Unruly History in the News #69
Hey everyone,
Happy to be back for another roundup of history in the news. This week’s news is a DOOZY, with lots of fun discoveries and big reveals, so I hope you enjoy it.
Before I jump in, I wanted to let you all know the results of the poll I did for the future cadence of Unruly Figures episodes. Shorter episodes every other week just barely edged out long episodes once a month!
So that’s what I’m going to do! I’ll aim for 30-minute episodes, like the Mary Carleton episode, which means there might be a lot more Part Two episodes in our future. I’ll also try to focus on even lesser known folks, like Petra Herrera.
Now that things have calmed down a little at home and at work, I can focus on that (and going back to school). My plan is to have episodes start back up on September 10. That just gives me some time to put together the season and start recording. I’m really excited to dive back into this!
Without further ado, history acting unruly in the news…
Just in time for Halloween season: Why were there so many skeletons hiding in Benjamin Franklin’s basement?
And adding to the mystery of Stonehenge: Did the altar stone in the ancient site come all the way from Scotland? Recent research suggests the stone travelled over 700 km to be there.
Rembrandt’s paintings have always been beloved for the unique glow in his settings. Scientists now think that that glow is due to arsenic in his pigments!
Some neighborhoods in Athens have been continuously inhabited for 5,000 or more years. When you visit homes, you can see the history inside of them.
Granted, American history is not my specialty, but I had literally never heard that John F. Kennedy had an older brother who had died in World War II. This is the tragic story of Joseph P. Kennedy.
From left to right: John F. Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in London in 1937. Source: Keystone / Getty Images This recent seven-nation prisoner swap is part of a long tradition of nations using questionable arrests for political bargaining chips. If you’re into history of diplomacy, you’ll like this one.
These countries may have banned music, but musicians still found a way.
You might be aware that most of our modern banana-flavored candy is based on a banana that has gone extinct. Now we’re looking at banana-pocalypse (??) round two.
Scientists have finally identified where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs came from.
Matrilineal societies have always existed. So why aren’t they taught? And why do some sociologists believe they’re doomed to fail? (That last question is a joke, please don’t explain sexism to me in the comments.)
In clay figurine history (yes, really):
A rare 8,000-year-old statuette of a female figure has been found in one of the oldest sites in western Anatolia (now Turkey).
This Iron Age figurine found in a lake in Italy still has its maker’s fingerprints!
Did prehistoric kids make figurines out of clay? Large caches of clay figurines found in the Czech Republic suggest that they did. This is really cool because the activities of kids are often ignored in history or treated as tiny adults. This is evidence of a childhood that we don’t get as often!
Similarly: these 4,000-year-old clay cuneiform tablets have just been deciphered. In them we find schedules for lunar eclipses—and dire predictions of disastrous events because of the moon’s shadow.
However this clay cuneiform tablet is a furniture receipt. It takes all kinds, folks.
Applying archaeological techniques to space? It’s a thing, apparently.
Most of the Wonders of the Ancient World have been destroyed (only the Pyramids of Giza are still standing). But some people consider Mount Nemrut to be a secret 8th Wonder—and it has an untouched tomb inside of it.
Three colossal heads sit in front of Mount Nemrut, in Türkiye. Source: Yasin Akgul/Getty Images Speaking of Türkiye, this 4,000-year-old seal was found nearly 13 hours away from Mount Nemrut in Türkiye’s Kütahya province.
And speaking of untouched tombs, an ancient burial site containing over 100 graves has been uncovered at the construction site of the Guangzhou Zoo in China. The site was in use for over 2,000 years: graves date from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) to around the founding of the People’s Republic of China in the 20th cenutry.
Last week my boss tried to convince me to go to Baja California for a dentist (seems like a long drive). But medical tourism is nothing new! People have been traveling for better cures for centuries.
In Plovidiv, Bulgaria, archaeologists have discovered over 500 ancient coins and a mold for making gold jewelry. The findings indicate that the site was probbaly a small workshop.
And to wrap us up, the largest Medieval coin hoard found in decades has been uncovered in Germany! These 1,600 coins were found in the village of Glottertal. This finding will hopefully shed more light on Medieval economic routes and practices.
