Ah, the High Renaissance in Italy. The sweet side of the Middle Ages, when Europe classed itself up with some nice artwork and architecture, started thinking about humanism, and reacquainted itself with classical philosophies. Italy, in particular, served as the petri dish for a lot of this cultural rebirthing. A peninsular lump of competing cities and territories, ruled by mercantilism and warfare, it was like a violent melting pot that churned out murder and cool paintings.

As an emotionally repressed New Englander, my preferred means of outwardly displaying bonds with the people I’m close to is verbal abuse. “Hey, idiot,” is one way to start a text thread that might lead to getting lunch. My dad’s favorite new nickname for me? “Stupid.” This works for me, because I am broken. But did you know that some of the most prominent put-downs in the English language have been cribbed from outdated “scientific” terminology? See, in the early 1900s, science-types were throw

Before we begin, I need to be upfront about something: I went to college to learn how to write poetry. I wouldn’t recommend anyone try that at home, but there’s some good news: my school forced me to take courses in other disciplines, including science. Here’s the bad news: I took those classes my senior year, and spent the lectures drawing pictures of Gandalf the Grey fighting Obi Wan Kenobi in my notebook. It feels good to get that off my chest. With that out of the way, here are some scienc

I’m Sicilian from my mother’s side of the family, which means I was ostensibly raised Catholic. Really, that meant I went to church and catechism school until my body grew large enough that it was harder for my mom to make me go places. After that, I totally checked out from the religion, including the four years I spent at a Catholic college. By that time, I had grown even larger than I’d been in middle school, and while the administration could certainly force me to sign up for two theology c

There are a lot of solid reasons to fake your own death. Maybe you owe someone so much money that they don’t want you to be alive anymore, so you try and get out ahead of that. Perhaps life has led you to a road diverged in a yellow wood, you have chosen the path less traveled, and that path is life insurance fraud. Or maybe you just want to see who would show up to your funeral? Sometimes faking your own death is the only way to make the world your oyster. In the 860s a viking chieftain named

Back in 1992, my mom gave me a magazine article to read. It was about how a guy named Steven Spielberg was making something called Jurassic Park, a theme park filled with genetically engineered dinosaurs that would be opening next year. At the time, I wanted to be a paleontologist, so I was fascinated by this new, more accurate look at dinosaurs. Also, I thought it was an article about a real dinosaur park, because I was seven years old. Shortly after, it was explained to me that this was an ar

Have you ever started a new year and thought, “this is my year—this is the year all my hard work finally pays off.” Then, somewhere between one and 11 months later, it becomes clear that this is, in fact, not your year. Harold Godwinson had a year like that in 1066. On January 6, Harold was crowned king of England after years of power plays and scheming when King Edward the Confessor, who didn’t have any kids, punched his ticket after a series of stress-induced strokes. The weight of the cro

People like to dump on the Middle Ages for being Europe’s cultural and technological nadir, especially compared to the surrounding Classical and Renaissance periods. For a lot of folks, everything you need to know about the Middle Ages you can find in Braveheart or Monty Python—it was a simple, stupid period when superstition ruled the land, heads rolled daily, and people were covered in sh*t all the time. I’m not saying it was a great time to be alive, but it was a more complex time than peopl

Have you ever seen the movie Trainspotting? It’s mostly about Scottish heroin addicts and Iggy Pop, but it’s also about the choice people—and maybe men, more often—sometimes make to be self-destructive for no rational reason. And, while this is the story of Stede Bonnet, who was an English pirate (briefly) in the 1700s, I think the opening monologue for that movie applies here pretty well: “Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f*cking big television”—OK, maybe not that last

As soon as you read the word “vaccination” in the title of this article, you might have thought, “Yikes, that’s become a hot-button issue over the past few years.” Well, you’re right, but vaccination has been a hot button issue a lot longer than that—at least since 1796. Cue Edward Jenner: the English doctor who pioneered vaccination, ultimately leading to the eradication of smallpox: a disease that had plagued humankind and killed untold millions since the Stone Age. And he named the process