Considered as the first shopping mall in history, Trajan’s Market is a huge semicircular mass of brick, part of which remains buried under modern buildings and paradoxically may have had very little to do with commerce, according to the opinion of many historians who consider it more of an administrative center built in support of […]
History
The line of demarcation between prehistoric and historical times is crossed when people cease to live only in the present, and become consciously interested both in their past and in their future. History begins with the handing down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations. (E.H. Carr)
Posted inAncient Rome
Anicia Faltonia Proba, the woman who opened the doors of Rome to the Visigoths in the year 410
During the Dominate era, in the Late Roman Empire, there lived a woman who has gone down in history for having been the one to open the doors of Rome to Alaric’s Visigoths in the year 410 AD. We are referring to Anicia Faltonia Proba, famous not only for her great culture but also for […]
Posted inModern Era
Unraveling the Enigmatic Event that Plunged New England into Nighttime Darkness, recorded in 1780 by George Washington in his journal
‘It may be the Day of Judgment or it may not. If it is not, there is no reason for a postponement; if it is, I choose to be found fulfilling my duty. Therefore, I want candles to be brought’. This is the famous phrase uttered by Abraham Davenport, a member of the Governor’s Council […]
Posted inAntiquity
How did Etruscan, Hittite, Phoenician, Latin, and other languages of Antiquity sound? (Video)
Throughout history, many languages have flourished and disappeared, leaving behind few written records of how they actually sounded. Thanks to advances in historical linguistics and experimental phonetics, it is now possible to reconstruct with greater precision the pronunciation of ancient languages such as Latin, Etruscan, Ancient Greek, and other languages of the past. Classical Latin, […]
Posted inArt
Singerie, the pictorial genre originated in Middle Ages depicting monkeys imitating human behavior
Reading the title of this article, more than one may wonder what madness this is, but seeing the accompanying images will understand it better… unless you run off in search of a psychiatrist. Jokes aside, since the Modern Age, it became fashionable among painters to create paintings with scenes of everyday life (playing cards, going […]
Posted inAge of Exploration
A Sailor’s Mistake: Martin Frobisher and the Pyrite Pirates Who Duped England
Francis Drake was a magnificent sailor elevated to the status of a legend in England for circumnavigating the globe (fifty-nine years after Spanish Juan Sebastian Elcano did it) and for his encounters with the Spaniards, some successful and others not so much. But he was not the only one. That 16th-century England opened up to […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
The Lady of Arintero, the young woman who posed as a man to fight for Isabella I of Castile
We wrote on other occasions about women who had a more or less prominent role in warfare. We’ve seen Vikings, Welsh, Bretons, and, in short, individuals from various nationalities, including several Spanish women. Today, we’ll focus on the national women, recalling the story of the Lady of Arintero, the daughter of a Leonese noble who, […]
Posted inAncient Rome
Arcagathos “the butcher” was the first physician to work in Ancient Rome, in the late 3rd century B.C.
In 219 B.C. a Greek named Arcagathos (Ἀρχάγαθος) from the Peloponnese arrived in Rome and settled in the city, as recounted by Pliny the Elder, drawing from the Annals written by Lucius Cassius Hemina around 146 B.C. It wouldn’t have been exceptional, as many Greeks were arriving in Rome at that time, if not for […]
Posted inCulture, Modern Era
Dalrunes, the Nordic runes that were used until the 20th century in a region of Sweden
Runes are the letters used to write by some Germanic peoples during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, mainly in Scandinavia but also in other areas where these peoples settled. The oldest known runes date back to the 2nd century AD. The first chronologically would be the comb inscription found on the Danish island of Funen, […]
Posted inArt, Culture
The History of the Prinkipo Orphanage, the Largest Wooden Building in Europe
Büyükada is the largest of the nine Princes’ Islands located in the Sea of Marmara, so close to the city of Istanbul that they are considered its neighborhoods. Its barely 5 square kilometers, where motorized vehicles are prohibited, boast some historical monuments, Byzantine churches and monasteries, along with a mosque, an abandoned amusement park, and […]
