Road Trip Through History: Salzburg, Pt. 1

My Own True Love and I did not come to Salzburg with history on our minds.(1) We were focused on Christmas markets, the 200th anniversary of Silent Night, a little Mozart, the possibility of skiing (2), traditional Austrian cuisine,(3) and the romance of waltzing in a public square at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The…

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History on Display: Amplified Chicago Blues

On Labor Day, My Own True Love and I indulged in a history nerd holiday and spent the afternoon at the Chicago History Museum’s* exhibit on the blues in Chicago. Amplified Chicago Blues is local history the way it should be told: placing the local within its larger historical context while still focusing on local…

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History on Display: The Vinland Map

On October 11, 1965, just a few hours before Columbus Day,* Yale University announced that it owned a newly discovered map of the world, dating from approximately 1440 AD, that showed an island named Vinland, the Vinilandia insula of the Icelandic sagas, off the coast of North America. The timing was not accidental: if the…

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