Curio Cabinet / Person, Place, or Thing

Ho ho ho! Santa Claus is a Christmas mascot recognized the world over, but he wasn’t always the plump, red-suited figure he is today. In fact, Santa was born from the merging of several European cultures and religious traditions mixed with good, old-fashioned American advertising.
 
We’ve written before about Saint Nicholas, from whom Santa Claus takes his “Saint Nick” nickname. From the fourth century onward, this Catholic Saint was renowned for his kindness toward children, and in France it was even said that he had the power to resurrect them. Yet, the real Saint Nicholas, also known as Nikolaos of Myra, bore little physical resemblance to Santa Claus. His evolution into Santa began with the religious traditions that sprung up to honor him, especially Saint Nicholas Day, also known as the Feast of Saint Nicholas. Celebrated on December 6, this day not only involved feasting but was considered a lucky day on which to get married or make big purchases. Saint Nicholas Day, and by extension Saint Nicholas himself, was especially popular in Holland. In the 18th century, Dutch Catholics began fleeing religious persecution in Europe, bringing their love for Saint Nicholas with them. We have the Dutch to thank for Santa’s modern name, which evolved from “Sinter Klaas”, a Dutch nickname for Saint Nicholas. By the late 1700s, this name was anglicized into “Santa Claus.”
 
But Saint Nicholas and Dutch settlers aren’t the only ones who contributed to the Santa Claus story. From the 15th century onward, many Europeans told tales of Father Christmas, a figure whose appearance was loosely based on Saxon and Norse folklore. Although Father Christmas wasn’t known to give gifts, he did wear green or red fur-trimmed robes and ride through the winter woods on either a horse or a goat, encouraging people to celebrate Christmas with food and wine. Sometimes, he pulled a sleigh behind him loaded with food and drink. On his head, Father Christmas often wore a fur-trimmed hat or a holly wreath. In 1843’s A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present bears a striking resemblance to Father Christmas.
 
In Washington Irving’s 1809 satirical book History of New York, the writer melded Dutch ideas about Saint Nicholas with the appearance of Father Christmas to create a chubby figure who dressed in winter clothes normally worn by Dutch sailors. The book was meant to poke fun at Dutch culture in New York, but Irving unintentionally created an enduring image of Santa Claus. In 1821, Santa finally got his reindeer thanks to an anonymous poem published in the popular holiday children’s book The Children's Friend: A New-Year Present to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve. The poem was called Old Santeclaus with Much Delight, and it described Santa riding on a sleigh pulled by a single reindeer. The author likely chose a reindeer because of Santa’s associations with Europe, where reindeer are a native species. This version of Santa Claus also brought childrens’ gifts, in addition to food and wine, on his sleigh. This makes sense, since gift-giving was a popular Christmas tradition in both the U.S. and Europe by then. But Santa’s popularity really shot through the roof (or up the chimney) with the publication of another anonymous poem in 1823: A Visit from St. Nicholas, or The Night Before Christmas, as it is better known today. In it, Santa is described as a fat, jolly “elf” with a red suit, who comes down the chimney to leave gifts in childrens’ stockings. He rides a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, each of whom has their own name, though two of them, Dunder and Blixem, were later changed to the more “German-sounding” Donner and Blitzen.
 
From there, Santa fell into the hands of American marketers, who had a field day with the idea of a magical figure who could help them sell Christmas gifts. By the 1840s, U.S. newspapers were adding images of Santa Claus to Christmas ads. Department stores began hiring actors to pose as Saint Nick, and the tradition of the “mall Santa” was born. In 1924, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured Santa Claus for the first time, and he remains an important figure in the parade to this day. As for Europe’s Father Christmas, Santa Claus became so popular that stateside stories of him spread across the pond and today Father Christmas and Santa Claus are practically synonymous. No more wintertime horseback rides for this guy!

 
[Image description: A vintage illustration of Santa Claus leaving toys at a fireplace with hanging stockings.] Credit & copyright: kodomo no tomo, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

There’s nothing quite like cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving! We mean that literally; Thanksgiving is the only day each year that most Americans top their meat with fruit sauce. We’ve written before about how cranberries are grown (and how many are eaten on Thanksgiving alone—around a fifth of all the cranberries grown each year) but just how did these tart little berries come to be so closely associated with Thanksgiving, in particular?
 
Cranberries certainly have a rightful claim to the Thanksgiving table: they’re one of just three fruits native to the U.S, along with blueberries and concord grapes. Since Thanksgiving is a holiday meant to bring Americans together, it makes sense that native foods should feature heavily. After all, turkeys and pumpkins are also native to the Americas. Creating a sweetened cranberry sauce was difficult for North America’s first European settlers, though, as the sugar cane they’d brought with them refused to grow in New England, where their first colonies were located. (Today, the only places in the continental U.S. that grow sugar cane are Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.) Although there is evidence that some Native Americans were eating sweetened cranberry sauce as early as the 17th Century, there’s no way of knowing if the sauce was present at the 1621 feast between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag tribe which eventually inspired Thanksgiving.
 
Once colonists were able to grow sugar cane, though, sweetened cranberry sauce became a popular accompaniment to meat, especially wild-caught meats, like venison and turkey. Compared with meat from domesticated animals, this wild-caught meat had a strong, gamey flavor that some colonists found a tad overwhelming. Sweetened fruit sauce was just the thing to cut through the pungent taste. In 1796, cranberry sauce was mentioned in a publication for the first time, when Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery suggested serving turkey with it.
 
By the time writer and activist Sarah Josepha Hale persuaded Abraham Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a National Holiday in 1863, sweetened cranberry sauce was a widespread accompaniment to turkey, and turkey was perfectly positioned to take the starring role in Thanksgiving. The bird was more or less seen as the American equivalent of goose, which traditionally served as the main dish at British holiday celebrations. However, early cranberry sauce usually consisted of fresh cranberries cooked with water and sugar, then stirred to a chunky consistency. Although some American undoubtedly still make their own, fresh cranberry sauce, the vast majority of today’s sauces are canned. One of cranberry sauce’s most infamous variations—can-shaped jellied cranberry sauce—is also one of its most popular. But such modern takes on cranberry sauce weren’t popularized until the 19th century, when drastic agricultural changes made it possible to harvest more berries at once.
 
Cranberries grow in peat bogs, wetlands with dry areas consisting of peat, or partially decayed vegetation. For centuries, cranberry farmers dry-harvested cranberries directly from their vines, which was very laborious. As farming irrigation improved, though, more water could be brought into bogs, which allowed more berries to grow. Eventually, wet-harvesting, or flood-harvesting, became the standard way to harvest cranberries. The process consists of flooding cranberry bogs with around 18 inches of water, then shaking the berries from their vines using farming vehicles called water reels. The berries then float on the water’s surface, and can be easily corralled. Flooding isn’t only used to harvest cranberries, though. It’s also used to protect them in winter, when cold, dry winds can wither their vines. The moisture of a winter flood (which farmers usually apply until March) helps the berries pull through.
 
The introduction of flood-harvesting caused cranberries to explode in popularity across the U.S., in the 19th Century. Ocean Spray, an agricultural cooperative established by three cranberry farmers in 1930, quickly became one of the largest cranberry producers in the world, and remains so today. Ocean Spray began selling canned cranberries in the late 1930s, and released jellied cranberry sauce in 1941. The gelatin-based cooking trend of the 1940s and 1950s helped the sauce become a hit, and it has endured as an in-demand Thanksgiving staple ever since. There’s just something satisfying about slicing and serving perfect circles of sauce to everyone at the table. Happy Thanksgiving!

 
[Image description: A bowl of cranberry sauce topped with a lemon slice.] Credit & copyright: Karolina Grabowska, Pexels

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of the introduction of the push-button telephone on this day in 1963, enjoy these curios all about communication. 

Experiencing a medical emergency? A car crash? A house fire? Quick, call 911! The idea of dialing these three lifesaving digits is so ingrained in the United States that it's easy to forget there was a time before 911. In the not-so-distant past, those experiencing a crisis had to know the numbers of the specific emergency services they needed. This often presented a serious problem when an emergency occurred away from home or in a large city with multiple departments for emergency services. But all of that began to change on this day in 1968, when the first 911 call was placed in Haleyville, Alabama.
 

The United States Congress first called for a nationwide emergency number in 1958, but creating such a thing from scratch wasn't easy. National organizations representing different groups of emergency personnel needed to weigh in on the process—and weigh in they did. What proceeded Congress's call to action was a lengthy battle over which agencies should receive these new emergency calls. Police departments, hospitals, and fire departments all made the case that they were best-equipped to handle them.
 

Finally, 10 years after a nationwide emergency number was proposed, it was agreed that, in most cases, police stations would handle the new calls. AT&T, which at the time was the largest phone company in the United States, announced that the new national emergency number would be 9-1-1. The company then started working with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and local police departments across the nation to set up 911 systems.
 

But that announcement didn't sit so well with Alabama Telephone Company President Bob Gallagher. After reading the announcement in The Wall Street Journal in January of 1968, he wondered why smaller independent telephone companies hadn't been consulted on the changes. He was confident that his company could install a successful 911 system faster than AT&T. So he set out to prove it.
 

Gallagher began by meeting with Alabama Telephone Company's Inside Plant Manager, Robert Fitzgerald. At the time, the Alabama Telephone Company had 27 exchanges, and Fitzgerald examined them all to decide which would be best suited to receive 911 calls as soon as possible. Haleyville was chosen due to its up-to-date equipment.
 

To beat AT&T to the punch, however, Gallagher and Fitzgerald had to move quickly. Incredibly, with the help of a few other technicians, Fitzgerald designed and installed the new system's circuitry, in Haleyville, in under a week. A special, bright red telephone was placed in the Haleyville Police Station, which would only ring when a 911 call was placed.
 

On February 16, around a month after Gallagher had first read AT&T's announcement in The Wall Street Journal, the nation's first 911 call was placed in Haleyville. So, what was the emergency? There wasn't one, actually! The call was ceremoniously placed by Alabama Speaker of the House, Rankin Fite, and answered at the police station by Congressman Tom Bevill.
 

In 2019, the red telephone used to place that initial call was put on temporary display at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, to commemorate over 50 years of 911 service in the United States. Haleyville has been celebrating its milestone ever since the first call was made, as well. The town even holds a 911 festival every year, complete with food vendors, musical entertainment, and even a parade. Now that's how you celebrate safety!
 

Image credit & copyright: Nate Steiner, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
 

Happy Halloween! You’ll almost certainly see a witch or two tomorrow, in the forms of costumes and decorations. With their pointy hats, long noses, and broomstick steeds, witches are odd-looking Halloween staples. Their iconic image has little to do with people who actually practice the Neo-Pagan religion of Wicca, today. Rather, the modern depiction of “Halloween witches” is cobbled together from a plethora of histories, folk tales, and even a classic movie.
 
We’ll start with Halloween witches’ most obvious trait: they’re women. This is interesting because the majority of their features have roots in Europe, where both men and women could be accused of witchcraft. In fact, six men were among those executed during the Salem Witch Trials. Starting in the 15th century, Europeans became vocal about what they saw as the dangers of witchcraft, which included practices like fortune-telling. It was believed that anyone, male or female, could enter into deals with demons or the devil and come to practice witchcraft. Over the years, however, witch hunts became a form of persecution generally aimed at women, especially those who stepped outside of rigid societal boundaries. Women who spread gossip, defied their husbands, or talked about politics were frequent targets. Over time, the idea of male witches was practically forgotten.

 
Halloween witches’ affinity for potions has roots in the old European idea that witches were connected to nature. This stemmed from Christian criticism of the spiritual practices of non-Christian Europeans, such as the Ancient Romans and Celts. These usually included polytheism (the worship of multiple gods), elements of nature-worship, and the making of traditional medicines using local plantlife. As Christianity came to dominate Europe in the early Middle Ages, such practices were banned. Those caught gathering plants could be accused of making magic potions. Images of witches dancing around cauldrons of bubbling potions were effective propaganda and had great staying power. Even Shakespeare’s Macbeth, written in 1606, featured witches gathered around a cauldron, chanting the famous line “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
 
Black cats’ association with Halloween witches also has to do with the spread of Christianity in Europe. In the 13th Century, Pope Gregory IX issued a document called Vox in Rama, stating that black cats were an incarnation of Satan. Superstitions about black cats immediately popped up and persist to this day. Since cats were already associated with the devil, it made sense that they would be portrayed as witches’ friends. Some European folk tales even held that witches could turn into black cats, or command them to do their bidding.
 
The origins of Halloween witches’ cloaks and pointy hats are a bit murkier. Originally, 15th Century Europeans believed that witches wore no clothing at all while doing magic, as nakedness was associated with wantonness and sin. However, since cloaks were used to protect wearers against nighttime chills, and witches were heavily associated with night, it’s likely that cloaks naturally appeared in witch-portrayals over time. Witches’ famous hats may have darker origins. The most common theory involves European anti-semitism. During the Middle Ages, Christians in Hungary forced Jewish people to wear pointed hats, called Judenhats, to signify that they were not Christian. Soon, people in Hungary accused of witchcraft were also made to wear such hats.
 
Broomsticks’ relationship to Halloween witches is surprisingly risqué. Originally, brooms became associated with witchcraft due to Christian misinterpretation of a pagan fertility ritual in which people would dance while straddling brooms. However, as creating medicines and salves from plants became more heavily associated with witches, some came to believe that brooms provided an indecent way to apply such concoctions. 15th century theologian Jordanes de Bergamo went so far as to write, “the vulgar believe, and the witches confess, that on certain days or nights they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.” This is especially odd considering that the first known person to confess to flying on a broomstick was a man named Guillaume Edelin, who was arrested for witchcraft in 1453.
 
As for Halloween witches’ long noses, sometimes-green skin, and propensity for cackling—all three were made famous in the hit 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Margaret Hamilton’s celebrated portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West cemented the scary-yet-fun image of witches that we associate with Halloween today. All except for the flying monkeys, that is!

 
[Image description: A vintage-style drawing of a witch riding on a broom with a black cat.] Credit & copyright: StarGladeVintage

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy these spooky curios as Halloween approaches. 
Carved gourds, plastic skeletons, children dressed as monsters roaming the streets...when you think about it, Halloween is a pretty strange holiday. Its origins, and the traditions that have surrounded it at various points in history, are equally odd. The ancient Celts, the Catholic church, and Irish immigrants to the U.S. have all played a part in forming the spooky autumn holiday as we enjoy it today.
 
Historians believe that Halloween’s earliest origins date back to the ancient Celtic peoples of central and northern Europe, who ruled much of the continent from 750 BCE to 12 BCE. The Celts celebrated the start of the new year on November 1 with a festival called Samhain. The Celts considered the start of the new year to also be the first day of winter–a season they associated with death. It makes sense, then, that the spirits of the dead were believed to return during Samhain. Along with the spirits of loved ones, however, the Celts believed that malevolent spirits made the journey back to the land of the living. These weren’t just ghosts, but also demon-like creatures and evil witches. To ensure that these frightful spectors wouldn’t recognize them, people celebrating Samhain made masks to hide their faces. Because Samhain was an inherently spiritual time, The Celts believed that it was a good day to practice magic, especially rituals related to telling the future. It was an idea that persisted for centuries, even after the Celts were conquered by the Romans.
 
Although different sects of Christianity are still divided on their feelings toward Halloween, the holiday never would have developed into its modern form without the Catholic Church. It all started in the 7th Century, when Pope Boniface IV established All Saints’ Day, to be celebrated with an annual feast, on May 13. As its name suggests, this was a day to honor all the church’s saints. However, since the church considered Samhain to be a sinful pagan holiday, All Saint’s Day was soon moved to November 1, in an attempt to overshadow Samhain. It was a valiant effort, but the public simply began performing most of Samhain’s rituals on the night before All Saints’ Day, turning that night into a holy, or “hallowed” eve. All Hallow’s Eve thus became a night in which people played games, told stories, and visited the graves of loved ones to pray and light candles.
 
In the 16th Century, Britain’s cultural landscape was drastically changed by The English Reformation, in which the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism was created. This spelled apparent doom for Halloween in England, since All Hallows Eve was still closely associated with Catholicism. However, Halloween remained popular in Catholic countries, particularly Ireland. In the middle ages, a practice called “souling,” in which people dressed as Saints and went door to door asking for food in exchange for songs and prayers, became a part of Catholic Halloween traditions.
 
The spooky holiday finally made its way to the shores of the U.S. in the mid-19th Century, thanks to a surge in Irish immigration. Halloween quickly became popular with American Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Some of its rituals, such as mask-wearing, are still a part of Halloween today. Others, such as carving Jack-O-Lanterns from turnips (not pumpkins) have changed over the years, but are still recognizable. However, early American Halloween also included practices that were very odd, by modern standards. For example, fortune-telling games were an extremely popular part of Halloween celebrations, especially amongst young women. In one such game, known as “three luggies”, a blindfolded woman would choose one of three bowls to dip her finger into: one filled with milk, one filled with water, and one empty. If she dipped it in the bowl of milk, it meant she would marry a widower, water meant a bachelor, and an empty bowl meant she would be a spinster. Printed Halloween cards, many of them featuring strange art of humanoid vegetables, were exchanged en masse. Some such cards included instructions for future-telling rituals and games. Though Halloween is still associated with magic today, scary movies have replaced old Halloween fortune-telling rituals, just as trick-or-treating has replaced souling. If only there was a ritual to tell us what kind of new new Halloween traditions will develop in the coming centuries.

 
[Image description: A vintage illustration from a Halloween card, featuring a woman in a starry dress with her arm around a man made of vegetables.] Credit & copyright: Public Domain

It’s nearly Halloween; the perfect time for a tarot reading. Along with ouija boards, tarot cards have long held spooky connotations, and been associated with witches and general mysticism. In the right hands, these beautifully-illustrated cards supposedly have the ability to tell the future and give insight into someone’s life. However, the first tarot cards weren’t intended for fortune-telling at all. Rather, they were playing cards used in a storytelling party game.
 
The history of tarot cards begins in the 14th century, when Mamluks, a class of slave-soldiers who served primarily in Turkey, brought illustrated game cards to Western Europe. By the 1430s, playing cards had grown especially popular in Italy, where aristocrats would sometimes commission personalized decks of illustrated cards. Some of the cards’ illustrations featured mythological figures, while others drew inspiration from ancient Roman triumphs—ceremonies featuring people dressed as allegorical religious figures. The cards were used to play a game similar to modern-day bridge. But they also inspired a more fanciful pastime called “tarocchi appropriate.” In this game, players had to look at the symbols and figures on a random hand of cards and use them to write a poem about their fellow players. Interpreting the cards’ illustrations, which were purposefully elaborate, quickly became the preferred way to play with the cards. This practice slowly morphed into fortune-telling. At the same time, not all fortune-tellers used tarot cards. Many performed cartomancy, or card divination, with simple playing cards similar to ones used in blackjack and poker today.
 
Though tarot cards changed significantly over the years (original decks didn’t include all of the figures or suits found in modern ones) tarot decks today are made up of 78 cards. These are divided into two groups called the minor arcana and the major arcana. The minor arcana consists of 56 cards divided into four suits: cups, swords, wands, and pentacles. The major arcana consists of 22 unnumbered cards, each named for a single figure or attribute. Some examples are The Fool, Strength, and The Star. Some of the cards feature darker themes, such as The Hanged Man and The Devil.
 
In 18th and 19th Century France, outspoken occultists, people with supernatural beliefs outside of organized religion, caused a boom in tarot popularity. One of the most famous tarot celebrities of the time was Jean-Baptiste Alliette, who, some time between 1783 and 1785, published Manner of recreating oneself with the deck of cards named tarots, in which he described how to properly give a tarot reading. However, he also helped spread the false idea that tarot cards were of ancient Egyptian or Jewish origin. In 1789, France outlawed all forms of fortune-telling, including tarot, claiming that such practices were a form of fraud.
 
Despite the rules that Alliette laid out for tarot readings, fortune-telling has always been practiced differently from person to person and place to place. That remains true today. In theory, tarot readings rely on an understanding of each card's meaning. For example, The Fool is usually interpreted to be a positive card, but if it is turned upside down in a reader’s hand, that meaning could change. The suits in tarot have broad meanings that a reader could interpret in a multitude of ways. Generally, wands symbolize creativity, swords symbolize intellect, pentacles symbolize work, and cups symbolize emotion. However, since tarot relies on a readers’ interpretation of the cards, it is possible that two different readers could give two different readings to the same person, even if they drew identical cards. At least everyone can agree that tarot cards are beautiful and mysterious, whether they can tell the future or not.

 
[Image description: Three tarot cards lay beside a purple cloth and a crystal.] Credit & copyright: art-of-joan, Pixabay

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Celebration of the Mind Day, enjoy these curios all about innovation and discovery. 
Where did the Wizard of Menlo Park do his work? In the Invention Factory, of course. Thomas Edison's research and development facility in the tiny town of Menlo Park, New Jersey was the first of its kind—a laboratory whose sole focus was the production of technological innovation. It was home to Edison and his employees during the inventor's most productive period.  

Edison selected Menlo Park for the site of his laboratory because of its proximity to New York City and its cheap land. He purchased 34 acres in 1875 and moved in a year later. The site consisted of a laboratory, a glass house, a carpenter shop, a carbon shed, and a blacksmith shop.  

In just eight years, Edison applied for about 400 patents. Among the most influential: the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and a dynamic microphone mouthpiece for telephones. In 1886, the team outgrew the Invention Factory and moved to a larger compound in West Orange, New Jersey, where Edison lived and worked until his death.  

Unfortunately, the Invention Factory wasn't well cared for in the years following Edison's occupancy. The lab building was converted to a dance hall, and later became a chicken farm. It was only in 1929 that efforts to preserve the historic site materialized, thanks to fellow inventor Henry Ford. With Edison's blessing, Ford constructed a replica of the original lab in Dearborn, Michigan (where Ford Motors is headquartered). Edison died in '31, but the replica lab is still standing. Proof that great ideas live on, long after the thinker is gone.

She’s surely the world’s most misquoted monarch. Marie-Antoinette, who was executed on this day in 1793, is often portrayed as an extravagant, out-of-touch woman who got her comeuppance during the French Revolution. However, history shows that Antoinette may have been more a victim of smear campaigns than a true villainess, even if she did lead a life of excess.
 
Born Maria Antonia on November 2, 1755, at the Hofburg Palace in Austria, Antoinette’s mother was Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire. Theresa wanted to forge a strong connection between France and Austria, since the two monarchies had formerly been enemies and their alliance was relatively new. When Antoinette was just 15 years old, she was married to Louis XVI, the 16-year-old future king of France.
 
Unfortunately for Antoinette, not everyone in France’s upper-class approved of their country’s allegiance with Austria, making her a target for gossip. Her talents for singing and dancing earned her both praise and scorn, since some believed that it was vulgar for a Queen to perform music in public. At the same time, everyday French people were growing increasingly dissatisfied with their government. French society was organized into an Estate System in which upper-class people (or the First and Second Estates) were rich and powerful, while the common people in the Third Estate faced poverty, high taxes, and frequent food shortages. The American Revolution, in which France had helped American colonists fight the British monarchy, made many French people question the need for monarchs. The war had also plunged France into debt.
 
It was natural, then, that Marie Antoinette’s expensive tastes didn’t sit well with the French people. Propaganda pamphlets about her began circulating. While some of the allegations against her were almost certainly false (such as claims that she frequently cheated on the king) others were true, such as the fact that she wore flour-powdered wigs while the country suffered from flour shortages. It should be noted, though, that there’s no record of Marie Antoinette saying “let them eat cake” when told that commoners had no bread. The phrase “let them eat cake” first appeared in philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings in 1766, when Antoinette was a child. Still, commoners came to blame nearly all of the country’s problems on her. In 1783, Antoinette commissioned a hameau, or fake village, to be built at the Château de Versailles. There, Antoinette and her friends dressed up as peasants, milking goats and picking food which was grown by real farmers employed by the royal family. Understandably, French commoners didn’t take kindly to their queen pretending to be poor while surrounded by royal luxuries. However, no public scandal was quite as damaging to Antoinette’s reputation as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, in 1785. According to accusers, Antoinette defrauded a royal jeweler by refusing to pay for an elaborate diamond necklace. In truth, a thief named Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy had forged letters and signatures from Antoinette so that she could procure and sell the necklace. The scheme was eventually found out, and the royal family held a trial at which Jeanne was convicted. However, the court of public opinion had already found Antoinette guilty.
 
By the time the French Revolution swung into full gear in 1789, Antoinette and Louis XVI had had four children and adopted two more, yet the strength of the monarchy was clearly failing. On July 14 of that year, revolutionaries stormed and seized control of the Bastille, an armory and political prison that symbolized royal power. On October 5, 7,000 people marched on the royal palace at Versailles and demanded that the royal family return to Paris. Once there, they were placed under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace. Things only got worse for the royals when they attempted to escape to Austria, but were caught along the way. Louis XVI was put on trial for treason after his return to France. On 21 January, 1793, the former king was put to death by the new revolutionary government, the National Convention. Antoinette soon underwent her own trial. It was hardly a fair ordeal, and many of the charges against her were outlandish. She was accused of organizing orgies, plotting to kill a a legion of Swiss guards (even though she’d been imprisoned at the time of their killing) and even sexually abusing her own son. As expected, she was found guilty on October 16, 1793. That same day, she was sent to the guillotine.
 
Marie Antoinette’s name is still synonymous with the idea of excess and unfettered luxury. Yet, she may be best understood as a monarch in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a convenient scapegoat for a revolution that, while bloody, changed the nature of world governments forever.

 
[Image description: A painted portrait showing Marie-Antoinette in an elaborate blue gown with one hand resting on a globe.] Credit & copyright: Martin D'agoty, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Anyone alive at the time would agree: 1347 wasn’t a good year. Rather, it was the year that The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague or Black Plague, was first recorded. With a death toll between 75 to 200 million, The Black Death was one of the deadliest recorded events in human history. Its spread caused years of political turmoil, unjust persecutions, and general misery in Western Eurasia and North Africa.
 
Today, the word “plague” is often used interchangeably with “pandemic.” But for a long period of history, “plague” usually referenced three specific infectious diseases caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. The most common of these is bubonic plague, which causes swollen lymph nodes, or "buboes.” Despite a consistent rumor that The Black Death was spread by rats, it was most often spread by fleas. Rats were the ones who harbored the bacteria in their bloodstreams, though, and brought the fleas close to humans. Once someone was infected, the bacteria then spread from person to person. Bubonic plague causes a host of terrible symptoms, including chills and fever in early stages, and hemorrhaging lymph nodes and gangrene in later stages. Tissue killed by gangrene turns black, hence the Black Death moniker. Although bubonic plague has not been fully eradicated, it is considered rare today, and it can be successfully treated with antibiotics.
 
Unfortunately, when The Black Death was first reported in Crimea in 1347, living conditions were poor for the majority of people, and humanity was over 300 years away from discovering bacteria. The pandemic began in earnest when Kipchak khan Janibeg, ruler of a nomadic empire called The Golden Horde, lost most of his army to an outbreak of bubonic plague while he was attacking the trading port of Kaffa, in Crimea. Rather than retreat, he launched the bodies of his soldiers into Kaffa to infect those he was fighting. From Kaffa, fleas from the soldiers’ bodies spread through the Mediterranean via trade ships, infecting large cities like Sicily and then spreading throughout Europe. Clearly, biological warfare never leads to anything positive.
 
In the years following the initial outbreaks, large cities and towns were hit hardest by The Black Death. This was mainly due to massive overcrowding, which allowed just a few fleas to infect entire households. Rats were also more common in populated areas. With so many people falling ill, normalcy in many parts of Europe collapsed. A shortage of laborers left farmland uncultivated, which not only led to food shortages but threatened the entire economy, since farmers rarely owned the land they worked on, and instead “paid” to remain there through their labor. The Black Death forced landowners to pay their tenants in money, and some other types of laborers saw increases in their pay, though their living conditions hardly improved. Another problem facing populated areas was how to deal with the bodies of plague victims. Cities and towns took to paying peasants to cart the bodies away daily, usually to mass graves in the surrounding countryside.
 
No one had any way of knowing what caused The Black Death. As such, wild theories abounded. Some blamed the pandemic on “bad air”, also known as miasma. Others believed it was a supernatural punishment. Unfortunately, some theories evolved into full-blown conspiracies, with deadly consequences. Anti-semitism was already rampant in many parts of Europe by the time The Black Death struck, leading to accusations that Jewish people had poisoned well water to spread disease. Several massacres of Jewish people, known as The Black Death Persecutions, followed. The deadliest of these took place on February 14, 1349, when 2,000 Jews were burned to death in Strasbourg, France.
 
No treatments existed for the bubonic plague at the time of The Black Death, but people were desperate for medicine. Plague doctors, with their bird-like masks, became an enduring symbol of the pandemic. The “beaks” of these masks were filled with herbs to prevent the “doctors” from inhaling bad air. Many plague doctors had little to no medical training, and the treatments they offered, such as bloodletting, were not effective.
 
The Black Death killed nearly one third of Europe’s population, including some of its royalty, such as King Alfonso XI of Castile and King Edward III’s daughter, Joan. It was only natural that the pandemic left an indelible cultural mark. For years afterward, death was a common theme in literature, poetry, and visual art throughout Europe. Even today, nearly 700 years later, The Black Death is still referenced in pop culture and comparisons are drawn between it and modern pandemics. We’re pretty confident that COVID-19 won’t reach this level, though.

 
[Image description: An illustration from 1353 showing people carrying and burying caskets of plague victims.] Credit & copyright: Pierart dou Tielt, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mace, cloves. That’s all there is to the ultimate blend of fall flavor: pumpkin spice. (Unless you count the chemical blend found in Starbucks’ famed pumpkin spice latte, which we’ve written about before.) But how did the blend come to be, and how did these particular spices, some of which can only be grown on Indonesian islands, become so strongly associated with autumn in North America?
 
The answer begins with European colonization in Asia, and the world’s first multinational corporation: the Dutch East India Company. Established in 1602, the Dutch East India Company was given a 21-year monopoly over trade in Asia by the States General of the Netherlands. This gave the company access to a multitude of goods that no one else in Europe could procure–the most popular of which were spices. In fact, the Dutch took full control of a group of islands where spices were plentiful, the Maluku Islands in east Indonesia, and dubbed them the “spice islands.” The islands’ location was hidden from the rest of the world, which helped make the Dutch East India Company one of the most successful businesses on earth. It was even the first company to ever issue stocks. Within a decade, the Dutch had created a popular spice blend called speculaaskruiden, or “gingerbread spices”, in English. As the name suggests, the blend became a popular seasoning for gingerbread, which was traditionally made in the fall and winter. It was also used to flavor speculaas, also known as spiced bread or “windmill cookies.” these shortbread biscuits were traditionally eaten in the Netherlands around St. Nicholas’ Day, in early December. While speculaaskruiden contained some ingredients also found in modern pumpkin spice, like cinnamon and cloves, it also included white pepper and cardamom, making it an arguably “spicier” spice.
 
The mellowing out of speculaaskruiden (aka its transformation into what we think of as pumpkin spice) began with the British colonization of North America. Native Americans grew many varieties of squash, including pumpkins. Pumpkins’ resistance to cold and most insects made them attractive to European colonists. Pumpkins’ inner flesh could be cooked and mashed, like potatoes. Hollowed pumpkins were sometimes filled with spiced milk and cooked directly over open fires. Soon, pumpkins became a popular export to England, where people had been creating pastries with both sweet and savory fillings for centuries. While pumpkin on its own was a fairly savory dish, bakers quickly discovered that the squash paired well with local British derivatives of the Dutch speculaaskruiden mix. Pumpkin pies quickly became popular, as did the spice mix used to flavor them. Since the spices were associated with autumn thanks to their long-held role in gingerbread and shortbread, and pumpkins were associated with America, it made sense that by the time Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, pumpkin pie was seen as an autumnal, American staple.
 
It wasn’t until 1934 that American spice company McCormick officially coined the term “pumpkin pie spice” while selling their own version of the blend. The name quickly spread beyond McCormick, though, and was shortened to today’s better-known“pumpkin spice” as companies began adding it to teas and mass-produced pastries. Starbucks’ famous pumpkin spice latte was released in 2003, and its popularity set off a modern pumpkin spice trend that has yet to fade. These days, pumpkin spice can be found in just about anything you can think of each autumn, from the traditional (pies, scones) to the surprising (chocolates, marshmallows) to the questionable (potato chips). Hey, why not branch out a bit this fall?

 
[Image description: Steam rises from pumpkin-shaped mugs.] Credit & copyright: JillWellington, Pixabay