Both Spain and Mexico are considered to be very colourful and vibrant countries, yet they also have dark pasts. The brutal dictatorships of Porfirio Díaz in Mexico and Miguel Primo de Rivera in Spain marred the uniquely spirited countries during the 19th and 20th Centuries. The regimes’ mirrored each other in many ways because the Continue Reading
Jazz: A History
Our modern perception of Jazz is considered to have taken form in the streets of New Orleans around the late 19th century, yet its origins can be traced back almost one hundred years earlier to West Africa. With the arrival of the slave trade, a new style of music emerged from Africa which allowed displaced Continue Reading
The Harlem Renaissance
On a quest for self-definition, African Americans in post-WWI America sought a new collective identity for themselves through political mobilisation, social commentary, and a mastery of the arts. The Harlem Renaissance was 1920s Harlem’s artistic and intellectual contribution to this quest, known at the time as the ‘New Negro Movement’. This movement was, in Continue Reading
Thanksgiving Day
Nowadays, Thanksgiving is a national holiday. There’s a parade in New York, and everyone gathers with their families and loved ones to eat turkey, spend time with one another and give thanks. But Thanksgiving hasn’t always been like this. The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Pilgrims from Britain came over Continue Reading
Pocahontas: A Lost Story
Pocahontas is a renowned historical figure, thanks in the most part to the eponymous Disney film that placed her firmly in our historical awareness. Daughter of Powhatan, the leader of an Algonquin tribe, Pocahontas’ life has been sanitised and romanticised to erase any suggestion of the violence of colonialism, from her supposed relationship with John Continue Reading