Tag: history
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Historical Objects: The Bees of Childeric I
Objects made in previous centuries hold great power over us today. Whether it is admiring the stunning craftsmanship of people who lived long ago in much harsher times but still wanted to create something beautiful, or forging a connection between people whose lives were so different to our own and yet used the same everyday…
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Royal People: Mansa Musa, The World’s Richest Man?
If I told you to guess who the richest person who has ever lived was, you would probably think of a modern billionaire. Someone like Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. But what if I told you that there was an African king who lived 700 years ago whose wealth made theirs pale in…
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A Just History Posts Check-In
Happy summer everybody! (Or, happy winter to my southern hemisphere friends). Just History Posts is approaching its 7th birthday in just a couple of months, and having taken the last few weeks off from posting daily on social media, and with lots of other things going on in my life at the moment, I thought…
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Medieval Mythbusting: Did People Believe the World was Flat?
The general public knows bits about the medieval period. Unfortunately, the general public think they know a lot about the medieval period. Whilst we start learning about this time in our history at school, a lot of what people pick up comes from popular media, in particular films and television series. And, even worse, from…
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Historical Figures: Edward Montagu, Knightly Criminal
Today I am pleased to be hosting another fantastic guest post, this time by author Louise Wyatt. Louise has loved history since discovering Dunster Castle in Somerset aged six years old. Reading and writing as soon as school started, Louise has published three local history books between 2017 and 2018 and more recently, A History of…
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Historic Houses: Sir John Soane’s Museum, a Victorian Wonder
Spring is in the air, and it felt like a perfect time to revisit the Historic Houses series. This tends to be the time of year us Brits start to make plans, as the weather gets (generally) better and the days are now longer again. Years ago I visited Sir John Soane’s Museum in London,…
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Royal People: Princess Nest, Wales’ Romanticised Heroine?
People love a good story. And when real life seems to mirror tales of old, then we can get caught up in it all and conflate them into our own romanticised version. One woman who this certainly applies to is Princess Nest ferch Rhys who, since the 19th century, has been known as “Helen of…
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Eyam: England’s Infamous Plague Village
In a world still reeling from a global pandemic, it can feel fresh to look at situations from the past that echo that which we have lived through the past few years. But a moment in history that has remained tucked away in my brain for years, ever since reading a historical fiction novel about…
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Victorian Romance: The Art of Cobweb Valentines
Today is Valentine’s Day, a centuries-old holiday celebrating love, strangely on a day commemorating someone’s execution. From the late medieval period in Europe, when courtly love and chivalry were at their peak, it became popular to think of romantic love on this day. By the 18th century, the day had become a time for lovers…
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A Brief Moment of History: When Napoleon Took on Rabbits
If you are familiar with my “brief moment of history” series, then you may have read about the time the Australian army fought a war against emus (and lost). When looking at history, it seems that great military men losing fights against animals is not so unique. This brings us to Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte is…
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