History

Sunset across the old town and city walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia

Origins of the Quarantine

The Quarantine began in medieval times when Ragusa (Dubrovnik) started isolating people in the Lazareti. Initially a Trentine, it eventually became the Quarantena via Venice.
Early morning light filtering through the portico columns in Bologna

Porticoes of Bologna

It gets very hot and muggy in Bologna. The Bolognese covered their walkways for miles on end in endless porticoes to solve for this problem. These porticoes are now a UNESCO contender.
Barbed wire along the bluff tops at the Normandy coast, looking towards Omaha Beach

75th Anniversary of D-Day

This June 6th marked the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Two of the most difficult operations carried out on June 6th 1944 were the takeover of Pointe du Hoc and the landing of the first troops at Omaha Beach.…

An idyllic village in Normandy, a few miles away from the D-Day beaches

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

During the Battle of Normandy (Normandie), a staggering 425,000 troops were killed, wounded or went missing. Roughly half of these were Allied troops and the other half German. The Allies also captured an additional 200,000 prisoners of war, whose fate…

Boy and pigeons against the backdrop of Sebilj, Baščaršija, Sarajevo

A Not So Pedestrian Bridge (World War 1)

On the morning of June 25th 1914, Archduke Prince Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent of the mega Austro-Hungarian empire, arrived in Sarajevo to do what heir-apparents of mega-empires do – walk the bazaars, shop, while inaugurating a few monuments. Though there…