Gay habilis? That is the handy man:one of the oldest known representatives of the genus Homo, to which we also belong. But is the habilis actually a real Homo? Or not? The handy man, also known as Homo habilis is known by many scientists as the first species from our own Homo_ genus. Man belongs to
Amsterdam in the Golden Age. A metropolis full of grandeur and remarkable buildings, people and products. Those who would have liked to take a look here will come a long way with the book “Amsterdam for five dollars a day. The guide to going out, sightseeing, shopping, eating &drinking in Amsterdam
The Netherlands has undergone a major metamorphosis since the last ice age. The steppe plants had to make way for peat swamps, the elk for cows and the land for the sea. These milestones in recent Dutch geological history have recently been published in atlas form. Geographically, the Netherlands i
On Thursday 9 June, the annual Education Prize was awarded for the best VWO profile papers of the past year. From the 441 entries, the jury chose 12 exceptional pieces of work on a wide variety of subjects. The lucky authors received a scholarship of €1500. One of the three winners for the Cultuur
The popular view that the Church in the Middle Ages forbade the distribution and translation of the Bible into the vernacular is wrong. Particularly in urban areas, folk bibles circulated among all walks of life. Even cobblers and tailors often had a Bible in their own language at home. This is app
Biotechnology, the art of tinkering with nature, is thousands of years old. The Asians who grew the rice as food did it too. Genetic research has now shown that the first Asian rice farmers mainly chose plants with a special gene, even if they did not know this themselves. This goes against the view
Around two million years ago, several australopitheks – a specific group of prehistoric humans – lived in South Africa. What did the woman do and what did the man do? The man hung out in groups in and around a cave in search of food. Young women, on the other hand, traveled around… The woman travel
The medieval mans relationship to death was macabre, as evidenced by the many depictions of death as a dancing skeleton. These death dances were a genre in themselves and can still be seen in many graveyards or chapels in Europe. Their message was to terrify:Whoever lived sinfully awaited eternal pu
For years, archaeologists have argued about the exact age of the beautiful rock paintings in a cave near Vallon-Pont dArc in southern France. Research by the University of Groningen has now confirmed that the drawings must be at least 30,000 years old. This makes them by far the oldest known rock ar
In 1964, US President Lyndon Johnson plunged his country into the Vietnam War. Almost twenty years after the Second World War, the new post-war generation thought it was time to put an end to all these international tensions. The American presence in Vietnam fueled all kinds of protest songs. In th
Much is still said and written about the Second World War, especially around 4 and 5 May. But how did the events during the war itself make the news? Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. An important part of his government became the new Ministry of Propaganda, which came under the leader
The Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets has so far published secret diary fragments of Aleksander Miasnikov, one of the personal physicians of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. According to the doctor, Stalin suffered from a lingering brain disorder that made the dictator paranoid, suspicious and th
Ukrainian Iwan (John) Demjanjuk has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for complicity in the murder of 28,000 Jews in Sobibor extermination camp. Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Johannes Houwink ten Cate became involved as a researcher in the case against Demjanjuk. He did extensive his
In 1945, the Soviet Union and the United States had jointly defeated Nazi Germany. After the victory, however, this unusual alliance was quickly over. A long period of international tension began. The great powers fought each other in every possible way, except directly. A birds-eye view of the peri
More than thirty years after the Khmer Rouges reign of terror ended, the trial of three living leaders begins in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. The regime fell after an army invasion of neighboring communist Vietnam. America continued to support the Khmer Rouge for years after their fall. It was
The Netherlands has about 800,000 vegetarians, meat substitutes are on the rise and even gourmets like Johannes van Dam call themselves demi-veg. However, it took a long time for vegetarianism to become an accepted phenomenon. At the end of the 19th century, the idea of not wanting to eat meat was
There is heated debate in internet forums about the issue:breast-feed or bottle-feed? Breast milk contains natural nutrients. In addition, an intimate mother-child relationship develops during feeding. Does a mother who bottle feeds her child? A similar discussion raged in Roman times:mother or nurs
An international team of scientists has determined through DNA research on fossil remains of prehistoric horses that the animals drawn on rock walls actually lived in the area. The research supports the idea that prehistoric humans tried to portray their natural environment. The results have been pu
The Cairo Geniza – a collection of Jewish manuscripts – provides a unique glimpse into history between 950 and 1250 AD. Unfortunately, the leaves are scattered in museums and libraries all over the world. Researchers are now trying to bring the fragments back together using a computer. Discovered a
The young historian Evertjan van Roekel conducted research into Dutch volunteers in the German Waffen-SS on the basis of original war diaries. As murky as some pages of history may be, a sensitive subject like this deserves to be examined in a nuanced way. In January 2010, a controversial article b
This book should not come out. It is not easy and fun. It does not prove that Polish concentration camps did not exist. It does not deny the bestiality and cruelty of the Polish guards. He does not say that with the liberation by the Red Army, the time of macabre camps in Poland ended. Marek Łus
Charlemagne The Emperor Charlemagne he was very tall. The results of the examination attest to this with absolute certainty of DNA carried out on his remains, buried for centuries inside the Aachen Cathedral (Germany). In fact, the test, in addition to ascertaining the paternity of the
Some idols found from Choti Khatu of Nagaur district are inscribed with Brahmi script. These inscriptions belong to the 4th or 5th century and are estimated to be of the Gupta period. There are many Buddha statues in the treasury of sculptures found from Chhoti Khatu. Mutharis remains Bhuteshwar
Poison was one of the most used weapons in the Renaissance to get rid of enemies In the 500 , in all European courts, the fashion of the taster spread, an expedient that was to serve to escape any attempts at poisoning. We know how successful poison was in the Renaissance, used as a weap