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Category: Religion & belief

By The Generalist Posted on July 18, 2022July 18, 2022

Buddha’s teeth

After Gautama Buddha died (around 500 years BCE) he was cremated and his ashes divided up and distributed to stupas across northern India. But some relics purportedly survived, including a surprising number of teeth.

Categories: Ancient history, Religion & belief, South Asia
By The Generalist Posted on May 31, 2022May 30, 2022

Snakes and ladders and nirvana

The classic board game snakes and ladders (or chutes and ladders) began its life as a demonstration of the Jain ascent towards nirvana and beyond.

Categories: Games & sport, Religion & belief, South Asia
By The Generalist Posted on May 26, 2022May 25, 2022

Breeches of The Last Judgment

After Michelangelo’s death, his friend Daniele da Volterra was employed by the Vatican to paint over the genitalia of the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgment.

Categories: Art, Early modern history, Europe, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on March 29, 2022March 28, 2022

Horned Moses

Michelangelo’s statue of Moses has horns, thanks to a mistranslation in the Latin Vulgate Bible.

Categories: Art, Early modern history, Europe, Medieval history, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on February 8, 2022January 25, 2023

Cryptographic magic

Steganographia is a late 15th / early 16th century German book of magic… but it’s not actually about magic.

Categories: Early modern history, Europe, Language, Literature, Mathematics & statistics, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on February 4, 2022February 3, 2022

Mythical Indian Ocean continent

Before we knew about plate tectonics, a zoologist proposed a lost continent connecting Madagascar and India across the Indian Ocean. That hypothesis, now debunked, was nevertheless picked up by Theosophists and Tamil revivalists.

Categories: 19th century history, Africa, Ancient history, Earth science, Literature, Religion & belief, South Asia
By The Generalist Posted on January 27, 2022January 26, 2022

Seventh child

By tradition, the president of Argentina is godparent to all seventh sons and seventh daughters born in the country; in Belgium, the seventh children are named after the reigning monarch, and that monarch also becomes their godparent.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, Religion & belief, South America
By The Generalist Posted on January 26, 2022January 25, 2022

War elephants vs. bird army

The 105th surah of the Quran relates a battle outside Mecca between Yemeni war elephants and a flock of birds.

Categories: Animals, Medieval history, Middle East, Military, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on January 24, 2022January 25, 2023

Eventful pub

There are few pubs in the world that can claim to be the site of the founding of a religious denomination, the creation of a style of beer, and also a murder by a famous gangster. But there’s at least one pub that can.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Europe, Food & agriculture, Politics & law, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on December 31, 2021December 30, 2021

Buddhist poetry contest

According to the Platform Sutra, the fifth patriarch of Chan Buddhism held a poetry contest to determine his successor. But it became a contest for the soul of Chan Buddhism itself.

Categories: East Asia, Medieval history, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on December 24, 2021December 22, 2021

Yule animals

Going from house to house singing Christmas carols is a long-held tradition. But what if the wassailers turn up with a goat or a horse’s head? And what if they take you with them?

Categories: 19th century history, Animals, Early modern history, Europe, Medieval history, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on December 23, 2021December 21, 2021

Posthumous King Wenceslas

The Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas has a deceptive title. The real Wenceslas’ reputation for goodness was mainly posthumous, as was his rank and title. Also he may have been murdered by his brother after a drunken fight.

Categories: Europe, Medieval history, Music, Politics & law, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on December 8, 2021December 8, 2021

Deciphering a secret society manual

Around 1730 a German secret society recorded their initiation rituals in an encrypted manuscript. In 2011, that cipher was finally decoded.

Categories: 21st century history, Early modern history, Europe, Language, Literature, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on November 29, 2021November 25, 2021

Thrice pope

Benedict IX has to be one of history’s strangest popes. He was one of the youngest popes ever appointed, he was the pope on three non-consecutive occasions, and he’ll go down in history as the only pope to ever sell the papacy.

Categories: Europe, Medieval history, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on November 16, 2021January 25, 2023

Saint Pontius Pilate

The Ethiopian and Coptic Orthodox Churches hold that Pontius Pilate, the governor who condemned Jesus Christ to death, later converted to Christianity himself, and they revere Pilate as a saint.

Categories: Ancient history, Medieval history, Middle East, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on November 5, 2021November 4, 2021

Largest cemetery

Wadi al-Salaam, the Valley of Peace, in Iraq is the largest cemetery in the world; more than five million people are buried there.

Categories: Architecture, Medieval history, Middle East, Religion & belief

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