by Lindsay Shapka in Discovey, History, Travel
What is the Grand Tour?
Long before Contiki Tour busses started carting tourists around Europe at breakneck speed — beginning in the late sixteenth century to be exact — young aristocrats from England, Germany, Scandinavia, and America started travelling to Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome as a way to round out their classical educations. This practice came to be known at the Grand Tour of Europe.
Read Moreby Lindsay Shapka in Travel, History, Discovey
An iconic piece of London's history for more than 150 years (and a major tourist attraction), the Elizabeth Tower, known to many as Big Ben ('Big Ben' is actually the name of the bell, not the tower itself), may soon fall silent.
Read Moreby Lindsay Shapka in culture, Discovey, History
In the fall of 2012, a team of archeologists from the University of Leicester discovered a skeleton under one of the town's parking lots. Shockingly, the skeleton turned out to be the lost remains in King Richard III who had been killed in battle in 1485!
Read Moreby Lindsay Shapka in History, culture
Ring Around the Rosie (or Ring-a-Ring o'Roses if you are from the UK) is a nursery rhyme that many of us have recited on the playground at one time or another. Though it has been part of the Mother Goose collection of folksongs since 1881, this rhyme may have been recited as early as the 1790s all over Europe, and has a pretty dark history.
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