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Bad Puns and Dirty Jokes in Rome and Ancient Greece

"A student dunce went swimming and almost drowned. So now he swears he'll never get into water until he's really learned to swim." That was a decent dad joke to be sure. But it's not a joke your dad came up with. Nor your grandfather. Rather, it was a great-great-…

Wright Brothers, Wrong Story? Why Some Say Wilbur—Not Orville—Discovered Manned Flight

How did two brothers who never left home, were high-school dropouts, and made a living as bicycle mechanics figure out the secret of manned flight? The story goes that Wilbur and Orville Wright were an inseparable duo that were equally responsible for developing the theory of aeronautics and translating it…

When Danzig Became Gdańsk: What Happens to a City When Its Demographics Change Completely

  What happens to a city when its demographics change completely in the space of a few years? To explore this question, we will take a look at the case of Danzig (modern-day Gdańsk) in northern Poland. The city's population was almost entirely German from its origin in the Middle…

The Revolution Before the Revolution: How 1776 Happened

In the 1760s, the American colonies were completely incapable of organized resistance. One's loyalty was to his state, as the idea of being an “American” was nearly empty. Few clamored for democracy, as Europe and the rest of the world believed that the highest form of government was monarchy. And…

An Active Neutrality: The WW2 Experiences of Switzerland, Portugal, and Turkey

Neutrality is not the same thing as passivity. Just ask the many nations who had to walk an extremely thin tightrope during World War 2 to stay out of the war (in which they saw nothing for themselves to gain) but not get invaded by a more powerful neighbor. Some…

Kangaroo Squadron: The Tip of the American Spear in the WW2 Pacific Theatre

In early 1942, while most of the American military was in disarray from the devastating attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, a single USAAF squadron advanced to the far side of the world to face America's new enemy. Based in Australia with poor supplies and no ground support, the…

Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 5: Crusades In The Renaissance

The Crusades are typically bookended between Pope Urban II's call to reclaim the Holy Land in 1095 and the fall of Acre and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291. But two of the most notable religious figures of the 1400s—Pope Pius II and John of Capistrano—show that the lines…

Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 4: The Medieval Technological Explosion

The Middle Ages was not a thousand-year period of technological stagnation between the fall of Rome and Leonardo da Vinci. It was an incredible period of invention and scientific innovation that saw major technological advances, including gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, water mills, Gothic architectural building…

Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 3: Witch Burnings

At the height of the witch burning craze, thousands people, largely women, were falsely accused of witchcraft. Many of them were burned, hanged, and executed, typically under religious pretense. But this phenomena largely didn’t happen in the Middle Ages, and if so it only occurred at the very end of…

Common Knowledge About The Middle Ages That Is Incorrect, Part 2: Were Indulgences a Get-out-of-Hell-Free Card Or Something Else?

Was it really possible to buy your way out of hell in the Middle Ages? If so, how much did it cost? And what did the Catholic Church do with all this money? In this second episode in our five-part series on the misunderstood Middle Ages, we will explore all…