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The South Sea Bubble of 1720

The London stock market boomed and crashed in 1720. The financial bubble is known to posterity as the South Sea Bubble.

Darwin’s Descent of Man was dominated by the theory of sexual selection, which Darwin used to explain peacock’s tails, but also to argue that white people were as superior to black ones as men were to women.

The Secrets of Darwin’s Greenhouse

Despite the controversy, evolution was widely accepted by many naturalists within a few years of the Origin’s appearance. An important reason for this rapid triumph was Darwin’s botanical works. Seen through evolutionary eyes, plants proved to be mobile, carnivorous, sensitive – even crafty.

Making a Monkey out of Darwin

When Darwin finally published the On the Origin of Species, he tried to avoid controversy by ignoring human origins. Yet evolution was soon being attacked as the godless ‘monkey theory’.

The Windrush Thinkers and Artists

London in the 1950s and 60s was a crucible in which West Indian writers, artists, thinkers and scholars imagined new futures for the Caribbean, Britain and the world.

Engels and Marx: Revolutionaries in London

On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engels, his biographer Tristram Hunt looks at how both Engels and Karl Marx were deeply affected by their time in London in the second half of the 19th century.

Darwin, Breeding and Barnacles

Following the Beagle voyage, Darwin settled down to a quiet married life, relying on correspondence to gather facts. He wrote thousands of letters as he gathered facts to support his still-secret theory.

The World of Isaac Newton

This illustrated lecture will cover Newton's life and his mathematical and scientific labours in the context of 17th-century England.

Arise, Sir Isaac! Newton’s London career

This lecture is held in conjunction with the Science Museum’s Science City 1550-1800: The Linbury Gallery as part of its Science Museum Lates.

Thomas Becket and London

This lecture will explore how the influence of Thomas Becket permeated city life in medieval London until Henry VIII ordered the destruction of his shrine and the removal of his name from all liturgical books.

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