Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
A diversion from history for a moment: I’m in Frankfurt right now for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is the world’s largest publishing trade show with 300,000 people in attendance. This is my first time at the fair. I’m incredibly fortunate in that my location right now – Spain – is close enough to make…
About 7 years ago I went through a Music Drought. Have you ever been in one of those? Months, or even years go by, and you realize that you haven’t listened to anything new, or even anything that you love and makes your spine tingle in ages? Yeah, well, that was me for a year…
Here’s a niche audience waiting for a need to be met: If you’re in the UK, AND you want to hear choral evensong services near you, there’s a new site just launched called choralevensong.org, and it’s a searchable directory of evensong services throughout England. If you’re into choral music, there’s no better place to hear…
Here’s a roundup of the history stories that I’ve been reading this week! Stash of Medieval Knickers Discovered From BBC History Magazine’s HistoryExtra blog: http://www.historyextra.com/lingerie Have you ever wondered what kinds of underwear people wore before there was comfy Fruit of the Loom’s made with nice soft cotton? I have. Obviously, being a woman, I’m…
It’s not every day that you get to push your babygirl in a stroller around a 9th century Arab complex on a hill in Granada. La Alhambra, which was a massive fortified city with splendid palaces and gardens from the 13th century, and the last fortress to fall to the Christians in 1492, is…
It’s October, which means that I’m in my head planning for another year spending November in a NaNoWriMo haze in addition to the tryptophan-induced sleep coma of Thanksgiving. In case you don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, wherein participants pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. What you do with that…
I’ve been communing with a crazed murderer lately, and it’s actually been an uplifting experience. It’s not often I write something like that. We often put composers and artistic performers up on pedestals. They are somehow closer to the angels. More in touch with Source. A channel for divinity. And this closeness with the Divine must…
I’m going a little bit off topic here, but I can do that; it’s my blog. Don’t worry, we’ll get back on schedule with history and music tomorrow. I’ve already cleared 5 hours of writing time tomorrow with my coparent (ie husband). But something has happened today which takes precedence in my life and has…
I’ve just recently uploaded a new episode of my Renaissance English History Podcast, which focused on trade and exploration in Elizabethan England. While researching it, I came upon several interesting men who had major roles in the creation of the Age of Discovery. One was Sebastian Cabot, the son of John Cabot who was possibly…
It’s not much of a secret that Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley had a Sort Of Thing going on in her court. The famously-Virgin Queen had one possible True Love – Robert Dudley, the 1st Earl of Leicester. In 1575 Elizabeth was on one of her summer progresses through the midlands, and she visited Dudley…