Early Modern – Page 12 – History in the Margins

A Spy in the Spice Trade

By Pamela | September 20, 2016 |

You know the beginning of this story. In the fifteenth century, Portugal under the leadership of Prince Henry the Navigator * began maritime exploration along the coast of Africa. More or less a hundred years later, a Portuguese fleet commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India. After a certain amount of bumbling around, Portugal transformed…

Brunelleschi’s Dome

By Pamela | July 22, 2016 |

The architecture book is done. While I was working on it, I wouldn’t have said it was fun. (My Own True Love will corroborate this.) I put in a lot of late nights. I struggled to find a simple way to describe how an arch works.* But along the way I re-read some old favorites,…

The Last Armada

By Pamela | February 7, 2016 |

A Spanish invasion force, already crippled by punishing storms that had separated it from most of its troops and supplies, landed at the Irish harbor of Kinsale on September 21, 1601. The Spanish troops intended to battle their way through Ireland with the support of a population that Irish expatriates assured them was eager to…