Unruly History in the News #87
Histories of romance, really old birds, and more than one strange burial
Hey everyone,
Happy Valentine’s Day! I put together a list of Valentine’s-related news last year, and it’s still worth checking out.
And of course I’ve also covered Saint Valentine: Rebel, martyr, myth. Check it out:
In history acting unruly:
Though most presentations of the Virgin Mary are white, in Europe are hundreds of Black Madonnas. The question being debated in academia is—was her skin tone a deliberate choice or an accidental result of materials darkening naturally over time?
Statue of the Virgin Mary, Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia in Barcelona. Source: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images. How do you find hidden family and collective history in the Deep South, when records of enslaved people are scant at best?
These two, extremely rare, textile discoveries connect 18th-century schoolgirls in Barbados to England.
What did 15th-century lovers write in their Valentine’s cards?
Faerie smut is having a moment, just like it did in 1500.
Of course, Al Capone’s henchmen once celebrated Valentine’s Day with a massacre. Yikes.
Meanwhile, some letters discovered in 2015 are helping historians understand the tragic murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf and Baroness Mary Vetsera, which shook the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Oh, and I’ve been mad about this one all week: The NPS just erased the word ‘transgender’ from the Stonewall National Monument.
If you need a refresher, trans people were key to the beginning of the modern LGBTQIA+ movement.
What do you know about Alexander of Abonoteichus, the False Prophet of Rome?
A 68 million-year-old fossil of the oldest known modern bird was just discovered in Antarctica.
How did supercomputers paved the way for laptops and chatbots?
Nubian kings from the Kushite Empire ruled Egypt for less than 100 ears. But they left a huge impact on Egyptian culture.
The Kushite Empire is largely mysterious because their language hasn’t been deciphered, but we know they were incredible fighters. I covered one of their warriors queens in my book, Unruly Figures.
18,000-year-old bones were found in a Polish cave, and they show evidence of cannibalism.
This recently-found 11,000-year-old settlement along the North Saskatchewan River is redefining early Indigenous society in North America.
A 1915 film about Abraham Lincoln was long thought lost—it just resurfaced thanks to an intern at the Historic Films Archive.
Making sense of the disappearing history of the Haitian Revolution.
Salvatore Gungui dressed as Mamuthones for the annual parade. Source: Francesco Lastrucci An Early Medieval cult site has been discovered in Hezingen, Netherlands.
Are beavers fish or mammals? For Medieval philosophers, the question was paramount.
Study shows that ancient Romans released enough air pollution to launch climate change, setting off a cooling period in Europe.
If you grew up with American history, then you’ve heard of the Gold Rush. But what do you know about the Arctic Rush?
The Impressionist art movement was radical at it’s time, yet Impressionist art is generally so regarded as beautiful and relaxing that curators have a hard time reminding people of its radical heritage.
Josephine Baker recounts her first few days in Paris: “We’ve been hiding our buttocks for too long.”
A 4,900-year-old Copper Age fortress was just found in Spain, and it’s connected to a very weird Roman burial that suggests some kind of dishonorable story.
Hell yeah, I love stuff like this. Scientific testing of the tooth enamel of a monk buried in chains revealed a surprise: It was a woman. Extreme ascetism was long assumed to be the exclusive provenance of men, now archaeologists and historians have to reconsider.
Now…have you ever wondered what mummies smell like? Well, now we know.
Between 450 and 25 BCE, 13 people in Dijon, France were buried sitting up and facing west. Archaeologists don’t really know why.
A rare, Roman Era bronze drinking filter was just found in Turkey.
For Japan’s famed samurai, aesthetics were almost as important as martial skill.
Speaking of Turkey: After a years-long legal battle, a headless statue illegally smuggled out of Turkey and currently residing in Cleveland, Ohio, is being repatriated.
What does the archetype of Crazy Jane tell us about late 18th-century society?
Why is Edgar Allan Poe beginning to resemble Sherlock Holmes in media?
