Category: History
Coffee and the Ottoman coffeehouse (a brief history of…)
Coffee today, easily ranks in the top ten most traded commodities in the world. It sits comfortable amongst natural gas, […]
Roman Road Building 101
The Appian Way? No, just my garden path. Over the past few weeks I have (weather permitting) been building my […]
Marcus Aurelius: Emperor, General & Philosopher.
In his ‘Meditations’, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus simply wrote or described himself as ‘a male, mature in years, a statesman, a […]
Hollywood’s Darling meets Soviet Premier
On the 19th September 1959, Marilyn Monroe was preparing to meet the Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev, while camped out in […]
The Napoleonic Expedition to Egypt.
The French were among the earliest modern explorers to “rediscover” the great monuments of the Ancient Egyptians. The King of […]
“Ask me anything you like. But I warn you, I’m not a Byzantinist …” – John Julius Norwich.
This featured article had originally intended to highlight a collection of history books that bloggers or enthusiasts would find interesting […]
Bank Siege at Kredibanken and the Stockholm Syndrome
Forty years ago, on August 23rd, 1973, after four people were taken hostage by a bank robber in a Stockholm […]
Sinkholes (a brief history of…)
Could there be anything more dramatic than the ground opening up and swallowing entire dwellings, buildings, cars roads, animals and […]
Greeks, Romans and Asbestos (a brief history of…)
Our earliest records of the use of asbestos dates back around 3,000 years ago in the lands around Scandinavia. Archeologists […]
Evagrius Ponticus and the Eight Logismoi
It is difficult for us to appreciate the intricacies of the Byzantine state, without sometimes looking at the simple lives […]
