May 9, 2016 | Events and Giveaways, Fun Historical Facts
With April 23 marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, few will remember that his lasting fame almost did not happen. A brilliant post by the New York Times explains how that came about. Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616 on his...
Apr 5, 2016 | Entertainment, Fun Historical Facts
These days, The Big Bang Theory presents Dungeons & Dragons – one of modern Fantasy’s origins – as an innocent pastime. However, Eric Grundhauser of Atlas Obscura reminded me recently of the media panic over the game when it had first appeared....
Feb 27, 2016 | Entertainment, Fun Historical Facts
I recently came across a hilarious Reddit thread titled, “Assume all of world history is a movie. What are the biggest plotholes?” I’m including here some of my favorite responses. You can visit visit the original thread for more. Oh, and apologies...
Jan 6, 2016 | Entertainment, Fun Historical Facts, Writing
Continuing the three-part special on birds that started with A 400-Year-Old Book Made Entirely of Feathers, here is a post that deals with a truly thorny issue: You’ve just spotted a bunch of birds. Excited, you rush to tell your friends. Which is great, until you try...
Nov 14, 2015 | Entertainment, Fun Historical Facts
November 14, 1969. Lightning strikes the mighty Saturn 5 rocket carrying the crew of Apollo 12 as it was steadily ascending into the Florida sky. Sixteen seconds later, proving an old saying wrong, a second bolt of lightning struck the spacecraft. Still, the mission...
Nov 21, 2014 | Fun Historical Facts, Random Musings
As most of you know, even though a native English speaker, I grew up in Greece. My bilingual status makes me uniquely qualified to describe the unusually passionate relationship Greeks have with their language. Incidentally, this post came to be because of a question...
Jul 15, 2014 | Fun Historical Facts, My Publications
A few days ago, I promised to write a post about Greek history and the story behind the book. As some readers have noticed, the map of Pearseus is essentially that of Greece and Asia Minor. I even called my book Rise of the Prince, in a nod to Herodotus’ seminal...
Jul 7, 2014 | Fun Historical Facts
Although this post concerns mostly my American friends, the 4th of July had a profound impact on Greece, as well, as it inspired its own war of independence, in 1821. Much like the people mentioned below, the protagonists of 1821 more often than not found untimely...
May 4, 2014 | Entertainment, Fun Historical Facts
I saw this brilliant post on TAXI, and I just had to share! To celebrate the launch of its new letterheads, online printing company MOO has imagined what the business cards of famous historical figures would look like today. “We chose iconic figures from history known...
Feb 21, 2014 | Fun Historical Facts, My Guest posts
Women feature prominently on Pearseus. But what was their place in the antiquity that inspired the book? An abridged version of this piece was posted on Bravebird Publishing. Women in history: truth stranger than fiction “People ran around her, shouting and...
