History of Europe

• Jim, the horse that saved children from diphtheria

  diphtheria is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacterium called Corynebacterium diphtheriae and it is transmitted, mainly, by the respiratory route (microscopic droplets that are emitted when speaking, coughing or sneezing). During the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th, several

• A Roman amphitheater in Madrid… but without an amphitheater

  The amphitheatres they were constructions from ancient Rome used to host shows and games (munera , gladiator fights and venationes , animal fight). Among the most famous, and that we can still see today, we have the Colosseum in Rome, the amphitheater in Tarraco, the one in Mérida and the amphitheat

• When journalists received diets to go to jail

  After the restoration of the Bourbons in the crown of Spain, in the person of Alfonso XII, Práxedes Mateo Sagasta He founded the Liberal Party in 1880, a party that together with the Conservative Party of Cánovas del Castillo It would constitute the two-party system with alternation in government

• Turning wheat into gold, patent number 14,204

  We already talked about Hennig Brand at the time. , a German merchant who was enabled by his wifes dowry to devote his time to the noble art of alchemy to get gold by distilling urine… in the end he discovered phosphorus. Today we return to the fray with another enlightened who intended to turn whea

• Why in the England of 1865 cars had to go with three occupants?

  In the second half of the 1800s, cars began to appear in Europe. At first, powered by steam engines, and later by various liquid fuels (in 1885 the first motor vehicle was built by internal combustion engine with gasoline). Logically, and along with the growing use of automobiles, some inconvenience

• The Spanish nation is the meeting of Spaniards from both hemispheres… all of them?

  Last day nine, the original of the Constitution of 1812 , Pepa , returned to Cádiz, the city where it was drafted and promulgated 200 years ago. It was our first Constitution that achieved something that seemed very difficult... putting liberals and absolutists to agree . Thanks to the support of th

• Classification of the sciences and the arts in 1840 according to… profit

  The classification of the sciences and the arts can be made depending on the time, the field of study or work, the method... But the most original of all seemed to me to be the classification, made in 1840, according to the benefit they bring . For this I am going to use the Spanish Picturesque We

• The king who had "Death to kings" tattooed

  It is what the rebelliousness of youth has and even more so if the French Revolution catches you being of humble origin. The French Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte he was a convinced revolutionary whose military qualities led to rapid rise in the midst of the French Revolution. In 1804 Napoleon appointed

• The wet nurses' market:where breast milk was sold

  In the 19th century, fleeing misery and famine, many women from the provinces headed for the capital in search of a future. Infant mortality rates in these areas were very high and many mothers who lost their newborn children decided to hire as wet nurses . The road to Madrid was long and in order

• The skull that the Germans and British fought over

  During World War I Much of present-day Tanzania, along with Rwanda and Burundi, were a colony of Germany in East Africa (German East Africa ). This colony was established in 1885 and although the complicity of the tribal chiefs was sought, some resisted. The best known was Chief Mkwawa (Mkwavinyika

• If it doesn't rain in a week, priests and nuns will be burned...

  As Lichtenberg said «when those who command lose their shame, those who obey lose their respect «. What if the one who commands what he loses is his head? So you can expect anything. In 1883, due to the terrible drought suffered by the town of Castañas , in the state of Chiapas (Mexico), the mayor

• The longest duel in history, 19 years

  The captains Dupont and Fournier of the French army were the protagonists of the duel that lasted 19 years (1794 – 1813) In 1794, in the city of Strasbourg, a young man from the local bourgeoisie named Blumm had the misfortune to cross the path of Captain Fournier – with a reputation for fighting a

• What problem did the first canned food have?

  The problem of food conservation was a constant throughout history – we have already seen the conservation of water – until the Frenchman Nicolas Appert In 1804, he devised the first preservation system. This system, described in his book « The art of preserving all kinds of animal and vegetable sub

• The letter that, by arriving late, changed the world and saved the whales

  As I say in the title, the best thing that could happen with the letter that George Bissell sent him to Edwin Drake It was… arriving late . For many years the lighting of homes depended on candles made of wax or animal fat (tallow). The wax ones were better but much more expensive. The tallow ones

• The last survivor of the Crimean War died 150 years later

  The Crimean War (1853-1856) pitted the tsarist Russia of Nicholas I against the Ottoman Empire of Sultan Abdul-Mejid I supported by France and the British Empire. The expansionist pretensions of Russia towards the East, camouflaged in questions of a religious nature, triggered a bloody war that many

• Waterloo, a defeat for Napoleon and a triumph for the dentists.

  To the logical dental problems due to lack of hygiene, the best ally for cavities, sugar, was added. During the 17th century, sugar was already being consumed all over the world and the dental profession began to gain prestige… and money. The first dental prostheses could be made of wood, porcelain

• Did you know that your mobile is not a phone because of 10 dollars?

  In the field of inventions and patents there have always been disputes over the paternity of certain inventions. In this case, if Antonio Meucci had 10 dollars, your cell phone would be a telephone . Italian inventor Antonio Meucci (1808 – 1889) emigrated to New York in 1850 where, after ten years

• How vaccines were transported two centuries ago?

  Today, with the use of portable refrigerators and isothermal boxes, it is easy to maintain the cold chain and transport vaccines, but two centuries ago... To the English doctor Edward Jenner We owe him the discovery of the smallpox vaccine and, by extension, vaccines. He found that people who had b

• Miss Winslows Syrup, Dalsy, and 19th-Century Apiretal

  Before it was said that children came with a bread under their arm, now it seems that they come with a jar of Dalsy and another from Apiretal as remedies for almost all the ills of the baby. Both pediatricians and midwives recommend having both medicines at hand, but in the 19th century, how mother

• Did you know that the toothbrush was invented in a prison?

  Although a prison does not seem the most appropriate place to use as an example of cleanliness and hygiene, the fact is that one of the benchmarks of hygiene, in this case dental, was invented in a prison in Newgate (England). In 1780, the vicissitudes of life, it is said that due to street disturb