Hello friends,
I hope you’ve all had a good week. I haven’t really known what to do with myself this week now that the World Cup is over—I’ve replaced hours of soccer with hours of The West Wing and read a couple of books. I hope to write a review for one this coming Thursday.
In history acting unruly in the news…
My favorite of the week: Last week, I mentioned that we’re currently in the middle of a linguistic extinction event. Further evidence suggests that there may have been a linguistic golden age from about 1000 BCE to 1000 CE when thousands more languages were spoken than today.
Runner up: New evidence has revealed a center for magic and healing that is 25,000 years old! Deep in southeastern Australia, Clogg’s Cave is some of our earliest evidence of humans’ relationships with plants.
This deserves to be a movie: British intelligence bugged a mansion to entrap Nazi prisoners of war. In the basement, Jewish refugees translated in real time.
There’s a saying: Rome wasn’t built in a day. It was built by enslaved people—what were their lives like?
More in Roman history: Are we sure it was the invasion of Germanic tribes that brought down the empire?
Icelandic turf houses look cozy and cute in photos, but life inside them was less so.
Group outside a turf house at Galtalækur. Image source: JSTOR A bit of unknown history: After Britain outlawed slavery in 1807, the British Navy spent a lot of time policing its remaining colonies to make sure they complied. When they intercepted ships illegally transporting people for enslavement, they liberated them—resulting in around 150,000 liberations. However, the kidnapped Africans were brought to an island called St. Helena in the middle of the Atlantic—and then left there. So were they really freed?
The US was founded on rebellion. Today, there are still many places around the country where Americans rebel against the status quo.
Speaking of the US founding, a volunteer at the UK National Archives stumbled upon a strange document. It turned out to be a rare copy of the US Declaration of Independence.
What happened to all the bones of the American bison that were nearly hunted to extinction?
113 years ago, archaeologists couldn’t identify a temple, so they started referring to it as “the small temple.” Turns out it was a temple to Hecate, one of Anatolia’s oldest goddesses.
A large collection of personal and medical objects—as well as a bread oven—has been found in an unearthed Roman fort in Vindonissa, Switzerland.
A Byzantine shipwreck off the coast of Croatia has yielded a record amount of gold treasure and a ring signifying imperial authority.
When a plane flying from Puerto Rico to New York lost power and crashed in 1952, it inspired the modern flight safety speech you hear every time a flight takes off. The wreckage was just found five miles off the coast of Puerto Rico.
In fashion history: Why are buttons and zippers on different sides on men’s and women’s clothing?
And did you know that Amelia Earhart had a fashion line?
What was the Clerkenwell Outrage?
4,500-year-old dams near the Great Pyramids may reveal an enormous engineering breakthrough.
And speaking of construction, some railroad construction turned up a coin minted by a man who declared himself emperor of Britannia from 286-293 CE.
The implications of Charles Darwin’s theories of sexual selection did not sit well with Victorians… or Charles Darwin himself.
Exploring the meaning of the ancient Greek virtue sophrosyne in today’s world.
Students at the University of Florida found an intact 400-year-old pot that shows signs of conflict between Indigenous peoples and Spanish and English settlers.
Apparently Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel. 😬
New evidence proves that hunter-gatherers transplanted trout to a mountain lake in Norway 7,000 years ago.
Route 66 is turning 100 this year. What exactly are we celebrating?
Who was the first transgender person?
A new exhibition in Budapest displays 16 facial reconstructions based on skulls from the ancient city of Aquincum.
A letter written on board the Titanic is now up for auction.
Rembrandt began a Biblical painting but never finished it. It was “crudely” painted over by another artist; now it’s been restored to Rembrandt’s original design.
Why was Eva Peron’s corpse kidnapped?
How did it feel to be a colonist in North America? Probably itchy, nauseating, and achy.
This box set from 1964 captured the sweep of American music from the colonial era to the counterculture.
There’s a shockingly violent Medieval history to modern carousel rides.
Bettmann Archive. Oh god, are we… making the Crusades great again?
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