"[They] accused him of being too harsh or too lenient; for doing too much or too little; for grasping at power or reliquishing it too easily; for being both a radical republican and a crypto-royalist; for embracing the Revolution and betraying it."

After 3 days, if the wound had healed (or in lenient cases, started to heal), they were deemed innocent.

This fell out of practice in the 13th century after the Pope forbade priests from taking part.
(2/2)

This gradually moved back to 12pm and hence "noon" came to become synonymous with this time. (2/2)

I already thought this, but the visit solidified my view that the Holocaust was the worst thing ever to happen in human history (excluding events from the distant past about which we know little). Nothing else comes close to the sheer scale and systematic nature of it (2/2)

Very nice

Found this book really promising for the rest of the series. Excited for the rest!

It later transformed into "favour" via folk etymology, presumably due to the meaning of the idiom.

Folk etymology is when words are altered to a similar sounding word that is more common in everyday use - there's loads of examples in English (2/2)

It's only with hindsight that the Reconquista was contextualised as part of a national founding story for modern Spain.

This being my latest historical interest as I prepare to visit Spain next month 😉

beginning of the year, leaving behind March as a mildly unimportant month between winter and spring.
(3/3)

to bring it back in line.

The Julian calendar began the new year in January, but Christians celebrated the start of the year on 25th March - the trad date for the conception of Jesus.

It was only with the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century that January became widely adopted as the (2/3)