Category Archives: CULTURAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY
The Age of Enlightenment – The new way of thinking in the 18th century
Scientific Discoveries
The Blackface Minstrels
The practice of actors “blacking up” is no longer seen as amusing or acceptable. The once highly popular television series “The Black and White Ministrel Show”, which featured blackened-up singing and dancing routines from 1958, notoriously fell out of favour and finally went off the air in 1978.
19th Century sport in Scotland
Communal games involving men and older boys ranged up and down the streets of many towns and can still be observed each New Year in Kirkwall’s Ba’ Game, between „Uppies“ and „Doonies“ on 1st January. The border towns kept their Common Ridings, and many others celebrated an annual beating of the bounds, in all cases accompanied by fairgrounds, music, dancing and the public consumption of a great deal of alcohol.
When Hollywood destroyed New York
In 1953, the heat generated by an atomic bomb test near the North Pole releases a dinosaur from its Arctic tomb. The frenzied beast promptly heads for New York, where it wreaks havoc on Manhattan, before being killed at Coney Island amusement park. Then, barely half a decade later, a superhumanly strong killer robot goes on the rampage through the Big Apple, causing destruction on an epic scale. Only the presence of mind of an heroic young American saves the city from being wiped from the face of the earth.
The Bogomils
The Bogomils were members of a religious sect that at its peak held enormous influence over the Balkan countries between the 10th and 15th centuries. Founded in Bulgaria in the mid-tenth century by a priest named Bogomil, the sect relied heavily on the belief in dualism – that the universe was ruled jointly by the forces of good and evil.