iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

An article I wrote about Victorian murders has just been published by HistoryExtra! For now, it seems to be exclusive to their Apple News feed, but if you have access and fancy a bit of gory reading, you can check it out here: apple.news/AhRjyyMYmSey...

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I’m proud — and very surprised! — to have been selected as a winner of one of Edge Hill’s inaugural research awards. I won in the ‘Changemaker’ category, which recognises people whose work contributes to real-world public impact. It’s great that the panel recognised the value of public history work.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The latest History Extra is out, and this month’s Ask The Experts feature is all about inaccurate historical films. Delighted to have a pull-quote from my response on the cover! You’ll have to grab a copy to see what film I’m talking about, but longtime followers might be able to guess.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I'm giving a public talk in Manchester on 15 June! Tickets available here: www.eventbrite.com/e/what-shoul...

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Can anyone help me decipher a bit of handwriting from 1852? I'm trying to figure out the cause of death in this record.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

The latest issue of @historyextra.bsky.social is out! I’m part of a new monthly feature called ‘Ask the Experts’ — each issue, a group of expert historians all answer the same question. This month, we’re asking who is the most ‘overrated’ figure in history? Who do you think I picked?

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

I can’t stop laughing at this video feed. We interrupt these interviews with ACTUAL WORLD FAMOUS celebrities to bring you a strange man talking about Victorian leg fetishes

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I appear as an expert historian in a new documentary film about the trials of Oscar Wilde. Check it out on History Hit from today! access.historyhit.com/videos/a-ver...

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

It gets a nice write-up in the Radio Times!

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Rather surprised to see a picture of myself on the TV listing! I’m not presenting it — just one of several talking heads.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

I’m on TV tonight! Check out the first episode of Britain’s Railway Empire at 8pm on Channel 4. It’s a new, two part series about the history of the railways, starting with the Victorian Era. It’s not just a story about tech and engineering, but covers the social and cultural impact too.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

In fact, you can stream all three episodes on NOW right away!

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

I'm on the TV! 'Jack the Ripper: Written in Blood' is a new docudrama about the journalists who reported on the killings and helped to mythologise the figure of the Ripper. I'm one of the talking-head historians. Part one premiers tonight at 9pm on Sky History & NOW TV. #WritteninBlood

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

A few years earlier, in 1888, they ran a similar competition ranking/predicting the popularity of Dickens’ works. Pickwick a clear winner again.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

In 1892, Answers magazine asked its readers to rank the most popular characters from the work of Charles Dickens. Pickwick & Weller joint top!

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

I was expecting to do my duty as a historian and stick the boot in to Ridley Scott again, but perhaps this a reasonable guess at what an Acta Diurna written on papyrus would have looked like? I'd be interested to hear what expert historians of Ancient Rome make of this.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

The Acta Diurna was initially carved in stone and posted in public places, but later examples were apparently written out on papyrus. Sadly, none of these have survived.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Here's a still of the scene from Gladiator II featuring the coffee shop and the alleged 'newspaper'. Alas, we don't get a very good look at it - I was bracing myself for a massive headline about an upcoming fight at the Colleseum, but the prop is used more subtly.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Ridley Scott has a track record of getting newspapers wrong. These props in Napoleon are eye-wateringly bad, featuring tabloidesque headlines and images at a time when British newspapers didn't even feature *news* on their front pages. But hey, at least it was an era that had newspapers.

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Prof Bob Nicholson @digivictorian.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Apparently there's a scene in Gladiator II where a Roman nobleman sits in a coffee shop reading a newspaper!

A quote from the Guardian article linked above saying "the new film goes further, featuring a noble reading a newspaper at a cafe, 1,200 years before the invention of the printing press."

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