For 615 years, Lausanne's designated night watchman has called out the hour from the bell tower of Lausanne's cathedral and assured the townspeople that all is well. From his watchtower atop the 153 stone steps of the cathedral belfry, he emerges every hour from 10PM to 2AM, cups his hands around his mouth and cries the hour to each cardinal direction: “This is the watchman! The bell has rung [whatever the hour is]!”

The tradition was [...]

Mind Your Language

Paul Lay

Historians should remind themselves that quantity and quality are often very different things. [...]

Author: Summary:

An outsider's observations from the moments before China's Cultural Revolution.

The Communist's Holiday [...]

Here's a follow-up post that's been almost a decade in coming and is all the richer from the long wait. The original story reported in 2011 was about the discovery of human, animal and material remains in the Tollense Valley of northern Germany strongly suggesting a major Bronze Age battle had taken place nearby. This was the first evidence of a battle from this period, perhaps even the earliest ever found.

[...]

Archaeologists have discovered an impressively large mammoth tusk in the Bavarian town of Riekofen. The team was expecting to find remains of the 15th century town so the discovery of mammoth remains from the Ice Age came as a surprise. The tusk has yet to be radiocarbon dated, but mammoths went extinct in what is now Bavaria about 20,000 years ago.

At a length of eight feet, the [...]