Since I started writing this column about 23 years ago, I have featured a Halloween column that explored spiders, bats and even a centerpiece made of a pumpkin and some succulents. This year I was looking for something a little different…
A mysterious epidemic killed up to a third of Athens’ population in 430 B.C. Could a deadly strain of salmonella been a culprit? A 1655 painting by Michiel Sweerts depicting the Plague of Athens. In the summer of 430 B.C., a mysterious epidemic…
Halloween did not originate in Colombia, but for more than half a century it has been part of the country’s cultural calendar. Like many other now-common celebrations, the holiday is linked to agricultural cycles and popular life. In this sense,…
It's also, this year, the night we engage in that annoying "fall back" into Standard time, but that's a complaint I'll save for another time. But what about the origins of Halloween? Where did this holiday and its traditions originate?
Halloween started here. Long before plastic pumpkins, Samhain was the night at the end of October when the Irish said the wall between this world and the other one wore thin, and the dead walked the roads. Every one of…
Today is October 31st, Halloween. While the focus is almost entirely on costumes and Shibuya, I decided to look into what this event actually is and how it entered Japan, from both religious and historical perspectives. Halloween in Japan spread not…
In India, the reaction is almost automatic. A black cat darts across the road, and the scooter in front slows down. In India, the reaction is almost automatic A black cat darts across the road, and the scooter in front…
As fears over a possible outbreak of plague in parts of Russia emerge, it serves as a reminder that one of history's most feared diseases never completely disappeared. Modern medicine usually contains outbreaks quickly, but plague remains a real disease,…
Published Oct 20, 2026 8:59 AM EDT In the summer of 1518, people in Strasbourg couldn’t seem to stop dancing—some even danced themselves to death. It all started with one woman, who stepped into the street and began moving uncontrollably. Soon, dozens of…
By The City Gent On 19th March 2020 I thought it might be interesting in these worrying days to look back on how one of my great heroes, Samuel Pepys, described the ferocious pestilence that attacked London’s citizens in 1665. Pepys survived, and…
Byzantium, caliphates, kingdoms, crusades, plague, and scholastic thought.
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