La Jument de Michao: Death Hymn, War Song, or Domestic Comedy?
A fifteenth-century parody of the funeral mass became Brittany's favorite dance song. Three readings of La Jument de Michao, and why none of them wins.
Forgotten Episodes HistoryHistory
Articles
Belgium Is Finally Putting a 93-Year-Old Diplomat on Trial for the Murder of Patrice Lumumba
Étienne Davignon, 93, a former European Commissioner who helped engineer Lumumba's removal as Congo's first prime minister, will stand trial for war crimes. It is the first criminal case Belgium has ever brought over its colonial past.
Figures & Movements History
Political Assassination Almost Never Works: Twenty-One Centuries of Evidence
Since 1875, only one in five assassination attempts on national leaders has succeeded. Of those that did, almost none achieved the assassin's stated goals. The historical pattern is remarkably consistent.
History Revisionist Debates
Lysenkoism: How Soviet Ideology Starved Science and Then Starved Millions
Trofim Lysenko promised Stalin that ideology could replace genetics. The Soviet Union believed him for 17 years, destroyed 3,000 scientists, and exported the consequences to China.
History Modern Era
The USS Liberty Incident: 34 Americans Killed by an Ally, and a Government That Chose to Forget
On June 8, 1967, Israeli forces attacked a clearly marked American ship, killed 34 sailors, and both governments agreed to call it an accident. Almost nobody who examined the evidence believed them.
History Revisionist Debates
Snake Oil History: The Medicine That Actually Worked Until Americans Ruined It
The original snake oil was a Chinese water snake remedy that actually worked. Then an American huckster replaced it with beef fat and turpentine.
History Revisionist Debates
Coffee History: How a Psychoactive Berry Conquered the World
Every civilization that encountered coffee tried to ban it. Every ban failed. How a psychoactive berry from Ethiopia became the most consumed drug on Earth, and convinced everyone it wasn't one.
Forgotten Episodes Health & Science
The Ontological Argument: Defining God Into Existence for a Millennium
For a millennium, philosophers have tried to define God into existence through pure logic. The ontological argument keeps failing. It also keeps coming back.
History Revisionist Debates
State Torture: The Enlightenment Abolished It, Then Democracies Reinvented It
Torture was formally abolished across Europe by the early nineteenth century. Then France, Britain, and the United States brought it back, with manuals, psychologists, and legal memos explaining why it wasn't really torture.
History Revisionist Debates
Churchill India: Famine, Repression, and the Empire’s Favourite Blind Spot
Churchill served in India as a young officer, spent four decades fighting Indian self-governance, and presided over a famine that killed three million people. The full record is more contested than either his admirers or his critics prefer.
History Revisionist Debates
The Pearl Harbor Myth: Why America Really Entered World War II
The United States did not enter World War II out of moral conviction alone. The oil embargo, Lend-Lease conditions, and Bretton Woods reveal a nation that fought strategically and emerged dominant by design.
History Revisionist Debates
Zoroastrianism History: The World’s First Monotheism and How Everyone Forgot to Credit It
Zarathustra articulated heaven, hell, final judgment, and the cosmic battle between good and evil at least a thousand years before anyone else wrote them down. Then history buried the receipt.
Forgotten Episodes History