Retirement planning might seem like a thoroughly modern concern, with pensions, investments and annuities forming part of today’s financial toolkit. But these financial tools are much older than they appear. In the later Middle Ages, people were already exchanging lump sums for steady income streams – and, in cities like Vienna, these arrangements underpinned entire […]
In the renowned Holocaust documentary, Shoah (1985), former SS guard Franz Suchomel sings a song prisoners had to perform in the Treblinka death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. After finishing the last line, he chillingly asks the director, Claude Lanzmann: “Satisfied? That’s unique. No Jew knows that today!” More than 30 years before, in 1945, Yehuda […]
Bona Sforza was one of the most remarkable women of Renaissance Europe. Born into one of Italy’s leading ruling families and connected to figures such as Lucrezia Borgia through the tangled politics of Italian dynasties, she became queen consort of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania. More than a royal bride, she brought to Poland […]
