WEIRD HISTORY
A few traditions in the Roman Catholic Church can be traced back to pagan cults, rites, and deities. By Molly Hanson – Photo by Josh Applegate / Unsplash – The Catholic rite of Holy Communion parallels pre-Christian Greco-Roman and Egyptian rituals that involved …
by Eric Foner – Elected 150 years ago, Hiram Revels was the first. – A few days ago, 300 people gathered in the Old State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the election of Hiram Revels as the nation’s …
Discovered on the island of Lindisfarne, the artifact was likely once part of a Hnefatafl board game set. A piece of worked glass unearthed from the English island of Lindisfarne that researchers suspect may have once been a Viking game piece (Jeff Veitch). …
By Dr. Christopher Binetti – a political scientist, historian, and adjunct professor at Middlesex county College in Edison, New Jersey. – Spain is facing an existential crisis. Catalonia, one of its seventeen constituent regions, has a government supported by a small majority that …
These puzzling holes in the arid valleys of southern Perú tell us there was once a flourishing, sophisticated society here. BBC Future | By William Park – In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiraling …
How a killer flu spread from western Kansas to the world. By Beccy Tanner, The Wichita Eagle, February 19, 2018 – Ground Zero in one of the world’s deadliest influenza pandemics started quietly, inconspicuously. It was winter, 100 years ago. And it was …
By Mike Hanlon – Coachbuilt survivors from the Art Deco era. Artcurial, Bonhams & RM-Sotheby’s. – The automotive heritage industry relocates across the Atlantic Ocean this week, as Paris prepares to become the center of the automotive world once more with the staging of …
Most visitors will walk past 109 East Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and have no idea that they are passing the site that once served as Robert Oppenheimer’s office. By Larry Bleiberg, 29 January 2020 – In the courtyard of a …
Many common terms in English have unexpected roots. Kelly Grovier explores the origins of seven words coined in art history, including the political meanings of ‘silhouette’ and ‘picturesque’, and how ‘mobile’ became ‘mob’. By Kelly Grovier – Which came first, the chicken or …
By ensuring that the Buddha’s teachings were transmitted across millennia, the religion helped develop and spread printing techniques around the world – as a new exhibition reveals. By Cameron Laux, 15 January 2020 – Do you ever feel like you’re trapped …
