history

Mary of Guise

Marie de Guise was born on 22 November 1515 in Lorraine, France. She was the eldest daughter of Claude of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, and quite the matrimonial catch. A tall and lithesome woman, she was also intelligent and brave, and proved her worth many times over as both a duchess and the Queen of… Read more Mary of Guise

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Radicalization is always political, and any religion can serve as a metaphorical base camp for terrorism. Thanks to both public amnesia and sociopolitical eliding of some forms of terrorism once the terrorists are rebranded “freedom fighters”, people don’t seem to know much about historically recent occurring in Europe. For example, the 20th century Fight for… Read more Sunday, Bloody Sunday

The St. Elizabeth Floods

On the night of 18 November 1404 into the morning of the 19th the oceanic tide combined with a storm surge from the North Sea pushed huge amounts of water up the coastal rivers, overwhelmed the dike system of Flanders, Zeeland and Holland (part of modern day Belgium and the Netherlands) and causing massive flooding… Read more The St. Elizabeth Floods

The Battle of Hastings: Making England French in 1066

Up until 1066 most of England was Anglo-Saxon and proud of it. There had been a few decades of Danish rule on and off, but for the last 24 years the King of England had been Edward the Confessor, the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, who had been given the throne… Read more The Battle of Hastings: Making England French in 1066