When European travelers arrived in China, they discovered an indigenous Christian population, a fact that shocked many of their contemporaries back home. The existence of China’s Christians was however confirmed by a spectacular stela from the town of Xi’an. In the early part of the 17th century, a Chinese scholar […]
*Disclaimer: This is written from a historical standpoint. It is not intended to incite violence, and I disavow all claims to the contrary. The Molotov Cocktail in today’s colloquial parlance generally refers to crude, homemade petrol bombs that are a favorite of rioters and paramilitary forces worldwide. They are cheap […]
In 1898, the last speaker of the little-known Dalmatian language died in a railroad accident, the final act in the language’s millennium-long decline. Although it had clung onto life for so long, the Dalmatian language had been caught between two much larger rivals, the prestige language of the Adriatic, Italian, […]
Graffiti — the scourge of inner cities and municipal authorities; an ugly, vulgar blight on the urban landscape that costs cities millions every year to clean. Such is hardly a “hidden gem.” But think about this for a moment: Despite the modern image of vandals armed with spray paint tagging […]
In a previous post I discussed the survival of the Sarmatian legacy in the Ossetian people, who escaped the destruction of their kingdom by sheltering in the mountain valleys of the Caucasus. There was also a second group of Alans that chose to flee west to Hungary following the Mongol […]