blog

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 [...]

St. Germain des Pres was already standing in Heloise's time (Paris, 1000 AD) We used to tell Heloise and Abelard as a love story, but I hope now we are [...]

If you don't want to center your Women's History Month on famous and powerful women, these are some of Quatr.us 's articles on ordinary women's lives: https://quatr.us/china/women-early-china-swimming-foot-binding.htm https://quatr.us/west-asia/girls-young-women-west-asia.htm https://quatr.us/greeks/women-ancient-greece.htm https://quatr.us/people-2/women-ancient-rome-gender-power.htm https://quatr.us/islam/medieval-islamic-women.htm https://quatr.us/history/european-women-history-women.htm [...]

A view of the medieval towers of Akhlat, now in eastern Turkey Let's start off Women's History Month with Queen Tamta, an Armenian woman who ruled her hometown of Akhlat in the [...]

As we wrap up Black History Month and get ready for Women's history month, let's have a post on Black women's lives and accomplishments. You can read about the Old Kingdom Egyptian [...]

I'm finishing up a draft of the World History of Swimming book I'm working on, and it's due in less than a week, so I haven't got much time to write blog [...]