Steamboat Willie the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound
“I only hope that we never lose sight of one thingthat it was all started by a mouse.” Walt Disney, Disneyland; October 27, 1954 It was the first Disney Cartoon with sound, with Mickey’s…
When did we first learn of the Balaclava, the Cardigan and the Raglan Sleeve
Did you know that these three items of clothing were the result of the Crimea War? Some war wasn’t it? This is what makes history fun. 10 questions to discuss: How did soldiers in…
Mechanical Turk – a chess machine that could beat anyone
Have you heard of the Mechanical Turk? I do not mean the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) Amazon’s crowdsourcing marketplace, this is not the same. The Mechanical Turk was a creation of Wolfgang von Kempelen. How…
The Dutch create a lake
In 1932 the Dutch completed what they call The Afsluitdijk, which is Dutch for “shut off dike”. It stretched across the top of the Zuiderzee and created a large lake and as several rivers were…
A village, an independent republic!
The Flag of Perloja Yes, it actually happened, would you believe that a small village in Northern Europe actually became an independent state, a republic and it even had it’s own flag! It was all…
The ‘dancing plague’
Today we dance for fun, we can dance all night, and we think nothing of it, but in the 14th century they thought it was a disease! They called it the “Dancing Plague”. Between the…
Athens, an early democracy
In 510 BC the Athenians overthrew their tyrant King Hippias, with the help of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta. Naturally, he tried to put his own man on the throne, and he chose Isagoras. However,…
The Ancient Olympics, how did they start?
Do your children know that the Olympics date back to an Ancient Greek festival, which was part of a five day festival held every four years in honour of Zeus, the King of the Gods.…
Did the people of Pompeii know they lived by a live volcano?
The city of Pompeii was a major resort city during the times of Ancient Rome. However, then everything changed when it was buried in volcanic dust in 79 AD, disaster struck the city when it…
Ancient Rome’s Financial Crisis
Did you know that in 2008 they used 2000-year-old solution to save our economy! It was in 33 AD that a financial crisis hit Ancient Rome and the solution Emperor Tiberius used was “quantitative easing”,…