Due to the new lockdown of the museums, Hibou Pèlerin has been forced to take a compulsory break. He is using this time to read some new publications on cultural history. A brand new world history of the museum by Krzysztof Pomian has him riveted.
About 100 years ago, Carl Zweifel designed a wooden construction kit for children. The toy became a massive bestseller, and was also a valuable educational tool.
With the advent of printing, from the late 15th century onwards printed news reports could be produced and circulated for the masses. In many cases, these reports were composed in the style of today’s tabloid media.
Onanism makes you infertile and sick. This idea expounded by a doctor from Lausanne spread rapidly in the 18th century, and persisted well into the 20th century.
For a long time, we were very reluctant in our part of the world to accept the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. Even the mathematician Fibonacci had trouble convincing people to change their attitude. But the economic benefits were so great that all resistance was abandoned.
Switzerland’s Boy Scouts and Girl Guides have been around for more than 100 years. The organisation’s basic ideas came from the military, and spread rapidly across the globe.
In the late 1960s, Swiss citizens were talking about hair length, education or voting rights for women In a matter of just a few years, society underwent a profound change.
