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What’s the Context? 18 November 1967: Devaluation of Sterling

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Foreign Office Historians, What's the context? series
Prime Minister Harold Wilson with James Callaghan walking towards the camera. They both look happy

‘Faith, hope and parity’ On Saturday, 18 November 1967, sterling was devalued by 14% from $2.80 to $2.40. Although rumours of impending devaluation had been widespread in the press, including in Europe and the United States, the announcement by the …

Mata Hari: the execution of an alleged international spy-mistress

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Foreign affairs and diplomacy, Foreign Office Historians

Sunday 15 October marks the centenary of the execution of Madame MacLeod, neé Margaretha Zelle, best known as Mata Hari. A Dutch dancer, in the early twentieth century she was considered one of the most dangerous female spies of the …

‘A Call to the Women of Great Britain’: the formation of the Women’s Land Army

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: First World War, Social history, The National Archives
Three Woman's Land Army girls in uniform holding two piglets each, in a snow covered setting

To begin this blog, I am going to set the scene and ask a few hypothetical questions. Imagine it is the height of summer, 1917. The Great War has been raging for almost three years, and there is still no …

Asquith, Lloyd George, and the struggle for the premiership in December 1916

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Prime Ministers and No. 10

On 5 December 1916 Herbert Henry Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister who had governed Britain for more than eight years, resigned, and fellow Liberal David Lloyd George subsequently became Prime Minister, with Conservative support. This was a remarkable development, as Dr Matthew Johnson explains.

Rebuilding No. 10 Downing Street

Researcher in Residence: Progress Report IV My name is Jack Brown and I am the first ‘Researcher in Residence’ at No. 10 Downing Street, based at the Policy Institute at King’s, King’s College London. I have been investigating the ‘Geography of Power’ at …

What’s the context? US Secretary of State proposes a ‘Marshall Plan’ for the reconstruction of Europe, 5 June 1947

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Foreign Office Historians, What's the context? series
A class of elderly gentlemen, dressed in graduation robes which are about receive honorary degree at Harvard.

Seventy years ago this week US Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University in which he offered American aid to a destitute and fragile Europe if it proved willing and able to help itself. Britain, …