It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
One consequence of the expansion of European colonialism in the 17th and 18th centuries was that many Europeans came into closer contact with African peoples as the slave trade boomed alongside the plantations of the West Indies and the American colonies. With European planters and their slaves living in close proximity, it was inevitable that …
Soap, in some form or other, has been used by humans for millennia, with the oldest surviving products dating back to the ancient Babylonian period. Come the Industrial Revolution and the growth of mass consumption, distinct brands were formulated and aggressively marketed. Yet how could an advertisement for something as everyday as soap possibly be …
The use of airborne leaflet propaganda during times of conflict was first seen in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, when the defenders of Paris dropped leaflets over the besieging German troops from a hot air balloon, proclaiming their defiance. However, hot air balloons and the like were slow and unwieldy, and it wasn't until the First …