Category: Seasonal
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When The Thames Froze Over: The ‘Little Ice Age’ Thames Frost Fairs
Between roughly 1300 – 1850, the world experienced the ‘Little Ice Age’, where there was significant cooling in global temperatures. Temperatures and the effects varied from region to region and year to year, but there were 3 significant intervals of particular cold, c. 1650, c. 1770, and c. 1850. In England, this resulted in particularly…
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Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot: Who was Guy Fawkes?
Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot. If you live in the UK, or possible elsewhere in the world, this weekend you probably had fireworks, bonfires, and sparklers to celebrate the 5th November. This holiday remembers the failed…
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World Book Day: Millennia of Firsts – a Brief History of the Book
As many of you may know, today – March 2nd – is World Book Day. Typically this is a day mostly celebrated by school children, often as an excuse to dress up as favourite book characters. As such, I decided that today’s blog post should be dedicated in its honour. Due to the nature of…
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Medieval Dating Tips; or, How to Bag Yourself an Eligible Lord or Lady
According to Andreas Capellanus, a late twelfth-century author, “Love is an inborn suffering proceeding from the sight and immoderate thought upon the beauty of the other sex”. This Valentine’s Day, whether you have a special someone or not, I’m sure that, like mine, your Facebook feed is probably full of engagements, gushing declarations of love,…
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Happy New Year, or End of the World? Early Modern Apocalypse Predictions
If you’ve spent any time on social media in the last few weeks, or pretty much just spoken to anybody, then I am sure you will have heard the chorus of “I can’t wait for 2016 to be over!” “Worst year ever!” “2017 can’t surely be worse?!” and so on. It was only a few…
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Have Yourself a Merry Little (Medieval) Christmas
With Christmas soon approaching, it is only appropriate to have a Christmas themed post! We all have our own Christmas traditions on how we spend our time over the festive season, and lots of these traditions are influenced by the culture we grew up in. But how would you be spending this day if you…
Just History Posts 