:

I mainly speak to English language people, so I use my Japanese language to translate things into English for them. Most art historians, when you get to a high level, are expected to know at least one second language because you're always looking at art work and artists, and trying to understand their world and how that influences what they create.

エレンさん、このギャラリーによく来ますか。 - Eren, do you come to this gallery often?

 **Joe's colleague, Eren:**

はい、よく来ます。 - Yes, I do.

Joe's colleague, Eren:

Joe has such a deep understanding of not only culture, but language, and is my great friend.

今日の展示が楽しみですね。 - I am looking forward to today's exhibition.
Joe:
私も楽しみ。 - I am also looking forward to it.

I love trying to be innovative. It's so exciting to try and meet with artists or put together exhibitions that provoke something and have a real energy.

私は木の葉がみえます。 - As for me, I see the leaves of a tree.

Joe's colleague, Eren:

見え方,人それぞれですね。 - Everybody has their own perspective on it.

Joe:

そうですね。 - That's true.

Being an art historian is not always easy. You get a lot of rejections when you're looking for your next project or pitching ideas.

Joe:

あの絵がどう思いますか。 - What do you think of that painting over there?

Joe's colleague, Eren:

すごく面白いコンポジションだと思います。 - I think it has a really interesting composition.

Joe:

My career path hasn't exactly been traditional. I ended up going on an exchange to Japan when I was fifteen. I left school and I went to do an Art Foundation course and I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to, so I switched to a joint degree in Japanese Language and History of Art, which was a much better fit for me.

After university, I started running art tours out in Japan, so I got to take people out there and show them all the things that had inspired me, and then I slowly built up my portfolio of work as an art historian. Working as a freelancer, obviously it can be very difficult because you've really got to fight for those opportunities, but I think that that can keep you on your toes and keep you sharp.

Whether you're learning languages or doing art history, you need to make it your own. Investigate your own way. Be curious about everything.

強い金色が見えます。 - You can see a strong yellow colour.

When I was younger, I wish I had known not to be embarrassed about speaking foreign languages, because we all respect it so much when people are putting effort into communicating with us, so just relax, use what you know and don't be scared.

I've never come across a downside to learning a language at all. Be adventurous. You never know where your career might take you.

The main skills Joe uses as a freelance art historian include the ability to use their initiative, pay close attention to detail and work well with others

After leaving school, Joe did an Art Foundation course but soon realised it wasn't for them so switched to doing a joint degree in Japanese Language and History of Art at university

After university, Joe went to Japan to run art tours and practise using the language, before coming back to the UK to build a portfolio of work as an art historian

Joe developed their Japanese language skills by immersing themself in the culture and learnt not to be embarrassed by speaking a foreign language. They discovered that people deeply respect it when others make an effort to communicate in their mother tongue

Joe mainly speaks to English-speaking people so their ability to speak Japanese means they can translate for them when dealing with clients from Japan

Joe says most art historians are expected to know a second language, as you spend a lot of time looking at international artists and trying to gain a deeper insight into their world, in order to know how that influences what they create.

Top tips

Working as a freelancer can be difficult when it comes to securing work opportunities but it can also keep you sharp and on your toes, which makes it exciting too

Be curious about everything and find out what works for you. You don't know where your career may take you

When it comes to speaking another language, just relax, use what you know and don't be scared

Surround yourself with people who really believe in what you're trying to achieve, as that makes the whole experience even more enjoyable.

An art historian can also be known as an art gallery curator. Museum and art gallery curators manage collections of objects of artistic, scientific, historical and general interest.

What to expect if you want to be an art gallery curator

Art gallery curator salary: £18,000 to £40,000 per year

Art gallery curator salary typical working hours: 38 to 40 hours per week

What qualifications do you need to be an art gallery curator?
You could get into this role via an apprenticeship, a university course or working towards this role. Sources: LMI for All, National Careers Service This information is a guide and is constantly changing. Please check the National Careers Service website for the latest information and all the qualifications needed.

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How to become an art historian: Joe's story

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Meet Joe, a freelance art historian based in Yorkshire. Find out more about how they use Japanese in their role. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.

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Being part of English Heritage means working somewhere a little different. With over 400 sites in our care, from world-famous prehistoric sites and grand medieval castles to Roman forts and Cold War bunkers, we provide exciting opportunities for everyone to experience England's rich and diverse history - starting with our employees.

Search Jobs

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Being part of English Heritage means working somewhere a little different. With over 400 sites in our care, from world-famous prehistoric sites and grand medieval castles to Roman forts and Cold War bunkers, we provide exciting opportunities for everyone to experience England's rich and diverse history - starting with our employees.

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There is a national training advisory service, Creative Skillset, which offers advice to people seeking careers in broadcasting, film and interactive media. You also should keep an eye on the advertisements in The Guardian on Mondays (media day) or their online media jobs listings, and check out the websites of any broadcasting company or newspaper you might like to work for.

With regard to print journalism, check out the National Council for the Training of Journalists' website. This gives good advice on the qualifications needed and the routes of entry. Beware, though - this is a popular career route (practically every university careers website you may care to visit will have something on media careers!) and the competition, especially for something like a trainee producer's job with the BBC, is very fierce indeed.

Work experience and volunteering: The BBC and major independent TV and radio companies do run work experience schemes: you can find out more through their websites. You can check out your local TV channels/radio stations directly (via their website or by calling them). You could also contact local radio stations to find out about any opportunities they offer and see if your local hospital radio needs volunteers. National, regional or local newspapers may also run work experience schemes - write to those which interest you.

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There is a national training advisory service, Creative Skillset, which offers advice to people seeking careers in broadcasting, film and interactive media. You also should keep an eye on the advertisements in The Guardian on Mondays (media day) or their online media jobs listings, and check out the websites of any broadcasting company or newspaper you might like to work for.

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You do not necessarily have to take the conventional route of studying Law at University in order to become a lawyer: there are various routes into law. Nowadays, there are lots of non-law graduates in the legal profession. There are even school leaver schemes and apprenticeships available. It is also common to go to University to study something else, like History, and then complete a conversion course after your undergraduate degree.

Whether you study History to GCSE, A-level or University level, History and Law are both about questioning motivation and looking beneath the surface, which makes them intrinsically linked. History teaches you skills which are important to have as a lawyer: critical thinking, asking why, analysing information and presenting arguments as well as training memory and teaching you how to research. Barristers need to have an excellent memory for precedents, i.e. legal cases in the past where judgement may be considered to have set a precedent which could still apply to a similar case today. Studying History before going in to Law may even give you an advantage of having had more life and academic experience. For information on legal careers, visit the Law Society website.
Work Experience and Voluntary Work
This is likely to be limited by issues of confidentiality, but you may find that some solicitors and other law firms offer work experience. Again, seek the help of your careers advisor in checking this out. Courts also have public viewing areas so you can 'sit in' on a trial and see the roles taken by prosecutors, defenders and court officials.

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You do not necessarily have to take the conventional route of studying Law at University in order to become a lawyer: there are various routes into law. Nowadays, there are lots of non-law graduates in the legal profession. There are even school leaver schemes and apprenticeships available.

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BBC Sounds - Bitesize Study Support - Available Episodes

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Listen to the latest episodes of Bitesize Study Support on BBC Sounds

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BBC Sounds - Bitesize Study Support - Available Episodes

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Listen to the latest episodes of Bitesize Study Support on BBC Sounds

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Revising for your Year 10 & 11 GCSE Exams!

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Revising for your Year 10 & 11 GCSE Exams!

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History Resource Cupboard - lessons and resources for schools

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At certain points of,every year teachers and students gear themselves up for revision. Before mocks, before summer exams...

Everyone is under increasing pressure to succeed: students, teachers, schools.

But what are the keys to success with revision?

Firstly we would stress the fact that revision is something that should happen across two years of the course (or three if school leaders think that a three year KS4 is a good idea). Not just in the final few weeks.

Teachers should build in tasks to remind students of the work they have covered and may have forgotten. Testing of substantive knowledge is hugely important.

But we would be foolish/smug / sat in an ivory tower if we said that in the period leading up to the exams we didn't spend time re-visiting information and helping our students get ready to succeed.

So what makes for good revision?

Essentially we break this learning down into three mains areas:

1. Getting the information into your brain in the first place by taking a highly engaging enquiry based approach to learning.

2. Remembering and recalling the information through repeated testing in different contexts.

3. Applying the information to different contexts (ultimately exam questions).

Step 1 is simple. Teach 'em the stuff well. Use an enquiry based approach.

This is what we do day in day out in the classroom. I personally view the classwork book as a learning book. Not as something that is created for revision notes that students take home. This is different. Learning is messy and students will make mistakes. If you think that the classwork book will become a revision tool, think again as just re-reading notes or summarising them doesn't work according to some research.

We provide our students with revision notes after they have learned the 'stuff'. They can then use this to test themselves.

I am not saying that I think presentation in class books should be poor. Just that the classwork book is a learning book where students will write essays, create charts, complete links diagrams and so on.

Step 2: Remembering and recalling information.

We must remember that information needs to be re-visited. This process should be repeated. We do not advocate the rote learning of possible answers to exam questions. This just creates a problem for your kids if the question they have practiced doesn't appear on the exam.

Students need to be able to recall the information they need, and then decide exactly what they should be doing with that information when asked.

One problem with revision in schools and the growth of extra revision classes is students think learning and revision is something that their teacher does to them.

This often happens when a school hasn't created a positive learning environment. Schools should work hard to create the right attitude for learning across their institutions.

The more you can get your students to complete these revision tasks independently of the teacher, the better. Recent research suggests that the most effective form of revision is repeated testing.

This is why we set up www.historyhomework.com It's an independent testing site where your students log in and complete the test that you have set them on any particular area of the specification. They spend 15 minutes completing the tasks and you get gap analysis data about how much they know. You can then re-set them to test at any point across the course to build their knowledge.

I am not saying that the teacher shouldn't be involved in setting up the activities. But all revision lessons shouldn't just involve the teacher asking the students about what they remember, then filling in the gaps when they don't know.

Revision is quite simple - that is why 'look, cover, write, check' works.

We can use a number of different approaches to help students remember the information after we have taught them. The key is to get them the to retrieve information independently and don't just re-read notes and highlight stuff.

Below are fifteen ideas and three free downloads.

1. Using odd one out - this is simple. As a start to a lesson give out the odd-one-out grid on the topic that you have studied before and get them to justify their choice. Then talk about it. Here is an example.

2. Picture sorts - we love to use images in our lessons. By reusing the images on their own you get your students to remember the key events of a time period. For example, give em a bunch of pictures and get them to work out what each one is and get them into chronological order.

3. Word Association - start the lesson by writing keywords on the board. The students have to copy them and write what they associate with the word. If you wanted them to remember key information about the USA in the 1920s you might write: tenant farmers, Al Capone etc This shows you how much they have learned.

4. Regular tests - but call them quizzes! Use preset tests to take the pain out of creating and marking them.

5. Learning grids - these are great and have been widely used by Osiris trainers such as Carmel Bones. 6 by 6 grids of key events of a topic. You can use them how you like but rolling dice to get coordinates and identify each square then linking them together for more points is our favourite. You can download the USA in the '20s one here.

6. Tarsias - enough said.

7. Jenga in the classroom

8. Connect 4 in the classroom

9. Acronyms - making them up. For example 'Eileen Rightly Enjoyed Nightly Passions' to remember Hitler's consolidation of power: Elections, Reichstag Fire, Enabling Act, Night of the Long Knives, President Hindenburg's death. But remember they are only useful to recall specifics.

10. The making of mind maps to remember key information.

11. The making and use of flashcards.

12. Stepping Stones

If you have decent access to the computers you could get your students to sit down and complete the tests you have set via www.historyhomework.com make their own tarsias and learning grids and use them with their peers. You could get them to use software to create online gap fills and crosswords that are marked online.

There are loads of other activities and techniques that we have missed but these make a good starting point.

The key is to make revision in class as varied and as fun as possible. Make regular low stakes tests a part of your entire course.

Step 3: Applying the information to different contexts

Once your students are armed with the knowledge you can test their ability to answer different question types.

1. You can look closely at what exam questions are asking by content, time period, skill and marks.

2. You can have badly written answers where the author of the answer has written too much nonsense or too little or been too waffly. Students can spot the problems (using the knowledge they have armed themselves in step 2) and improve the answer.

3. You could start the lesson by having a really difficult exam question written on the board and get the students to answer it immediately (after they have got over the groans). Then after the time is up, unpick the answer with them and show them what they should have done.

Checklists
One of the most important aspects of revision is showing your students exactly what they need to revise in bite-size chunks and get them to re-visit the key information regularly. For years we have given our students charts of information telling them exactly what they need to learn for each topic. We explain to them that repetition is the key here. They should aim to make their revision notes on the topic, then re-visit at least 3 times if not more. They should keep a tally of this to make them feel like they are succeeding.

By doing this, when they enter the exam hall they have the confidence of knowing that they have covered all of the course in their revision and should be able to pull any particular knowledge needed to answer a question from their brain.

If you want to read how to plan a successful revision evening and what to put in revision packs read this article.

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At certain points of,every year teachers and students gear themselves up for revision. Before mocks, before summer exams... Everyone is under increasing pressure to succeed: students, teachers, schools. But what are the keys to success with revision?

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GCSEs can be hard, and it is often difficult to know where you should start with your revision. History is a really interesting subject to study, but how are you going to memorise all of the content?

Whether you're just starting your year, or you're nearing your exams, revision techniques are vitally important. GCSE History can be overwhelming because it is such a vast subject, so having a variety of effective revision techniques will help you immensely when it comes to revising for your exams.

In this article, I'll be going over some examples of tried and tested revision techniques (and general advice) to help you tackle the challenge that is GCSE History revision.
If you don't wish to read this entire article and want the short answer, my first tip is to get more comfortable with reading as GCSE History will make you read lots and lots! That said, here is the short answer for how to revise for GCSE History: when revising for History you will be required to remember so many periods, places and people that your brain will want to explode, so my main, number one tip, is to take frequent, yet short breaks. Other than breaks, I would say consider the following revision tips:

Do Not Forget About Past Papers.

Do Not Use All of Your GCSE History Past Papers Too Early.

Attempt Quick Retention Exercises, such as "Key History Dates" Flashcards.

Get to Know Your Exam Board's History Specification.

Visualise Your Notes, by Making Use of Mind Maps.

Vary Your Revision Techniques.

1. Past Papers are Essential for Perfecting Your GCSE History Exam Technique

Past papers are an incredibly useful resource for any subject, but they will aid you especially with your GCSE History revision. They are helpful for improving your writing structure as well as your subject knowledge.

Throughout your GCSE History course, your teacher should be showing you how to structure the wide variety of questions that you will be required to answer in the exam. Hopefully, they will provide you with practice questions whilst you are learning the content.

However, it is essential that you don't only do the questions provided in class by your teacher. You need as much practice as you can get with exam questions - your technique for each question type contributes to your grade more than you may think.

In cases where you want to use past papers to practice exam technique, you may want to write your responses (under timed conditions) with the information in front of you, so that you are practicing one skill at a time. However, it is important that you stop doing this once you have mastered the basic structures for each question type.

Past papers will not only help you consolidate how to structure your answers, but they can also identify areas where your knowledge of the content is weaker. This can help you prioritise which areas you need to revise more - something which is incredibly useful when there is such a high volume of information to learn!

2. Using Mind Maps Will Help You Visualise Your History Revision Notes

Mind maps are a great way of summarising your knowledge. They allow you to make links between information, and this is extremely useful when you are trying to get as much detail into your GCSE History answers as possible.

It is important that you show the examiner that you know a wide range of information about the time period you are studying in order to get those top grades - so any additional facts that you can link to your main point will really help you out.

You can organise your mind maps for history in a variety of ways. Perhaps you want to focus your revision on a particular aspect of a time period, or you'd like to be broader and have an overview of the time period in its entirety.

There are a number of options for GCSE History, so each school will have a different combination of topics, but as an example, if you are studying Medicine Through Time, you may want to split up your mind maps into these categories:

Important Individuals

Ideas about the Causes of Disease

Treatments and Prevention

Medics and Care

Case Study

You could create a mind map for each of these topics, while also splitting them up into time periods, which are clearly set out in the textbook. In this case, they are:

Whatever you would like to do, it is vital that you have an organised way of filing your mind maps. If you are unsure on how you should be making and using your mind maps, take a look at this helpful article on how to use mind maps effectively.

3. Associate Particular Colours with Specific Places, People or Periods (Colour Code)

As I've said before, GCSE History is a vast subject to study. This means that, as much as you can, you want to try and break down the information you have to learn into small chunks.

If you are a more visual learner, it can often be helpful to use colours as a method of doing this. They can not only help you create links between pieces of information, but they can also make going over your revision notes, mind maps, or flashcards much more bearable!

When colour coding your History notes, my advice would be - keep it as simple as possible. Decide how you would like to organise your revision resources, and think about what you are struggling to link together the most - whether that is historical individuals, time periods, events and their consequences or places.

Once you have decided how you want to use colours to aid your revision, make sure you are consistent, in order to make it as effective as possible. If you are unsure about the best way to colour code your notes, take a look at these tips for colour coding your notes.

Colour coding can be incredibly useful if done right. However, it is important to remember that you can't rely on it as your only revision technique. It should be an addition to your flashcards, notes or mind maps.

4. Get an Easy to Digest GCSE History Revision Guide

There are a wide variety of revision guides available for GCSE History. Revision guides will break down the information you have to learn into clear, concise points, which are much more manageable than the large chunks of text that you will find in your textbook.
It is definitely worth getting a revision guide, as you will gain extra guidance on exam technique from the exam boards themselves, as well as extra practice questions and activities to consolidate your understanding of the subject.
The revision guide you need will depend on your exam board, as well as the options that your school has chosen to teach. Some examples of useful revision guides are linked below:

AQA

Edexcel

5. Make Your Own History Flashcards - Don't Just Use Other People's

Flashcards are an incredibly useful resource for any subject, and that is especially true for GCSE History. There is such a large volume of information to learn, and it is important that you can break it down into small, memorable chunks.

In an ideal world, you should be making your flashcards right from the start of your course, to consolidate your learning as you cover the content. This gives you the most opportunity to use your flashcards as a way of testing your knowledge.

That being said, it is not only the use of flashcards for self-testing that is effective revision. The act of making the flashcards will help you greatly, especially in identifying the areas where you have gaps in your historical knowledge. Therefore, it is incredibly important that you make your own flashcards! If you are unsure on how to go about doing this, here's a useful article on how to make effective flashcards.

For GCSE History, you need to be especially careful that you are actually summarising the information you need to learn in as few words as possible. There is a great temptation to write as much information as you can on your flashcards, because you want to learn the content in as much detail for your exam. This will not only make creating your flashcards much more time consuming, but it will also hinder you in your revision - it is impossible to learn everything word for word!

An example of a question and answer that you may want to put on a flashcard (for the Medicine Through Time topic) is:

Q: What was Hippocrates' role in Medieval Medicine?

A: 4 Humours, Hippocratic Oath, Healthy Lifestyle

Although this may seem like a very short answer, it includes the relevant keywords, which you should be able to expand on when writing a GCSE History exam question.

6. Take Rests between Revision Sessions (Try the Pomodoro Technique)

GCSE History is very unique in the way that it requires an amazingly high level of information retention from the student. No other GCSE subject demands a student remember as much as they have to when revising GCSE History.

This is exactly why, when you are revising for your History GCSE exams, you don't cram. Cramming never works in situations where a student needs to not only remember knowledge but understand it in a way that they can utilise their knowledge in a meaningful extended exam answer.

Just remembering periods, people or places isn't enough. You need to be able to play around with the knowledge you have gained over your GCSE course and use it in a clever and developed way in your writing.

Therefore, cramming isn't the solution - take frequent, yet short breaks during your revision sessions. There are many formats you can do this in, however, many students like to follow the advice drawn out in the Pomodoro technique, which you can read more about here.

If you are wanting the short answer to the question of "What is the Pomodoro technique?", here it is:
The Pomodoro technique is a method of either working, revising or studying where you assign yourself a specific "Work Duration" and then a subsequent "Rest Duration". For example, if you set your work duration as 45 minutes and then your rest duration as 15 minutes, you would work for 45 minutes and then you would rest for 15 minutes, this would repeat itself in a cycle for however long you are revising for.
If you can, give the Pomodoro technique a try and apply it to your GCSE History revision. You never know, it could change the game for you.

7. Vary Your GCSE Revision Techniques - Don't Stick to Just One

An important thing to consider when you are revising, is that different revision techniques will be useful for different things.

For example:

YouTube videos and timelines might be the best way for you to revise the order of certain events.

Flashcards may help you remember the events of a certain date or time period.

Mind maps may help you make links between events and their causes and consequences, or the impact of certain important individuals.

The above may not be how you want to use the different types of revision, but the point to take away from this is that you shouldn't only use one technique for every piece of information. If you haven't been inspired by the revision techniques listed here to help you with GCSE History, take a look at this useful article on revision techniques for GCSE and A-Level, which should give you some more detail on general ways to revise.

However, you must make sure that you are extremely organised, especially when mixing techniques. It is hugely beneficial to have a variation, but you need to be sure that you don't end up with a set of flashcards, a timeline, and a mind map on the exact same pieces of information, as this would be a huge waste of your time!

8. YouTube is Free and Will Assist You Massively with Your GCSE History Revision

Non-students may say that YouTube is an "Unofficial" and "Non-Trustworthy" source of revision information, especially for something as important as fact-based history revision. Even though their claims may be valid in certain particular situations, YouTube must not be ruled out entirely.

Yes, there are videos out there that contain misleading advice, information and facts. However, if you navigate to the right channels, there are some cracking techniques and tips out there that can really give your History knowledge a boost.

Picking a channel / video to watch can be challenging as there is a wealth of content out there for you, however, a few channels that I personally would recommend are below:

Even when watching quality, trusted content on YouTube, it is important to remember that there is not a single pathway to success when revising GCSE History. You do have to vary your techniques, so don't get caught in the trap of just watching YouTube videos as your only work for GCSE History exams.

If you skipped Tip 7, I would recommend that you go back to that tip and give it a read, as I have listed some good techniques, other than YouTube channels and videos, that will help you out when revising GCSE History.

9. Know Your Exam Board's GCSE History Specification Extremely Well

Whatever you are studying, the Exam Board's Specification is the easiest way to familiarise yourself with what you need to learn. History is no exception.

The GCSE History Specifications break down the topics into bullet points which tell you what you need to learn. This will make it simpler for you to work out which parts of your textbook are essential, and which are added bonuses which you can use in your exam responses to show the examiner you really do know what you're talking about!

Using the Specification to revise can save you a lot of time when you are summarising the information you need to memorise. However, you must make sure you don't only know the Specification - it won't tell you which facts you'll need for your exam.

For example, the Medieval Case Study point on the Edexcel Specification for Medicine Through Time is:
"Dealing with the Black Death, 1348-49; approaches to treatment and attempts to prevent its spread."
This is simply intended to give you some guidance on what you should be revising.

The best way to use it is to have it in front of you when you are making your revision resources. This can also help you stay on track and organised with your revision - and it will ensure that you've not missed out any important parts!

The GCSE History Specifications can be found online, and are linked below:

10. Make Timelines To Consolidate Your Understanding Of The Order Of Events

Timelines seem to be the most obvious way to revise History, but it feels as though their importance is often ignored by students. They have the ability to greatly help you improve your understanding of the order of events in a certain time period, and can be very useful when you are trying to remember dates.

There are a number of different ways to use timelines, and your use of them will depend on your individual learning style.

Some people may find that timelines are a great way to create a comprehensive, detailed overview of a time period. You can almost combine the idea of a mind map with your timeline, branching information off dates and events. A good way of making this kind of timeline easier to use is to colour code them (see Point 3 above if you would like more detail on this).

Others may find this type of timeline too overwhelming to create and/or use. This does not mean that you shouldn't use timelines in your revision. You may want to keep it simple, with a date and event. This can be extremely useful as a way of understanding the order of events, and means that you will be able to fit more events on to your page!

However you want to use your timelines, make sure that you have other revision resources to accompany them. As I said in Point 7, it is a good idea not to limit yourself to just one type of revision.

11. Ensure That You Choose The Best Time To Start Your Revision

Choosing when to start revising can be a very difficult task. Everyone knows that cramming everything in the night before the exam is not an ideal situation (to say the least!), but perhaps you are also worried that if you start your revision too early, you will lose motivation.

The truth is, History is such a vast subject, there is no time too early to start your revision. This does not mean that you need to be testing yourself on all of the information all the way through your two-year course, but making your revision resources as you go through each topic is a really good idea. This will ensure that you are always on top of your resources, which will help you avoid that last-minute panic before your exams start!

Another really good idea is to make sure that you take any in-class assessment or test that your teacher may set seriously. This is true for all subjects, but ideally for History, as learning and memorising all of the information at once would be an impossible task - so tackling small amounts gradually is the best approach to take.

However, your serious exam revision should not start this early, as it can't be kept up for the entire two-year duration of your course. If you are unsure on when to start this type of revision, have a look at this article on when you should start revising for your GCSE exams.

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How to Revise For GCSE History: The Ultimate Guide

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GCSEs can be hard, and it is often difficult to know where you should start with your revision. History is a really interesting subject to study, but how are you going to memorise all of the content? Whether you're just starting your year, or you're nearing your exams, revision techniques are vitally important.

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Check out our tips and advice on how to stay motivated and focused whilst revising.

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Revision....how dull! The thought of re-learning the last few months of work or as it will be in future the last 2 years of work can not only fill us with dread and anxiety and seem like a mountain to climb, but also it can seem the most boring of tasks. However, revision is essential in order to be…

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MTT Paper 1 - Edexcel Walkthrough videos on what you can expect!

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MTT Paper 1 - Edexcel Walkthrough videos on what you can expect!

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GCSE History Summer 2024 student walkthrough videos

We are working with Harris Federation to create a series of pre-recorded student walkthrough videos to help your students prepare for this summer's exam series.

There will be one recording for each component, and in them we'll remind students about the structure and focus of each paper, the specific questions and what they are assessing, and we'll suggest some general revision tips as well.

Student walkthrough videos for GCSE History Paper 1

You can now view the Paper 1 walkthrough videos for Section A Historic Environment and Section B Thematic Study.

Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 Student Walkthrough Part 1: Paper 1 Section A Historic Environment

Play

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Accept

Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 Student Walkthrough Part 2: Paper 1 Section B Thematic Study

Play

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Accept

Coming soon: student walkthrough videos for Paper 2 and Paper 3

We hope to release the Paper 2 and Paper 3 student walkthrough videos over the Easter holidays. We will update this news item to provide links to the videos when they are available.

Thank you to Katie Matthews from Harris Federation and Ben Armstrong (one of our GCSE History specialist trainers) for creating these fantastic student resources!

Subject advisor

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Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 student walkthrough videos

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This update contains news about pre-recorded student walkthrough videos for Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 exams, created in collaboration with Harris Federation.

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Ghosts of Germany's past BBC History Magazine Article

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Ghosts of Germany's past BBC History Magazine Article

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ASN Paper 2 - Edexcel Walkthrough videos on what you can expect!

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ASN Paper 2 - Edexcel Walkthrough videos on what you can expect!

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GCSE History Summer 2024 student walkthrough videos

We are working with Harris Federation to create a series of pre-recorded student walkthrough videos to help your students prepare for this summer's exam series.

There will be one recording for each component, and in them we'll remind students about the structure and focus of each paper, the specific questions and what they are assessing, and we'll suggest some general revision tips as well.

Student walkthrough videos for GCSE History Paper 1

You can now view the Paper 1 walkthrough videos for Section A Historic Environment and Section B Thematic Study.

Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 Student Walkthrough Part 1: Paper 1 Section A Historic Environment

Play

By viewing this third-party content from www.youtube.com you agree to their terms and conditions, privacy notice and acknowledge they may use cookies and pixels for information and analytics gathering.

Accept

Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 Student Walkthrough Part 2: Paper 1 Section B Thematic Study

Play

By viewing this third-party content from www.youtube.com you agree to their terms and conditions, privacy notice and acknowledge they may use cookies and pixels for information and analytics gathering.

Accept

Coming soon: student walkthrough videos for Paper 2 and Paper 3

We hope to release the Paper 2 and Paper 3 student walkthrough videos over the Easter holidays. We will update this news item to provide links to the videos when they are available.

Thank you to Katie Matthews from Harris Federation and Ben Armstrong (one of our GCSE History specialist trainers) for creating these fantastic student resources!

Subject advisor

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Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 student walkthrough videos

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This update contains news about pre-recorded student walkthrough videos for Edexcel GCSE History Summer 2024 exams, created in collaboration with Harris Federation.

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BBC News: World War One: Medical advances inspired by the conflict

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BBC News: World War One: Medical advances inspired by the conflict

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By Owain Clarke
BBC Wales health correspondent

In its scale and devastation, World War One was unlike any before.

New heavy artillery and machine guns obliterated flesh and bone. And even if a soldier wasn't instantly killed the dirt of the trenches meant wounds often became infected.

Millions died, and millions more were left disabled which, according to retired anaesthetist Dr Peter Lloyd Jones, secretary of the Museum for Health and Medicine for Wales at Cardiff University, led to huge new challenges for the medical profession.

"The weaponry was far more effective - 15% of all combatants in the British armed forces were killed and that was unprecedented," he said.

"On the other hand, of those that got injured but didn't die, far fewer than before died of their injuries and that has to be down to well organised medical management."

Faced with such carnage, the medical profession did, indeed, respond.

And two Welshmen were responsible for one of the most important advances - the Thomas splint - which is still used in war zones today.

It was invented in the late 19th Century by pioneering surgeon Hugh Owen Thomas, often described as the father of British orthopaedics, born in Anglesey to a family of "bone setters".

But it was his surgeon nephew Robert Jones, later Sir Robert, who as a major general inspector for orthopaedics in the military, was mainly responsible for rolling out its use on the battlefield in World War One.

At the beginning of the conflict in 1914, 80% of soldiers with broken thigh bones died. The use of the Thomas splint meant that, by 1916, 80% of soldiers suffering that injury survived.

But there were other significant advances, including more widespread use of treatments and vaccinations for deadly diseases like typhoid.

In France, vehicles were commandeered to become mobile X-ray units. New antiseptics were developed to clean wounds, and soldiers became more disciplined about hygiene.

Also, because the sheer scale of the destruction meant armies had to become better organised in looking after the wounded, surgeons were drafted in closer to the frontline and hospital trains used to evacuate casualties.

Those lessons are just as relevant in war zones today.

Colonel Tina Donnelly, a nurse and army reservist who was commanding officer of the field hospital in Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, said their knowledge of how to treat leg injuries on the battlefield went back to their forefathers.

"Today we might not think of those injuries as being life threatening but in the First World War they would have been," she said.

"If you fracture your thigh bone, minimum blood loss is about one and a half litres from a circulating volume of about five litres - not to immobilise would have been life-threatening."

With hundreds of thousands of injured soldiers returning home, World War One also led to a new emphasis on rehabiliation and continuing care.

New techniques in facial surgery and burns were developed - and there were huge advances in prosthetic limb technology - to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of amputees.

And with existing healthcare capacity overwhelmed new hospitals were built across the country, including the Prince of Wales Hospital in Cardiff.

Dr Lloyd Jones said this transformed the shape of the healthcare system.

"Generally speaking medicine in Britain was pretty disorganised," he said.

"You'd have a GP, you might have a cottage hospital down the road run by some local benevolent body, but there was no organisation - nothing bringing it all together.

"And that's what the First World War did for Britain."

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World War One: Medical advances inspired by the conflict

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By Owain Clarke BBC Wales health correspondent In its scale and devastation, World War One was unlike any before. New heavy artillery and machine guns obliterated flesh and bone. And even if a soldier wasn't instantly killed the dirt of the trenches meant wounds often became infected.

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A Picture of Health - Medical Advancements

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A Picture of Health - Medical Advancements

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Sexism in Science - Rosalind Franklin's role in discovering DNA

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Sexism in Science - Rosalind Franklin's role in discovering DNA

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he wave of protest that followed Sir Tim Hunt's stupid comments about 'girls' in laboratories highlighted many examples of sexism in science. One claim was that during the race to uncover the structure of DNA, Jim Watson and Francis Crick either stole Rosalind Franklin's data, or 'forgot' to credit her. Neither suggestion is true.

In April 1953, the scientific journal Nature published three back-to-back articles on the structure of DNA, the material our genes are made of. Together, they constituted one of the most important scientific discoveries in history.

The first, purely theoretical, article was written by Watson and Crick from the University of Cambridge. Immediately following this article were two data-rich papers by researchers from King's College London: one by Maurice Wilkins and two colleagues, the other by Franklin and a PhD student, Ray Gosling.

The model the Cambridge duo put forward did not simply describe the DNA molecule as a double helix. It was extremely precise, based on complex measurements of the angles formed by different chemical bonds, underpinned by some extremely powerful mathematics and based on interpretations that Crick had recently developed as part of his PhD thesis. The historical whodunnit, and the claims of data theft, turn on the origin of those measurements.

The four protagonists would make good characters in a novel - Watson was young, brash, and obsessed with finding the structure of DNA; Crick was brilliant with a magpie mind, and had struck up a friendship with Wilkins, who was shy and diffident. Franklin, an expert in X-ray crystallography, had been recruited to King's in late 1950. Wilkins expected she would work with him, but the head of the King's group, John Randall, led her to believe she would be independent.

From the outset, Franklin and Wilkins simply did not get on. Wilkins was quiet and hated arguments; Franklin was forceful and thrived on intellectual debate. Her friend Norma Sutherland recalled: "Her manner was brusque and at times confrontational - she aroused quite a lot of hostility among the people she talked to, and she seemed quite insensitive to this."

Watson and Crick's first foray into trying to crack the structure of DNA took place in 1952. It was a disaster. Their three-stranded, inside-out model was hopelessly wrong and was dismissed at a glance by Franklin. Following complaints from the King's group that Watson and Crick were treading on their toes, Sir Lawrence Bragg, the head of their lab in Cambridge told them to cease all work on DNA.

However, at the beginning of 1953, a US competitor, Linus Pauling, became interested in the structure of DNA, so Bragg decided to set Watson and Crick on the problem once more.

At the end of January 1953, Watson visited King's, where Wilkins showed him an X-ray photo that was subsequently used in Franklin's Nature article. This image, often called 'Photo 51', had been made by Raymond Gosling, a PhD student who had originally worked with Wilkins, had then been transferred to Franklin (without Wilkins knowing), and was now once more being supervised by Wilkins, as Franklin prepared to leave the terrible atmosphere at King's and abandon her work on DNA.

Photo 51 taken by Rosalind Franklin and RG Gosling.

Watson recalled that when he saw the photo - which was far clearer than any other he had seen - 'my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race.' According to Watson, photo 51 provided the vital clue to the double helix. But despite the excitement that Watson felt, all the main issues, such as the number of strands and above all the precise chemical organisation of the molecule, remained a mystery. A glance at photo 51 could not shed any light on those details.

What Watson and Crick needed was far more than the idea of a helix - they needed precise observations from X-ray crystallography. Those numbers were unwittingly provided by Franklin herself, included in a brief informal report that was given to Max Perutz of Cambridge University.

In February 1953, Perutz passed the report to Bragg, and thence to Watson and Crick.

Crick now had the material he needed to do his calculations. Those numbers, which included the relative distances of the repetitive elements in the DNA molecule, and the dimensions of what is called the monoclinic unit cell - which indicated that the molecule was in two matching parts, running in opposite directions - were decisive.

The report was not confidential, and there is no question that the Cambridge duo acquired the data dishonestly. However, they did not tell anyone at King's what they were doing, and they did not ask Franklin for permission to interpret her data (something she was particularly prickly about).

Their behaviour was cavalier, to say the least, but there is no evidence that it was driven by sexist disdain: Perutz, Bragg, Watson and Crick would have undoubtedly behaved the same way had the data been produced by Maurice Wilkins.

Ironically, the data provided by Franklin to the MRC were virtually identical to those she presented at a small seminar in King's in autumn 1951, when Jim Watson was in the audience. Had Watson bothered to take notes during her talk, instead of idly musing about her dress sense and her looks, he would have provided Crick with the vital numerical evidence 15 months before the breakthrough finally came.

By chance, Franklin's data chimed completely with what Crick had been working on for months: the type of monoclinic unit cell found in DNA was also present in the horse haemoglobin he had been studying for his PhD. This meant that DNA was in two parts or chains, each matching the other. Crick's expertise explains why he quickly realised the significance of these facts, whereas it took Franklin months to get to the same point.

While Watson and Crick were working feverishly in Cambridge, fearful that Pauling might scoop them, Franklin was finishing up her work on DNA before leaving the lab. The progress she made on her own, increasingly isolated and without the benefit of anyone to exchange ideas with, was simply remarkable.

Franklin's laboratory notebooks reveal that she initially found it difficult to interpret the outcome of the complex mathematics - like Crick, she was working with nothing more than a slide rule and a pencil - but by 24 February, she had realised that DNA had a double helix structure and that the way the component nucleotides or bases on each strand were connected meant that the two strands were complementary, enabling the molecule to replicate.

Above all, Franklin noted that 'an infinite variety of nucleotide sequences would be possible to explain the biological specificity of DNA', thereby showing that she had glimpsed the most decisive secret of DNA: the sequence of bases contains the genetic code.

To prove her point, she would have to convert this insight into a precise, mathematically and chemically rigorous model. She did not get the chance to do this, because Watson and Crick had already crossed the finishing line - the Cambridge duo had rapidly interpreted the double helix structure in terms of precise spatial relationships and chemical bonds, through the construction of a physical model.

In the middle of March 1953, Wilkins and Franklin were invited to Cambridge to see the model, and they immediately agreed it must be right. It was agreed that the model would be published solely as the work of Watson and Crick, while the supporting data would be published by Wilkins and Franklin - separately, of course. On 25 April there was a party at King's to celebrate the publication of the three articles in Nature. Franklin did not attend. She was now at Birkbeck and had stopped working on DNA.

Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958, four years before the Nobel prize was awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins for their work on DNA structure. She never learned the full extent to which Watson and Crick had relied on her data to make their model; if she suspected, she did not express any bitterness or frustration, and in subsequent years she became very friendly with Crick and his wife, Odile.

1959, Boston, Massachusetts, USA: James Watson and Francis Crick, crackers of the DNA code. Photo taken on occasion of the Massachusetts General Hospital lectures. Photograph: Corbis

Our picture of how the structure of DNA was discovered, and the myth about Watson and Crick stealing Franklin's data, is almost entirely framed by Jim Watson's powerful and influential memoir, The Double Helix. Watson included frank descriptions of his own appalling attitude towards Franklin, whom he tended to dismiss, even down to calling her 'Rosy' in the pages of his book - a nickname she never used (her name was pronounced 'Ros-lind'). The epilogue to the book, which is often overlooked in criticism of Watson's attitude to Franklin, contains a generous and fair description by Watson of Franklin's vital contribution and a recognition of his own failures with respect to her - including using her proper name.

It is clear that, had Franklin lived, the Nobel prize committee ought to have awarded her a Nobel prize, too - her conceptual understanding of the structure of the DNA molecule and its significance was on a par with that of Watson and Crick, while her crystallographic data were as good as, if not better, than those of Wilkins. The simple expedient would have been to award Watson and Crick the prize for Physiology or Medicine, while Franklin and Watkins received the prize for Chemistry.

Whether the committee would have been able to recognise Franklin's contribution is another matter. As the Tim Hunt affair showed, sexist attitudes are ingrained in science, as in the rest of our culture.
Matthew Cobb's Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code is published by Profile Press.

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Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklin's data?

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The race to uncover the structure of DNA reveals fascinating insights into how Franklin's data was key to the double helix model, but the 'stealing' myth stems from Watson's memoir and attitude rather than facts

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At King's College London, Rosalind Franklin obtained images of DNA using X-ray crystallography, an idea first broached by Maurice Wilkins. Franklin's images allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to create their famous two-strand, or double-helix, model.

In 1962 Watson (b. 1928), Crick (1916-2004), and Wilkins (1916-2004) jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their 1953 determination of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Wilkins's colleague Franklin (1920-1958), who died from cancer at the age of 37, was not so honored. The reasons for her exclusion have been debated and are still unclear. There is a Nobel Prize stipulation that states "in no case may a prize amount be divided between more than three persons." The fact she died before the prize was awarded may also have been a factor, although the stipulation against posthumous awards was not instated until 1974.

Discovering the Structure of DNA

The molecule that is the basis for heredity, DNA, contains the patterns for constructing proteins in the body, including the various enzymes. A new understanding of heredity and hereditary disease was possible once it was determined that DNA consists of two chains twisted around each other, or double helixes, of alternating phosphate and sugar groups, and that the two chains are held together by hydrogen bonds between pairs of organic bases-adenine (A) with thymine (T), and guanine (G) with cytosine (C). Modern biotechnology also has its basis in the structural knowledge of DNA-in this case the scientist's ability to modify the DNA of host cells that will then produce a desired product, for example, insulin.

The background for the work of the four scientists was formed by several scientific breakthroughs: the progress made by X-ray crystallographers in studying organic macromolecules; the growing evidence supplied by geneticists that it was DNA, not protein, in chromosomes that was responsible for heredity; Erwin Chargaff's experimental finding that there are equal numbers of A and T bases and of G and C bases in DNA; and Linus Pauling 's discovery that the molecules of some proteins have helical shapes-arrived at through the use of atomic models and a keen knowledge of the possible disposition of various atoms.

Wikimedia Commons/From the personal collection of Jenifer Glynn

Rosalind Franklin

Of the four DNA researchers, only Rosalind Franklin had any degrees in chemistry. She was born into a prominent London banking family, where all the children-girls and boys-were encouraged to develop their individual aptitudes. She attended Newnham College, one of the women's colleges at Cambridge University. She completed her degree in 1941 in the middle of World War II and undertook graduate work at Cambridge with Ronald Norrish, a future Nobel laureate.

She resigned her research scholarship in just one year to contribute to the war effort at the British Coal Utilization Research Association. There she performed fundamental investigations on the properties of coal and graphite. She returned briefly to Cambridge, where she presented a dissertation based on this work and was granted a PhD in physical chemistry.

After the war, through a French friend, she gained an appointment at the Laboratoire Centrale des Services Chimiques de l'Etat in Paris, where she was introduced to the technique of X-ray crystallography and rapidly became a respected authority in this field. In 1951 she returned to England to King's College London, where her charge was to upgrade the X-ray crystallographic laboratory there for work with DNA.

Maurice Wilkins

King's College London and Horace Freeland Judson

Already at work at King's College was Maurice Wilkins, a New Zealand-born but Cambridge-educated physicist. As a new PhD he worked during World War II on the improvement of cathode-ray tube screens for use in radar and then was shipped out to the United States to work on the Manhattan Project.

Like many other nuclear physicists, he became disillusioned with his subject when it was applied to the creation of the atomic bomb; he turned instead to biophysics, working with his Cambridge mentor, John T. Randall-who had undergone a similar conversion-first at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and then at King's College London.

It was Wilkins's idea to study DNA by X-ray crystallographic techniques, which he had already begun to implement when Franklin was appointed by Randall. The relationship between Wilkins and Franklin was unfortunately a poor one and probably slowed their progress.

James Watson and Francis Crick

Meanwhile, in 1951, 23-year-old James Watson, a Chicago-born American, arrived at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Watson had two degrees in zoology: a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and a doctorate from Indiana University, where he became interested in genetics. He had worked under Salvador E. Luria at Indiana on bacteriophages, the viruses that invade bacteria in order to reproduce-a topic for which Luria received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969.

Watson went to Denmark for postdoctoral work, to continue studying viruses and to remedy his relative ignorance of chemistry. At a conference in the spring of 1951 at the Zoological Station at Naples, Watson heard Wilkins talk on the molecular structure of DNA and saw his recent X-ray crystallographic photographs of DNA. He was hooked.

Watson soon moved to the Cavendish Laboratory, where several important X-ray crystallographic projects were in progress. Under the leadership of William Lawrence Bragg, Max Perutz was investigating hemoglobin and John Kendrew was studying myoglobin, a protein in muscle tissue that stores oxygen. (Perutz and Kendrew received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in the same year that the prize was awarded to the DNA researchers-1962.)

A. Barrington Brown

Working under Perutz was Francis Crick, who had earned a bachelor's degree in physics from University College London and had helped develop radar and magnetic mines during World War II. Crick, another physicist in biology, was supposed to be writing a dissertation on the X-ray crystallography of hemoglobin when Watson arrived, eager to recruit a colleague for work on DNA.

Inspired by Pauling's success in working with molecular models, Watson and Crick rapidly put together several models of DNA and attempted to incorporate all the evidence they could gather. Franklin's excellent X-ray photographs, to which they had gained access without her permission, were critical to the correct solution. The four scientists announced the structure of DNA in articles that appeared together in the same issue of Nature.

Separate Career Paths

Then they moved off in different directions. Franklin went to Birkbeck College, London, to work in J. D. Bernal's laboratory, a much more congenial setting for her than King's College. Before her untimely death from cancer she made important contributions to the X-ray crystallographic analysis of the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus, a landmark in the field. By the end of her life she had become friends with Francis Crick and his wife and had moved her laboratory to Cambridge, where she undertook dangerous work on the poliovirus. Wilkins applied X-ray techniques to the structural determination of nerve cell membranes and of ribonucleic acid (RNA)-a molecule that is associated with chemical synthesis in the living cell-while rising in rank and responsibility at King's College.

Watson's subsequent career eventually took him to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) of Quantitative Biology on Long Island, New York, where as director from 1968 onward he led it to new heights as a center of research in molecular biology. From 1988 to 1992 he headed the National Center for Human Genome Research at the National Institutes of Health. Afterward he returned to CSHL as chancellor. Watson's racist remarks about the intelligence of Africans in 2007 led the CSHL to force him into retirement, though the Lab named him an emeritus professor and honorary trustee.

When Watson doubled down on his racist views in a 2018 documentary, the lab revoked these honors and severed ties with Watson. Watson's fame as a discoverer of the structure of DNA also made his continued public expression of sexist views on women in science and his previous eugenicist comments on homosexuality particularly harmful during the first decades of the 21st century.
The information contained in this biography was last updated on July 28, 2022. Featured image: Rosalind Franklin in Paris, ca. 1949. Vittorio Luzzati.

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Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins | Science History Institute

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These four scientists-Crick, Franklin, Watson, and Wilkins-codiscovered the double-helix structure of DNA, which formed the basis for modern biotechnology.

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Unit 1: Ancient theories - Hippocrates & Galen 

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Unit 1: Ancient theories - Hippocrates & Galen 

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Unit 1: Natural, Supernatural & Astrology

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Unit 1: Natural, Supernatural & Astrology

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Unit 2: Renaissance New Ideas & Technologies

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Unit 2: Renaissance New Ideas & Technologies

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Unit 2: William Harvey & Blood Circulation

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Unit 2: William Harvey & Blood Circulation

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Unit 2: Renaissance Treatment & Prevention

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Unit 2: Renaissance Treatment & Prevention

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Back in London, Mary and Sally, her faithful maid, are very poor. Mary has debts that she can't pay and she can't afford to keep Sally on. Sally is devastated and angry that everyone seems to have forgotten how much Mary had done during the war.

Then, fortuitously, they receive a surprise visit from William Howard Russell, the journalist who had written about Mary during the Crimean War. When he hears about Mary's plight, he is determined to remind the British people of her work in the Crimea. He writes a story in his newspaper and asks his friends to raise money to help her.

Finally there is a huge party to honour Mary and celebrate her work - with a message of congratulation from Queen Victoria.

for a transcript of the episode (pdf).

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The story of Mary Seacole's life is told in three short video episodes. Mary begins her story with her journey from Jamaica to London - and then onward to the Crimea during the Crimean War and her meeting with the journalist William Howard Russell.

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Unit 3: Edward Jenner & Smallpox Vaccination

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Unit 3: Edward Jenner & Smallpox Vaccination

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Visit the Florence Nightingale Museum as part of St Thomas's Hospital, London

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Visit the Florence Nightingale Museum as part of St Thomas's Hospital, London

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Welcome to the Florence Nightingale Museum
Update from the Florence Nightingale Museum

Regretfully, but inevitably, the Florence Nightingale Museum has organised a major review of its operations in response to the continuing effects of the pandemic. The review was designed to protect the Museum and its collections for the long term. If changes are not made now, the Museum will become financially insolvent before markets recover and visitors return in significant numbers. Full details of the restructure can be found here

We have received generous support from individual donors, as well as DCMS, the Art Fund, Arts Council England and National Heritage Lottery Fund and are currently holding monthly open weekends, details of the open weekends can be seen here. Projected visitor numbers do not make opening full time financially viable.

While the museum may be closed on most days, we are still taking bookings for schools and groups throughout this period, offering a unique chance to book an exclusive visit.

As an independent charity, the museum is grateful for the generosity and support of its donors, sponsors, and its loyal visitors. While we are closed, please donate now so we can keep Nightingale's legacy alive for the future.
Please note our final open days for 2021 will be Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 November.

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Welcome to the Florence Nightingale Museum Update from the Florence Nightingale Museum Regretfully, but inevitably, the Florence Nightingale Museum has organised a major review of its operations in response to the continuing effects of the pandemic. The review was designed to protect the Museum and its collections for the long term.

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Step into a Victorian-style Operating Theatre!

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Step into a Victorian-style Operating Theatre!

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Welcome to the Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret

Housed in the attic of the early eighteenth-century church of the old St Thomas' Hospital, this atmospheric museum offers a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. The original timber framed Herb Garret was once used to dry and store herbs for patients' medicines and in 1822 an operating theatre was included. Predating anaesthetics and antiseptics, it is the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe. Access to the attic is through a narrow 52-step spiral staircase.

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Opening Times
Saturdays from 10:30am to 5:00pm for pre-booked timed slots only
Read our FAQs here

Find Us

Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret
9a St Thomas Street
London, SE1 9RY
Get directions

Book Your Ticket

this summer in a safe and welcoming environment
We are delighted to announce that the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret is open over Summer 2020 from Saturday 25th July for weekends only.

But the way you book and visit has changed to ensure we meet Covid-19 Government Guidelines. Please read more about this here before you book.

as we recover from the Covid-19 closure
As a registered charity (no: 1155078), the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret generates income from museum admissions, education, events, and our museum shop, all of which is invested back into the upkeep of this historic space, its collection and exciting programming. With the advent of Covid-19, the museum had to temporarily close, meaning all of these income streams were paused, with a much limited offer available once we reopen.

Help us secure the long-term future of the museum by making a one-off or regular donation. Thank You.

The Museum is located in central London, in the historic Borough of Southwark along the same street as the Shard, just south of London Bridge.

St Thomas' Church, the Herb Garret, and the Operating Theatre

The Museum is a great place for a reception or book launch. It is very atmospheric, which makes it a very special place.

St Thomas' is one of London's oldest hospitals. It has been providing shelter and relief to the sick and needy since the twelfth century.

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Housed in the attic of the early eighteenth-century church of the old St Thomas' Hospital, this atmospheric museum offers a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. The original timber framed Herb Garret was once used to dry and store herbs for patients' medicines and in 1822 an operating theatre was included.

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Science Museum, London, has a fantastic Medicine Section with a walk-in Apothecary!

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Science Museum, London, has a fantastic Medicine Section with a walk-in Apothecary!

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The home of human ingenuity, come and visit award-winning exhibitions, iconic objects and stories of incredible scientific achievement for free.