History

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Souvenirs

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

I came across a neat slideshow at TIME.com with photos of one of the biggest museums in the world, one Team AZ will be seeing in 2009:  “The Louvre: France’s Iconic Museum”. If you have some knowledge of art history, you’ll know that the Louvre houses one the world’s most famous paintings, La Giaconda, [...]

The Sistine Chapel

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

People enjoy mysteries and codes and secrets. Witness the mania in delving behind the esoteric veils of such institutions of the Vatican, Opus Dei, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, et cetera, engendered by Dan Brown’s entertaining (but wildly inaccurate) novels The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Witness too the millenarian zeal to find contemporary [...]

The Grand Tour

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

The tour next year will cover much the same ground that is traditionally associated with the Grand Tour, a rite of young European aristocrats that dates back several centuries. It’s exemplified by George Gordon, Lord Byron, in his epic poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (full text of the poem). The New York Times’ Frugal Traveler elaborates [...]

How to Win Friends

Monday, October 1st, 2007

What does Favell Mortimer have to offer about the places we’ll be traveling in 2009?
Regarding the English, she states:
They are not very pleasant in company, because they do not like strangers, nor taking much trouble. They like best being at home, and this is right. They are very much afraid of being cheated; therefore they [...]

Real Sub-Urban Adventure

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

What mysteries lie hidden beneath the streets of Paris? The remains of millions. But the dead aren’t safe, though from whom or from what depends upon your point of view. Check out the battle between the Infiltrators and the Paris Police here at the Times Online: “Underground ‘terrorists’ with a mission to save city’s neglected [...]

In Living Color

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

Although we’re used to seeing it in its history-stained, marbled whiteness, we’ve known for some time that ancient Greek architecture such as the Parthenon was painted in bright, some might say garish colors. Here’s more on color in classical art from the Harvard Gazette: “Scholars give us antiquity–the colorized version”. And if you happen [...]

Groovy New Seven Wonders Interactive

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

Here’s a groovy interactive from Newsweek on the recently announced “New” Seven Wonders of the world as chosen by the citizens of the world.

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