Articles about the origins of cultural traditions, celebrations, and customs
Anglo-Saxon elves who caused illness, dwarves who forged the gods' treasures, an orc that appears once in a manuscript, and a hobbit born in 1937. How did four beings of such different ages end up as one standard template through Tolkien and D&D?
How has the story of crossing into another world changed, from Urashima Tarō and The Wizard of Oz to web-novel reincarnation tales? A look at why protagonists who once always came home no longer go back.
Men's shirts button on the right, women's on the left — but why? This article tests the popular theories (sword-drawing, servants dressing wealthy women) against the historical record, traces the convention to 19th–20th century ready-to-wear manufacturing, and turns to East Asia, where the same left/right divide in clothing marked not gender but civilization and even the line between the living and the dead — in China's right/left lapel tradition, Japan's kimono, and Korea's hanbok.
The carousel began as a cavalry training device for spearing rings at a gallop. The Ferris wheel grew out of a hand-cranked pleasure wheel at an Ottoman fair, recorded by an English traveler in 1620. The roller coaster evolved from a Russian court's winter ice slide. This article traces how each ride in the modern amusement park started out built for something else entirely, and only became a machine for play once it lost its original job.
From a natural spring in the Danish woods in 1583 to Vienna's imperial hunting grounds, Copenhagen's Tivoli, and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, all the way to Disneyland in 1955—the space itself was never originally designed for amusement either. Here's how a spring, a hunting ground, and a fairground entertainment strip became the modern theme park.