Today is World Chocolate Day, a celebration of humanity’s sweetest obsession.
Chocolate is a 4,000-year-old story of culture, conquest, and creativity.
Let’s unwrap its history, shall we? 🧵 🍫
Chocolate begins in Mesoamerica, where the Olmecs (c. 1500 BC) first cultivated cacao. The Maya called it ka’kau’, a sacred drink for gods and kings. Bitter, frothy, and spiked with chili, it was no candy bar.
The Aztecs took it further, using cacao beans as currency. One bean could buy a tamale, 100 could get you a turkey. Montezuma II reportedly drank 50 cups a day. Chocolate was power, wealth, and ritual in one.
The Greatest Archaeological Discoveries in Europe 🏛️
What lies beneath our feet?
Let’s unearth 12 of the most astonishing finds from the past century 🧵👇
1. Must Farm (2015, England)
A 3,000-year-old village in Cambridgeshire’s fens burned and sank into a river, preserving everything.
2. Pavlopetri (1967, Greece)
Off Laconia’s coast lies the world’s oldest submerged city, 5,000 years old. Streets, homes, and tombs mapped underwater. A Bronze Age port that traded across the Mediterranean.
Antoni Gaudí was born 173 years ago today. His buildings are living dreams carved in stone.
Let’s walk through the gems of this Catalan visionary. 🧵 👇
1. Casa Vicens (1883) was Gaudí’s first major work. A private home, its colorful tiles and floral ironwork burst with Moorish and natural motifs. It’s a bold debut that screams originality.
2. Palau Güell (1888) was Gaudí’s gift to patron Eusebi Güell. Its dark arches and twisted iron gates feel like a gothic underworld.
Born 177 years ago today, Paul Gauguin fled civilization for paradise, only to find beauty and darkness in equal measure.
His life was a canvas of controversy and moral shadow.
(a thread 🧵 )
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7, 1848, but his early years were anything but ordinary. His family fled France for Peru after Napoleon III’s coup, living in Lima’s tropical splendor until his father’s death.
This early taste of the exotic would forever haunt his art.
Back in France, Gauguin lived a conventional life at first: a stockbroker with a wife and five kids.
But beneath the surface, he was restless.
He painted on weekends, mentored by Camille Pissarro, absorbing Impressionism’s light and color but craving something deeper.