Shin-kicking
Everyone loves to give someone’s shins a good kick (no? just me then?) but leave it to the English to make it into a sport.
Category: Early modern history
1500 CE until 1800 CE
Medieval rocket launchers
We think of rocket launchers as a modern invention, but the Koreans were using them four hundred years ago. The hwacha could fire two hundred rockets at once, blowing up enemies more than a hundred metres away.
Power of Women
The Power of Women is a topos (“topic”) of medieval and Renaissance Western art that inverted traditional gender roles. While most male painters saw this as comedy, prominent Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi turned it on its head and used her art to portray “courageous, rebellious, and powerful” women.
The monks’ elixir
According to tradition, a military marshal in the court of Henry IV of France presented some Carthusian monks with an alchemical manuscript for an elixir of long life. You can still buy the resulting concoction today.
Obsolete feet
Prior to standardization, the measurement of length designated “the foot” was a different size depending on which country or region you were in. Notable variants included the Prussian foot, the Rijnland foot (which became the Cape foot used in South Africa), and the Chinese mathematician’s foot.
The Generalist Academy 