Tag: Timely History
-
Timely History: The Halifax Explosion
On August 4th of this year, a gigantic explosion ripped through Beirut in Lebanon. Final numbers on the destruction are not fully understood, but it looks like at least 220 people were killed and 7,000 injured. The blast was approximately 2.75 kilotons of ammonium nitrate. Nerd that I am, I immediately thought of the Halifax…
-
Timely History: Cats and the Catholic Church
Do you own a cat? Are you Catholic? You are a heretic! Burn at the stake! Just kidding. It’s not like cats were excommunicated by the Catholic Church. I mean there’s even a “cat” in the name for God’s sake (see what I did there?)! Except, cats were officially excommunicated by the Catholic Church at…
-
Timely History: The Plague of Justinian
Everyone knows about the Black Death. One of the worst pandemics in history and caused by fleas on rats. People merely refer to it as the plague and associate it with the Black Death, which is true. But it’s not the first time the plague is seen in history and it’s definitely not the first…
-
Timely History: Juneteenth
The country recently celebrated Juneteenth on 19 June. For a lot of people, it was the first time hearing about the holiday. Allow me to conduct a quick Q&A to answer your burning questions on the holiday. This is a new thing that was just made up because of what’s going on, right? No, stop…
-
Timely History: Dexiosis
With COVID-19 running rampant and people being even more cognizant of spreading germs, many normal conventions have gone out the window. Some people have even questioned the fate of one of the oldest traditions in humanity: dexiosis. You know it as the handshake. Did you know you spread more germs to someone through a handshake…
-
Timely History: Gruinard Island
Quarantine is important. It allows us to safely flatten the curve and not spread disease at an exponential rate. Quarantining is not a new idea and even mentioned in the Bible to stop the spread of disease. Oh, it’s also been used because the British government contaminated an entire island in Scotland to see how…