Tag: history
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Women of Just History Posts: International Women’s Day 2018
As today is International Women’s day, and women hold such a huge focus in my blog, I thought it would be remiss of me to not do a post to celebrate. Over the past year and a half I have written about plenty of amazing royal women, and I am hoping to soon expand into…
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Fashion as Liberation: Edwardian Women’s Hatpins
“No man, however courageous he may be, likes to face a resolute woman with a hatpin in her hand.” When you think of fashion, you probably think of a variety of things. Superfluous trends, silly styles, strange catwalk concoctions. However, whilst fashion has been ridiculed for centuries, over many periods of history fashion has been…
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Royal People: Anna Komnene – Historian, Physician, Byzantine Princess
When people think of medieval princesses, they often think of an almost fairy-tale like person. A beautiful young woman who was married off at a young age to a foreign prince, traded as a political pawn, with little agency of her own. Of course, this was often far from the truth, and one such example…
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New Year, New Me: A History of Calendars
So the New Year is here, and I’m sure many of you will have made resolutions or goals for how you’re going to make this year better than the last. As humans in a modern world, we are ruled by time. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years dictate our lives – what we are…
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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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Medieval Marginalia: Why Are There So Many Snails In Medieval Manuscripts?
If you’ve ever flicked through an illustrated medieval manuscript, or seen pictures of some marginalia on the internet, chances are you’ve seen pictures of snails. Sometimes the snails are fighting each other, sometimes they are fighting knights, sometimes things are riding the snails, but in one form or another, snails keep cropping up in these…
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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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Royal People: Jadwiga of Poland
Jadwiga of Poland was a very remarkable woman, and one who is sadly neglected by those in Western Europe. Living in the fourteenth century, she was the first female monarch of Poland – beating England by nearly 200 years – and despite leading a short life, she left a legacy that continues to today. Jadwiga…
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Royal Mistresses: Alice Perrers, The Lady of the Sun
It’s time for a new blog series! This is one that I’ve been wanting to do since creating the blog, and have finally got around to starting. It is well known that many kings across Europe had mistresses; when you’re king, you could largely do what you want. Many of these women (and sometimes men)…
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A tour through History: Just History Posts Top 10
Today’s post is a very special one, as Just History Posts turns one year old today! I don’t know where the time has gone, and certainly didn’t think I would manage to keep it going for much more than a few months (even if posts have been slightly slacking over summer). So, if you’ve ever…
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