In 2013, in the municipality of Arcos de Valdevez, located in the northern Portuguese region of Alto Minho, the União das Freguesias de Grade e Carralcova was created, a merger of the two homonymous parishes. The first has a certain fame because in its Mother Church there is a tabernacle with two do
A few days ago we dedicated an article to the Valdevez Challenge, a tournament that was played in the Middle Ages to avoid a battle between León and the nascent Kingdom of Portugal that would have left both armies diminished before a common enemy, the Almoravids. We also commented that it was not an
Some time ago we dedicated an article to Cola di Rienzo, an apostolic notary of humble origins who lived in the 14th century and was determined to return Rome to its former imperial splendor through a series of revolutionary measures that included the banning of the nobles of the municipal governmen
Not long ago, in the article dedicated to the extravagant Russian masquerade ball that inspired the costumes for the movie The Phantom Menace , we reported that Maria Miloslavskaya, the first wife of Tsar Alexios I (the father of Peter I the Great ) and mother of Tsar Fyodor III, had been chosen as
Lawsuits for copyright they can be more vehement than they might seem; Here we recently saw a case that also involved the ghost of the famous Mark Twain after having dictated a novel after his death. But it is that they also go back much further in time than is believed and a good example of this is
Saladin has gone down in history as one of the great Islamic rulers and a brilliant soldier who conquered the Holy Land, managing to retain Jerusalem in the face of the Third Crusades attempt to recapture the city. He was also a model of chivalry, admired by both Muslims and Christians. But he was h
Not only human beings go down in history. So have not a few animals, often linked to the exploits of their masters but other times for themselves. We have seen some of them here, in the case of the parrot Álex , the dog Balto or the horse Kluger-Hans , but others like Bucéfalo sound familiar to all
If Alexander Dumas knew how to play the literary game he could give to an old prison legend, that of the man in the iron mask, Goethe had done the same before with a man who used a metal arm instead of a mask, only in that case it was not a myth but a real character:Götz von Berlichingen, a Catholic
There are some swords that have gone down in history with their own name, in the case of the two of the Cid (Tizona and Laundry ), the Joyeuse of Charlemagne, the Durendal of Roldán or the Zulfiqar of Ali (the son-in-law of Mohammed), among others. But if there is one that is universally known, it
If you havent seen Alexandr Nevsky , Sergei Eisensteins film, I recommend you look for it and fill the gap without fear that it is a black and white film from 1938. Not only because this directors titles are still visually fascinating three quarters of a century later, but also because, After readin
A few years ago I was invited to dinner by some Bengali friends and when we sat down what was my surprise to see that there was a knife but no fork, despite the fact that the menu was based on rice and chicken. They used their hands to eat it and, because of where you go do what you see, I had to im
The abbey of Saint Gall (in German Sankt Gallen) was founded in the year 613 in the town that today bears his name in Switzerland by an Irish monk, Gallus of Hibernia. It would be one of the main Benedictine monasteries in Europe for many centuries. It flourished under the patronage of Pepin the S
The Visigoths were a branch of the Gothic peoples, belonging in turn to the East Germanic tribes that between 600 and 300 B.C. they migrated from Scandinavia to the region between the Oder and Vistula rivers. Some researchers believe that the Visigoths are the same people as the Thervingi , as the
Amiens Cathedral, declared a Historic Monument in 1882 and included in the World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981, is a reference in its style and also brings together a series of curious elements that give it a special interest. One of them is the famous labyrinth that paves the floor of the nave; a
The Egyptians were writing from before the 30th century B.C. on papyrus, a plant material made from the plant of the same name (Cyperus papyrus ) that grows on the banks of the Nile. Later, during Greco-Roman antiquity, the use of parchment was popularized, based on tanned and polished sheep or goat
The honor of being a pioneer, of opening the first path in something, is usually highly discussed. Today we are going to see a female case, that of the considered first professional writer in the Western world, an honor that tradition places on the Venetian Christine de Pizán. Her legacy would have
Times have changed and social evolution makes it possible that if, in the past, access to the throne of Saint Peter was in the hands of a dominant caste made up of families of ancient ancestry, linked to a series of class privileges and economically well off, today it has been democratized that situ
In León it is called Guest , in Castile Estantigua , in the Hurdes Genti de Muerti , in Asturias Güestia , in Galicia Santa Compaña … The processions of souls that appear at midnight as a harbinger of imminent death are folk legends that spread throughout the Spanish geography, often as a legacy of
Madrid is a huge city, with a very wide cultural offer and a history that many are unaware of. Pablo and Let, from Viajars Learning, are today at the keys of this article to investigate a little about the toponymy of the Spanish capital. Without being any of Madrid we have spent many years in the ca
The story of Constantine the African It is one of those that give for a juicy novel or an exciting movie. A Muslim converted to Christianity, he traveled throughout most of the Near and Near East learning medicine and translating Arabic and Greek books on the subject into Latin, ending up as a monk
The scorpion (also known as the ballista when it launched balls) was a catapult with arrows, probably invented by the Greeks and then adopted and used on a large scale by the Roman legions. Unlike a bow that works by twisting its arms, the scorpion used a torsion spring system to obtain a very high
Happy New Year to all of you who accompany me on my path through history. As you may have seen, it took a few days without posting new articles on my blog. The main cause is the need for a little respite in search of new ideas, to continue telling stories and showing new places. Note that these are
Osowiec Fortress is located in north-eastern Poland. It was built in the period 1882-92 with the aim of covering the then Russian Poland from a German attack from East Prussia. It was built on the Biebrza River, north of Bialystok, 50 km from the border. The fort was covered by the marshes around
The Weimar Republic was in force in Germany between 1919 and 1933 and was the transition period between World War I and Nazism. By Me. Cláudio FernandesIt is well known that the great economic and military power that stood out at the beginning of the First World War (1914-1918), by virtue of its mo