History of the family
History of the family: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, in a medieval ivory carving Were families the same as they are now? Families in the ancient world were very different from [...]
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08, 2017
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08, 2017
History of Valentine’s Day – American holidays
A Valentine from Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife in 1415 AD The Roman Lupercalia The earliest holiday that might conceivably have something to do with Valentine's Day is [...]
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08, 2017
The Inuit and Canadian history
A Canadian Inuit village in 1575 AD Inuit trade collapses In 1500 AD, the Inuit weren't doing so well. They had been buying steel and iron weapons from Vikings and East Asian traders. They used [...]
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08, 2017
American government after the Civil War
Joseph Rainey, first black congressman in American government African-Americans in Congress After the Civil War, in 1865, the United States changed its Constitution to make slavery illegal. For a few years, black [...]
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08, 2017
Simone de Beauvoir – European philosophy
Simone de Beauvoir was a philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's childhood Simone de Beauvoir's family lost most of their money after World War I. But by the early 1900s, even struggling families [...]
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08, 2017
Mary Astell – European philosophy
Mary Astell Mary Astell's backstory Unlike the slightly older Masham, and most other Enlightenment philosophers, Mary Astell was not from a really rich family. Who was Damaris Masham? Enlightenment philosophers European philosophers [...]
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08, 2017
Europe’s economy in the 1800s
A British merchant ship in the Caribbean, in the 1860s By 1800 AD, France, Britain, and Spain were all getting rich. They used their strong armies and navies to take wood, food, and cotton from other [...]
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08, 2017
Roger Bacon – Medieval science
Roger Bacon's diagram of a human eye When did Roger Bacon live? Roger Bacon was born in England maybe about 1210 AD. It was late in the reign of King John. (That's the one [...]
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08, 2017
Christian monks – Medieval Europe
Christian monks: A monk shaving another monk What is a monk? Sometimes when a little boy seemed especially smart, his parents would take him to a monastery and leave him [...]
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08, 2017
Medieval Schools – Europe
Clerks in the Manessa Codex threatening students with sticks (1300 AD) - Medieval schools Who went to school? In medieval Europe, even fewer kids went to school than in the Roman Empire. [...]
