Aztec doctor treating people with smallpox (1500s AD, Codex Mendoza) Like many other diseases, including the current pandemic, smallpox probably got started in Central Asia. Around 150 AD (almost two [...]
People tell a lot of stories about the origins of Easter - is it a pagan holiday? A Christian holiday? How is it related to Passover? Here we try to sort that [...]
If you're preparing to celebrate Passover at home, here are some helpful links: First, what even is Passover? Who were the first people to celebrate Passover? Why? https://quatr.us/west-asia/where-did-passover-come-from-jewish-holidays.htm Second, the Bible story [...]
This major Chinese holiday is, like so many other spring holidays, related to the extremely ancient Babylonian New Year celebration. In China, people were certainly celebrating Qingming Jie by the time of [...]
A copper penny Quatr.us Study Guides has piles of fun, simple activities you can do to illlustrate historical and scientific points. I'll start with our biology activities - each activity [...]
Cathedral of Pisa (the Duomo) We've been so distracted that we haven't been doing our usual Women's History Month posts, but there's still ten days left in March! So here's [...]
New diseases have struck human populations since humans first evolved (and before that, they struck earlier primates). Generally they follow a predictable path: at first, they kill a lot of people. If [...]
About time we had a holiday, am I right? This is a traditional Persian celebration of the New Year in the spring, descended (like Easter and Passover) from the extremely ancient Babylonian [...]
With all this coronavirus stuff going on, what are some other epidemics and pandemic diseases from the past? What can we learn from them? Four lessons: Diseases change over time, and come [...]
Purim is a Jewish holiday coming up on March 9-10, with roots going back to very old Babylonian New Year celebrations and the Zoroastrian New Year. And it's a perfect story for [...]
