In honor of Valentine's Day, today's #historyfriday is a throwback to my 2019 post about the, um, unorthodox history behind the holiday of love. It definitely didn't start out with paper hearts and boxes of chocolates.Check out the post here. Happy Valentine's Day!
historyfriday
Plagiarism in Verona?
"Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" You may have never heard of The Globe. It's possible you know nothing about PotPan or Prince Escalus or Friar John. It's even plausible that you could be in the minority of people who don't know the name of Shakespeare. But its almost inconceivable that you would not know … Continue reading Plagiarism in Verona?
Throwback #historyfriday
Hello! No new #historyfriday post today. Instead, in honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I'm throwing it back to a post I wrote about his life and his legacy. You can read it here Have a great weekend!
Father Christmas and The Goblins
In December 1920, an innocent three year-old named John asked his father about a person he'd heard rumors about for the past few weeks. Who was this Father Christmas fellow? Where did he come from? Where did he live? Simple, ordinary questions from a curious child, not unlike queries pressed upon parents all over the … Continue reading Father Christmas and The Goblins
The Great Smog of London
2020 has been a year to forget. Every time we turned around, a new threat. COVID. Tiger King. Murder hornets. It was always something else to kill our mind, body, or soul. But I guess it could have been worse. At least the air wasn't trying to kill us. On December 4, 1952, a cloud … Continue reading The Great Smog of London
Yo-Ho-Ho and an ‘X’ Marks the Spot
On November 14, 1883, pirates were born. Well, pirates as we know them. After months of serialization in the children's magazine Young Folks, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" was published as a novel on this day by Cassel & Co publishers. The swash-buckling tale of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver was massively popular and … Continue reading Yo-Ho-Ho and an ‘X’ Marks the Spot
The Panic That Never Actually Panicked
In 1898, English novelist H.G. Wells published a novel entitled The War of the Worlds in which a spaceship from Mars lands on Earth, inciting panic and leading to conflict between humans and extraterrestrials. It was groundbreaking for its time, highly popular, and still ranks among the most read and most celebrated science fiction novels … Continue reading The Panic That Never Actually Panicked
A Celebratory Piece of Turkish Delight
In 1939, as Hitler began his swift march across Europe, three children made a journey of their own, arriving at the doorstep of the Kilns in Risinghurst, just outside of Oxford, where C.S. Lewis was a professor of English Literature. Although only forty, his request to re-enter military service was denied and the armed force's … Continue reading A Celebratory Piece of Turkish Delight
An Ode to the American Roadtrip
It's no secret that COVID has changed a lot of things in our world. Not least among them is how we travel. Airline travel is at its lowest level in decades, with more and more Americans choosing the relative safety of their own vehicles and embarking on that simultaneously most-dreaded and also most-loved traditions: the … Continue reading An Ode to the American Roadtrip
From Plymouth to Plymouth
Four hundred years ago this week, on September 16, 1620, the people we now know as "Pilgrims" set out from Plymouth for the New World, seeking relief from religious persecution in their home country. Every Thanksgiving, children don paper hats and cardboard bonnets to reenact the life of these settlers after their arrival. Their difficult … Continue reading From Plymouth to Plymouth
