It’s _Beowulf_ day in my Early Medieval Europe class, which I absolutely never get sick of — the bloody wrestling match of Beowulf and Grendel, the heartbreaking moment when Beowulf puts on his armor for the last time knowing that the dragon will kill him, the poet’s anxiety about blood feuds wrecking societies while nonetheless […]
The Carpathian Mountains in Western Ukraine are some of the traditional homelands of the Hutsul peoples. Although their roots extend back hundreds of years, the term “Hutsul” first appears in written sources in 1816, when it was used by outsiders — in fact, the term’s etymology, although uncertain, might derive from the critical words for
When you were a kid, did you learn that the first humans in the Americas crossed over the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago? Scholars have overturned this chronology completely, but it held away for many years in part because of this type of spear- or knife- head technology featured here, which is the
Clovis Culture and Migration Read More »
What do all three of the women in these three images have in common? A: they each depict the American Revolutionary war heroine Molly Pitcher, and B: none of them are real. Real, as in, there was no OG Molly Pitcher historians can trace. Stories about about a woman called “Captain Molly” who served
This lovely ship was one sight you’d not want to have been privy to if you were a French person from the 14th century. The black hulls and the red sails were the mark of ships belonging to Jeanne de Clisson, aka “the Lioness of Brittany,” a noblewoman who became a pirate in the name
The Bloody Lioness of Brittany – Jeanne de Clisson Read More »
This lovely iron sword with its wood- and lacquer- decorated scabbard comes from the 2nd century BCE Han Dynasty, and well symbolizes its founding leader, Liu Bang, posthumously named Emperor Gaozu, “the High Founder”. The man who started a Chinese Dynasty that lasted over 400 years was born from a peasant lineage, making his success
My world history class today looked at the Mongols, and Jared Diehl brought in his actual Mongolian Composite Bow to show the class! It was really cool — I was surprised how lightweight it was. The fabric wrappings and the lines of the wood were also very elegant. Thanks, Jared!!
Jared Diehl and their Mongolian Composite Bow Read More »
Today Gabby and I got to visit the formerly secret bunker under the famous resort of Greenbrier, West Virginia! The 11,000 acres of this elite hotel/spa/golf course/plastic surgery/horseback riding (etc) resort was also a hidden cover for a nuclear fallout shelter designed to hold 1,000 members of Congress and their staff in case Washington DC
The Greenbriar Bunker Read More »
This is George H.W. Bush, U.S. president from 1989-1993, and in 1995 he publically revoked his membership from the N.R.A., stating that the group “deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to my country. I resign as a lifetime member of the N.R.A.”. Context is relevant
George H. W. Bush and the NRA Read More »
I don’t play videogames like Assassin’s Creed, but I am extremely grateful to them for drumming up enthusiasm for history and even getting concepts about the Middle Ages into popular culture. So this post is not intended to diss Assassin’s Creed! (Which has a very engaging plot and awesome graphics IMHO). But, historians will be
This is an Edo-period Japanese war fan from the first half of the 1800s, made out of paper and lacquer, and — the active ingredient — iron. Folding fans had been a part of Japanese aristocratic culture since the 600s. The paintings on them, the gold or silver foil that adorned them, and the mannerisms
I’m not usually the kind of historian who gets ultra verklempt about weapons, not even Medieval ones. But these Viking-era swords were just mighty bitchin. From about 750-1100 CE, “Ulfberht” swords emerged in northern Europe, and they were different than the rest. Vikings and other peoples in northwestern Europe had already improved sword-making techniques: they
Roman swords (here shown is a type called Gladius Hispaniensis). One ancient writer described Ancient Roman training so difficult as to be “bloodless battles” and actual warfare as “bloody trainings.”
The 13th-century Morgan Bible has some of the best Medieval illustrations for trebuchets, the missile-launchers that shot artillery using a beam that would cast stones or other things (such as human heads during the First Crusade at Nicaea) from an attached sling. There were two sorts of trebuchets — the ones that used hand-pulling to
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This enormous (20 meter/65 feet tall) replica of a Medieval trebuchet is as close as we might get to imagining the largest one ever made: the “Warwolf” or “Ludgar/Loup de Guerre”. It was created as a juggernaut of a weapon by King Edward I (aka “the Hammer of the Scots”) to eviscerate the Scottish in
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