Easter traditions from around the world 🧵

1. Good Friday at the Amalfi Cathedral, Italy 2. The Scoppio del Carro in Florence, Italy

On Easter Sunday, a cart brimming with fireworks and pyrotechnics is ignited, putting on a historic display.

A successful display is believed to signify a good harvest and continued civic harmony.

Paintings and drawings by J.R.R. Tolkien 🧵

1. Conversation with Smaug, 1937 2. Annotated map of Middle-earth

Inside Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks 🧵

1. Fetus in the womb 2. This iconic drawing, titled "Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk," is believed to be a self-portrait of Leonardo at the age of 60.

The Lord of the Rings art by Ted Nasmith 🧵

1. Shelob 2. Password Into Moria

Thread of ancient wonders reconstructed 🧵

1. The Colosseum, Rome (70–80 AD) 2. The Parthenon, Athens, Greece (447-432 BC)

The most beautiful basilicas on Earth 🧵

1. The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Italy 2. St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

Sketchbooks of legendary artists & writers 🧵

1. Cats, lions, and a dragon - Leonardo da Vinci 2. Studies for the Libyan Sibyl by Michelangelo, 1510–11

Thread of stunning first-edition book covers🧵

1. The Hobbit, drawn by Tolkien himself, 1937 2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925

73% of all women from every class survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Only 19% of men survived. The patriarchy was so horrific they deemed themselves more worthy of a sacrificial death than women and children.

Thread on what famous architectural landmarks would look like if they were restored or completed using drones 🧵

1. Whitby Abbey, England Whitby Abbey, originally a 7th-century Christian monastery, later evolved into a Benedictine abbey.

During the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1545) under Henry VIII, it was seized by the crown.

Today, the ruins are a Grade I Listed site managed by English Heritage.

The greatest love letters ever written 🧵

1. Franz Kafka, letter to Milena, 1920 2. John Keats, from a letter to Fanny Brawne, June 1820

The desks of authors and historical figures 🧵

1. Einstein's desk on the day he died, 1955 2. King Charles Albert’s 1840 desk

One of the finest writing tables of the 19th century, this desk epitomizes royal luxury with its magnificent craftsmanship, exquisite design, and ingenious secret compartments.

This morning was the 73rd National Prayer Breakfast. One of the most unforgettable speeches in history took place at this event in 1994.

The speaker, was Saint Mother Teresa. To her right were the Clinton’s. To her left the Gore’s.

5 Unforgettable quotes from her speech 🧵 1) “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.“

The most beautiful monasteries on Earth 🧵

1. Ostrog Monastery, Montenegro 2. San Galgano, Italy, has its roof open to the heavens

It was supposed to be a simple letter for his diocese in Nebraska. The goal was to provide a clear vision for education.

It accomplished that. It also became the new Magna Carta for Catholic education in the 21st-century.

10 chilling quotes from Bishop Conley’s viral letter. 1) “Every student is made for holiness, made to become a saint.”

The notebooks of great thinkers 🧵

1. Drawings from Leonardo da Vinci's notebook 2. Marie Curie passed away from aplastic anemia on July 4, 1934, due to prolonged exposure to radiation during her research.

Even today, her laboratory notebook from 1899–1902 is radioactive and will remain so for the next 1,500 years.

Thread of religious wonders so surreal you won't believe they exist 🧵

1. Abuna Yemata Guh, Ethiopia 2. Sumela Monastery, Turkey (386 AD)

The handwriting of famous authors - thread 🧵

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky's manuscript draft of The Brothers Karamazov 2. Feeling down? Imagine being the editor who found this James Joyce-revised manuscript waiting in the mailbox.

In 1987 America was shocked by the release of The Closing of The American Mind.

Bloom was the first to say out-loud what many already knew.

10 chilling quotes from The Closing of the American Mind. 🧵 1) We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.

Notre Dame de Paris’s reopening drew global attention, with figures like Trump, Musk, and Prince William—neither French nor Catholic—honoring a monument that transcends its physical form.

If you haven’t read my article with @KevinRobertsTX yet here’s a brief 🧵 and a link to it The fervor surrounding Notre Dame’s resurrection is not rooted in mere Francophilia or admiration for Gothic architecture.

Something much deeper is at play here, as Notre Dame has always symbolized more than just a building.

The world’s most beautiful Nativity Scenes 🧵

1. The Christmas Nativity at the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal, Canada 2. Manarola, Italy

This majestic Nativity Scene transforms the Cinque Terre hillsides into a luminous tableau of over 300 figures celebrating the Christmas story.