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The D-Day forecast – From synoptic charts to the silver screen

Date: Thursday 8 October 
Time: 17:30
Venue: Magdalen College, Grove Auditorium 

With the launch of the major motion picture ‘Pressure’ this talk will explore the true story of the critical D-Day weather forecast and how teams from the Met Office, Royal Navy and US Air Force supported Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to make one of the biggest decisions in history. Alongside details of the difficulty and real ‘pressure’ faced by the forecasting teams of the time it will also cover the role of the National Meteorological Archive in supporting accuracy and in the run up to the cinema release.


 

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Forecasting the Weather Between Divination and Science

08 October to 09 October
Pressure

Catherine Ross (Met Office), The D-Day forecast – From synoptic charts to the silver screen

08 October
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Louisiane Ferlier (Royal Society, London), Before the Forecast: The Royal Society’s Meteorological Archive as Prelude to the Met Office

09 October
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Michael Nazir-Ali (OXTRAD), Mystics, Monks and Mosques: Christian Perspectives on Sufism

12 October
South Asian Intellectual History Seminar
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Kate East (Newcastle), Factionalism and Legitimate Political Debate in the British Enlightenment

12 October
Oxford Political Thought Seminar
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Practices of knowledge production in 18th century Europe (book discussion)

14 October
Enlightenment Workshop
Tolstoy as Historian

War & Peace Reading Group: Week 1

15 October
Peace Process

Ian McBride (Oxford), The Lessons of the Northern Ireland Peace Process

15 October
Ewen Green Memorial Lecture
Duncan Kelly

Duncan Kelly (Univeristy of Cambridge), Worlds of Wartime: The First World War and the Reconstruction of Modern Politics

16 October
5th Anthony Gwilliam Annual Lecture 2026
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Heena (University of Leicester), Beyond British Criticism: Religion, Print and Astrological Writings in 19th-century North India

19 October
South Asian Intellectual History Seminar
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Book Discussion: Teresa Bejan (Oxford), First Among Equals: Visions of Equality Before Egalitarianism

19 October
Oxford Political Thought Seminar
18th Century World Map by Georg Matthaus Seutter

Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh (University of Amsterdam), Consider the Mantis: IKaggen, Means of Subsistence, and Misunderstanding Across the Cape Colonial Frontier

20 October
Global Intellectual History Seminar