Like the origin and location of Camelot, the number and names of The Knights of the Round Table varied with who was telling the story. Some writers went with a dozen, others, a cast of hundreds. All of them came with their own extensive backstory, sometimes featuring each other as cousins, sons, lieges, or squires, …
The British comedy troupe Monty Python famously skewered the legend of King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, destined to live forever in the minds of a certain generation who encountered it first during a fundraising drive on PBS. ** The Pythons did not have much of a budget, so there were no …
Where did the word “Dixie” as a reference to the southern United States come from? Most likely from the Mason-Dixon line, a demarcation used to separate the states where slavery was legal from those where it wasn’t. But it could also refer to a ten dollar note used in pre-Civil War New Orleans with the …
Russia retained a feudal type of government until well into the 20th century (before the Russian Revolution, of course) that depended on the backbreaking labor of its serfs to fund the lavish lifestyles of its ruling elite. Not only that, the Czars were considered chosen by God himself to rule, and considered sacred, which is …
You’re stranded in Medieval Russia and can only pick one. Which is it?
On first glance, it’s pretty hard to tell which poster is of a real place, and which poster is fictional, yes? Brightly colored travel posters that look like silkscreens began in the 1930s, as part of a Works Administration Project (WPA) funded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, designed to give employment to otherwise unemployed artists. …
Where did the name of Mr. Tumnus, the helpful faun of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, come from? Gallic chieftains, of course! Where -umnus and -umnos were frequent components, as in names Togodumnos and Dumnorix. Of course, these were also latinised; the only way we know these names today is through Roman …
Secret Agent Britain’s Wartime Secret Service by David Stafford BBC Worldwide, 2000 [Challenge # 12 : A book featuring spies or espionage.] Super-spy shenanigans, the kind we’re familiar with from James Bond movies and Cold War espionage novels, began in WWII — in the offices of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, a secret agency separate from …
Atompunk: A retro-futuristic aesthetic centered around the technology of the 1950s extended into the 21st century and beyond. It often depicts “traditionally American” values such as the nuclear family and a suburban lifestyle; conversely, the totalitarian regimes of Communist Russia and its satellites with their emphasis on technological power. I define its heyday as the …
This illustration by Arthur Rackham appeared on the cover of a book of Grimm’s fairy tales given to me by my parents. I forget the name of the story, but in it, the child hero, who is peeking out of the stove at the illustration’s approximate center, is hiding from the ogre. He has been …