Ring Around The Rosie, The Plague, and The Black Death

by Lindsay Shapka in ,


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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Exploring The Empire of Death: Your Guide to The Paris Catacombs

by Lindsay Shapka in , , ,


After taking 130 spiraling steps 20 meters below the streets of Paris, I found myself on the verge of my very first panic attack.

I had never felt the fear of claustrophobia before, but I was pretty sure that it was the reason why I couldn’t catch my breath.

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Greek, White and Blue: Why Are the Buildings in Greece Painted White and Blue?

by Lindsay Shapka in , , ,


If I were to ask you to close your eyes and picture the Greek Islands, what would you see?

White sand? Feta cheese? Brad Pitt dressed as Achilles?

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When This Was A School, Nobody Died: Visiting The Tuol Sleng Museum in Cambodia

by Lindsay Shapka in , , ,


In 1975, the Khmer Rouge — one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century — took over Cambodia.

Led by Pol Pot, the regime forced the Cambodian people to work on collective farms and labor projects, as a form of agrarian communism. Sympathetic to the peasants, they killed all who they deemed to be “New People,” or those who lived in the city at the time of their take over.

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Reads For The Road: "Loot — The Battle Over The Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World" by Sharon Waxman

by Lindsay Shapka in , , , ,


In most of the bookstores I walk into, the art history section is pretty lean. There are a lot of large-scale glossy photo books with the standard famous works of art in them, but not much that is critical, new, or honest.

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