[History Mixery] St. John's Dance, Henry VIII, and Picasso

The following feature, memorable to some and completely new to others, started as a way to fuse separate areas of interest into one enjoyable post. It's been exactly a year since I let History Mixery go dormant, but 365 days and two academic semesters later.. I'm bringing it back with some added credibility via my May attained B.A. in history. Enough small talk though, there are things to be learned and songs to played! Onward ho!

---

Living during an era of societal collapse, such as The Dark Ages, would've been a tough life to endure - if not nearly soul crushing. Perhaps the largest contributor of darkness to those times was the notorious bubonic plague, ravaging Western Europe in the 1300s and killing some 200 million people. Yet, perhaps one of my favorite eccentricities found during the Dark Ages stems from St. John's Dance. The dancing mania involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, who danced uncontrollably and bizarrely, seemingly possessed by Satan. Indeed, 635 years ago there was one of the largest outbreaks of St. John's Dance in Aachen, Germany. People screamed of visions, hallucinations, and gyrated until they collapsed from exhaustion. The epidemic carried on through the 18^th century - so much for the LSD theory..

[MP3] Cold War Kids - Saint John
[MP3] Dent May - You Can't Force A Dance Party

---

Infamous King Henry VIII, coronated 500 years ago today, is more famously known for being a womanizer than he is the King of England. He was first married at the age of 17 and subsequently went through five additional wives. Henry was extremely fickle when it came to the females, mostly due to his relentless obsession to birth a male heir. If you were incapable of producing a male heir fast enough for impatient Henry you had one of three options: divorce, death by childbirth, or death by decapitation. Anne Boleyn was one of two wives beheaded, even though she gave birth to the historic Queen Elizabeth I. Who knew being the Queen would be such a tough gig?

[MP3] Xavier Rudd - No Woman No Cry
[MP3] Ray LaMontagne - Henry Nearly Killed Me (It's A Shame)

---

An artist's "big break" is typically an interesting part of their legacy, ranging in importance from The Beatles on Ed Sullivan to Kelly Clarkson on American Idol. Everyone has to start somewhere, even artistic legends like Pablo Picasso. It was today, 108 years ago when Picasso held his first art exhibition. When you've got the eye and craft of Picasso, it only takes one domino to cause the rest to fall in historic fashion. Picasso, always the entertainer, died during a dinner party he threw uttering the final words to friends, “Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink any more.”

[MP3] Paul McCartney - Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)
[MP3] I'm From Barcelona - The Painter

---

I forgot how much dorky fun it was to mix some history around, let's do it again next week!

---

Related Posts