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Jul 6, 2022 14 tweets 4 min read Read on X
If you study these 13 maps for just a couple of minutes each, you'll understand history much better.

Starting with... the migrations of prehistoric humanity. Image
Ancient Mesopotamia

The cradle of human civilisation. Writing, the wheel, and cities are just a few of the inventions we owe to the people of Sumer, Assyria, and Akkad. Image
The Bronze Age Collapse

A pivotal and mysterious moment in history, when much of the known world order imploded. Image
Ancient Greece

It wasn't a country - it was a collection of culturally aligned (but highly differing!) city-states with varying political structures. Image
The Conquests of Alexander the Great

From Macedonia to the Indus River Valley, history's greatest conqueror left a blazing trail across the known world. Image
Where were the books of the Bible written?

In many different places, centuries apart. This gives you some idea of the true scale of the Bible. Image
The Provinces of the Roman Empire

If you know the ancient names by which modern places were known, it will make reading Roman history much more enjoyable and understandable. Image
Ancient Rome itself. Image
Ancient India

A sorely unappreciated historical era. Image
The Crusades

You've heard about them, but now you can see where they came from, where they went, and how they got there. Image
The expansion of the Ottoman Empire

The growth of one of the first truly pluralistic empires, spanning three continents and lasting for over six centuries. Image
Pre-Colonial Africa

A vitally important map which isn't studied enough. Image
Europe on the eve of the First World War

Before the Old World tore itself to pieces. Nothing would ever be the same again. Image
These maps are far from a definitive list.

Rather, they're aimed at providing some general context of time and place.

Once you've got a basic framework of date and location in mind, history starts to make much more sense.

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More from @culturaltutor

May 16
126 years ago today the most stylish painter in history was born.

She was called Tamara de Lempicka and everything about her life and art embodied the spirit of the 1920s.

If you like Art Deco, you'll love Tamara de Lempicka... Image
Tamara Gurwik-Górska was born on 16th May 1898 in Warsaw, Poland. Her father was a lawyer and her mother a socialite.

Her rebelliousness was clear from the start — at the age of ten, dissatisified with the work of a family portraitist, she redid it herself.

As she later said: Image
After dropping out of her Swiss boarding school she travelled to St Petersburg and married a lawyer, Tadeusz Łempicki.

But everything changed with the Russian Revolution of 1917.

She managed to get Tadeusz, who had been arrested, out of prison — the family then fled to Paris.
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May 15
In 1872 the first international football match was held at a cricket ground with 4,000 fans.

78 years later, during the 1950 World Cup, nearly 200,000 people watched Brazil play Uruguay at the Maracanã.

This is the story of how football stadiums have evolved... Image
The first sports stadiums were built by the Ancient Greeks.

But it was the Romans who perfected the art of building arenas.

The Colosseum is their most famous, built at the end of the 1st century AD, with an impressive capacity of over 60,000. Image
There were other arenas all around the Roman Empire, from Arles in France to Verona in Italy and Pula in Croatia.

They were built with concrete and bricks but faced with marble and decorated with rows of arcades and carved capitals.

Functionality and aesthetics united. Image
Read 24 tweets
May 13
The Buzludzha Monument in Bulgaria is one of the world's strangest buildings.

It's a sort of concrete UFO in the mountains which has been totally abandoned since 1989.

And it also represents one of the strangest architectural movements in history... Image
The Buzludzha Monument was built as the ceremonial headquarters of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

Designed by Georgi Stoilov, construction started in 1974 and it was completed in 1981.

The monument is supposed to represent a laurel wreath next to a flagpole. Image
Its location is of huge importance in Bulgarian history.

In 1868 a rebel called Hadzhi Dimitar fought his final battle against the Ottoman Empire there.

And nearby, in 1877-78, the Battle of Shipka Pass took place — a crucial moment during the Liberation of Bulgaria. The Defence of the Eagle's Nest by Alexey Popov (1893)
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May 12
You can learn a lot about history just by looking at the words we use.

Like algorithm, which is descended from the name of a 9th century Persian polymath called al-Khwarizmi.

So, from romantic to cynical, here are the strange stories behind 12 incredibly normal words... Image
1. Left Wing and Right Wing

In the French Assembly, after the revolution of 1789, supporters of the monarchy (i.e. conservatives) sat to the right of President and supporters of the new regime (i.e. progressives) sat to his left.

A literal meaning that became ideological. The Legislative Assembly in the Salle du Manège, August 1792 by Louis-Joseph Masquelier
2. Romance/Romantic

During the Middle Ages Latin was the language of the church, but not of regular people.

In France they spoke Old French, which originated in Latin but had changed a lot.

So it was called a "Romance" language because it wad descended from the Romans.
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May 10
This is the Chapel del Rosario in Puebla, Mexico.

When it was finished 334 years ago they called it the Eighth Wonder of the World.

See, people usually associate Baroque Architecture with Europe, but some of the best Baroque is in Latin America... Image
Baroque is one of the most distinctive styles of architecture — you know it when you see it.

Extravagant, opulent, maximalist, and full of movement.

It is defined by curved rather than straight lines, lavish decorations, and large, open spaces. Karlskirche, Vienna
If one motif sums up the Baroque it is probably the "Solomonic Column", a type of twisted column that became popular during the rise of Baroque Architecture.

They were used by Gianlorenzo Bernini for his colossal bronze baldachin at St Peter's Basilica, Rome: Image
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May 9
An introduction to Johannes Vermeer: Image
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is considered one of history's greatest painters — but during his lifetime he wasn't known beyond Delft, his hometown.

He lived during the Dutch Golden Age, which was an era of cultural, political, and economic flourishing in the Netherlands. View of Delft (1660)
Vermeer, like many of his Dutch contemporaries, was an expert in so-called "genre paintings."

These were ordinary subjects based on everyday life rather than scenes drawn from religion, history, or mythology. The Music Lesson (1662–1665)
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