A Curious Little Blog

Today is Peace of Westphalia day -- the 365th anniversary of the signing of the Peace of Westphalia -- in honour of which I traditionally make a Mazarin cake .  Cardinal Mazarin was the French premier throughout the negotiations leading up to the peace.  Admittedly, I have no evidence that the cake was named after him, but how many other people named Mazarin have you ever heard of? In fact, Mazarin is the namesake of a surprising number of modern items.  There is the Mazarin cut diamond, which is a precursor to the modern brilliant cut; and the Mazarin desk, or " bureau Mazarin ," an early kneehole desk.  He was a renowned collector:   a famous Japanese chest is known as the Mazarin chest because it is believed he owned it, and there is also a " Mazarin Venus ."  He was especially avid about collecting books; the Gutenberg Bible is sometimes known as the Mazarin Bible because it was in his collection.  In fact, his personal library bec...

When I was a graduate student in a military history seminar, a professor once told us about an undergraduate who wanted to do a term paper on how a Roman legion would fare against a Panzer division.  The idea sent me into hysterics as I imagined tanks running over guys armed with swords and shields.  It seemed silly on the face of it to want to make such a comparison; the odds were all on one side. My professor was against the idea more on principle.  He did not think it was useful, or historically valid, to make diachronic comparisons like that.  I can't do justice to his reasoning, because I don't really understand it, and I do not share his beliefs.  I do think comparisons of historical phenomena across time can be useful, and I see no reason why military effectiveness should not be included. Therefore, I was interested to discover the television series " Deadliest Warrior ," which compares weaponry of various famous armies, from modern times (Navy SEALS,...

I'm excited about writing this blog entry because I get to spread the word that today is Peace of Westphalia Day. 361 years ago today, representatives gathered in the town of Münster signed two documents, the Treaty of Onsabrück and the Treaty of Münster, that ended the Thirty Years' War. Not many people celebrate this holiday in the way it deserves, with a full day off from work, lots of decadent food, and reading my books on the subject, but I think that will change once I get the word out and people start to realize what they are missing. Okay, I might be a little biased on the subject. Hardly anyone knows what the Peace of Westphalia is or even what century it occurred in, which means I probably could have picked a better subject to pour my heart and soul into writing a book about. Heck, hardly anyone knows that October 24th is United Nations Day -- the U.N. charter was signed on this day in 1945 -- so I can hardly expect its predecessor by 300 years to catch on. Someo...