May 25, 2017 | Fun Historical Facts
In Game Of Thrones, it is the King’s Hand who exerts some real power of the Seven Kingdoms. His symbol, appropriately enough, was a pin depicting a hand. But in yet another example of reality being stranger than fiction, it was the Groom of the Stool—named for...
May 1, 2017 | Fun Historical Facts
May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more. In Greece, it is celebrated as a workers’ strike. So, naturally, everyone goes to the countryside and… erm… makes themselves a May wreath to hang on their doors....
Feb 14, 2017 | Events and Giveaways, Fun Historical Facts
It’s Valentine’s Day today, and I hope it’s a happy one. May you all have all the love in your life you can possibly hope for! However, as Atlas Obscura reminds us, today is the day when we are forced to deal with an ugly question: what if you don’t...
Oct 20, 2016 | Fun Historical Facts
Born in 1623, Lady Margaret Cavendish was an outspoken aristocrat who traveled in circles of scientific thinkers and broke ground on proto-feminism, natural philosophy (the 17th-century term for science), and social politics. As far as I am concerned, however, she...
Sep 10, 2016 | Fun Historical Facts
Broadsides: the Posts and Tweets of Renaissance England When I moved to Edinburgh in 1995, I experienced something of a cultural shock. The language was different than anything I’d be taught at school (ach, hawd yer whisht, my good friend Mike might say to...
