On June 24th, 1947, a private pilot and fire suppression equipment manufacturer named Kenneth Arnold was flying south of Mount Rainier, bound for Yakima, Washington. At about 3 PM he saw a flash of li

Sometime around two and half millennia ago, a cluster of cities and states around the northeastern Mediterranean began to do amazing things. For some reason they began to spread out, establishing town

Books have been made for over 530 years. That is, they have been created from raw materials sometimes lovingly, sometimes notprinted, bound, and sold, only then to be read. When we think only of wha

This is another of our series of conversations on intellectual humility and historical thinking. - With me today is Joseph Manning. He is the William K. and Marilyn Milton Simpson Professor of Classi

The Paris of the Belle poque was a city divided by new and old conflictsthe tensions of modernity, and the schisms which had divided France since 1789. Modernity, which the city both exemplified and

At 2 PM on July 9, 1860, a mob attacked the Christian quarter of Damascus. For over a week, shops, churches, houses, and monasteries were attacked, looted, and burned. Men were killed, women raped and

As you might have noticed, the world is awash in narratives. You hear people talk about establishing the narrative, or noting that in the last 24 hours the narrative has changed. We dont talk abo

"..Since ancient times, the idea that the climate exerts a determining influence on minds and bodies, health and well-being, customs and character, war and wealth has attracted a long line of committe

In 1177 BC a series of very unfortunate events culminated in the collapse of numerous kingdoms centered upon the western Mediterranean. The nature of those events, and how one played upon the other, w

At a pivotal moment in Chapter 17 of Nathanael Hawthornes House of the Seven Gables, two of his protagonists escape from haunted Salem, Massachusetts, and are whirled away from its power by the even