What Your Ice Cream Says About You

July is National Ice Cream Month.  And, in addition to that, there are several individual days devoted to ice cream:  July 1 is Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day, July 7 is National Strawberry Sundae Day, July 13 is National Nitrogen Ice Cream Day, July 17 is Peach Ice Cream Day, the third Sunday in July is National Ice Cream Day, July 20 is National Ice Cream Soda Day, and July 23 is Vanilla Ice Cream Day. So, as you can see, the month of July devotes lots of time to ice cream.

For millions and millions of people around the world, ice cream is THE favorite treat.  What used to be the three basics of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry have become what seems like millions of flavors.

And guess what (surprise surprise)—someone did a study of what your favorite flavor says about you.  And also guess what (again, surprise surprise)—I'm going to share that information with you along with some miscellaneous tidbits about ice cream trivia.

If your favorite is chocolate you're more likely to be dramatic, lively, charming, flirtatious, seductive and gullible.

If your favorite is vanilla you're more likely to be impulsive, easily suggestible and an idealist.

If your favorite is strawberry you're more likely to be tolerant, devoted and introverted.

If your favorite is chocolate chip you're more likely to be generous, competent and a go-getter.

If your favorite is chocolate chip cookie dough you're more likely to be ambitious, competitive and a visionary.

If your favorite is rocky road you're more likely to be aggressive, engaging and a good listener.

If your favorite is mint chocolate chip you're more likely to be argumentative, frugal and cautious.

If your favorite is pralines 'n cream you're more likely to be loving, supportive and prefer to avoid the spotlight.

If your favorite is jamoca you're more likely to be scrupulous, conscientious and a moral perfectionist.

If your favorite is rainbow sherbet you're more likely to be analytic, decisive and pessimistic.

Where did ice cream come from?

The true origins of ice cream are unknown, but early versions of iced treats date back to the second century B.C. to Alexander The Great who liked to top snow and ice with honey and nectar.

Ice cream used to be for the rich only.

In the early 1800s, before refrigeration became widely available, ice cream was very expensive.  Only the elite could afford such a luxury.  Today, the average American consumes 48 pints of ice cream a year.

Which city and state eats the most ice cream?

According to a survey, Washington D.C. is the most ice cream crazy place in America with its residents eating 85% more than the national average per person.  Rhode Island was in second place and Wisconsin was third.

What is the most popular ice cream flavor?

According to the International Ice Cream Association, vanilla is the most popular flavor at 29% with chocolate second with 9%.

Needless to say, there are lots of flavors not represented on this list of favorites.  I'm a long time chocolate fan, but I came across an ice cream a while back that just blew my mind…Godiva white chocolate raspberry swirl which is something like a million calories per pint  :).

So, there you have it.  My tribute to National Ice Cream Month. 

12 Offbeat American Museums

Museums…we've all been to them whether in our home town or on our travels. And there are all types of museums housing and displaying treasures depicting so many different themes. There are art museums presenting all types of art from the paintings of the old masters to modern art and all varieties in between, museums dedicated to specific historical events and times, living history museums including live demonstrations and presenters in period costumes, museums of cultural relevance, and museums such as those of the Smithsonian that cover just about everything from fossils millions of years old to space travel.

I came across a couple of lists for offbeat and weird museum that I've combined into one list of 12 offbeat museums, presented here in no particular order. I checked and all of these have valid websites.

Tenement Museum

Located in the heart of New York City's Lower East Side, the Tenement Museum pays homage to New York's immigrants. It traces the history of a single tenement building constructed in 1863 and located at 97 Orchard Street. From the outside it doesn't look any different from any other building in the area, but inside is the story of the waves of immigrants arriving in the United States in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The building was condemned in 1935, which is where the museum's focus ends.

National Museum of Funeral History

This Houston, Texas, museum was founded in 1992 and claims that "any day above ground is a good one." The museum's mission is to preserve the heritage of the funeral industry. They offer exhibits such as a full-scale replica of Pope John Paul II's crypt, a 1900s casket factory, and a Civil War embalming diorama.

Leila's Hair Museum

This Independence, Missouri, museum is dedicated to…you guessed it…hair. According to the museum, in Victorian times it was popular to make wreaths, jewelry and other ornamentations out of human hair and Leila's Hair Museum keeps the tradition alive. Visitors can see many wreaths and over 2000 pieces of jewelry containing or made of human hair that dates back before 1900.

Mutter Museum

This Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, museum is probably the best known of those on this list. I've seen it in show segments in the Mysteries At The Museum series on the Travel Channel. It's a museum of medical oddities and specimens such as Grover Cleveland's tumor, a conjoined liver from Siamese twins, a slide of a murderer's brain, a woman who turned to wax after death.

SPAM Museum

And I'm not talking about unwanted email. This Austin, Minnesota, museum is dedicated to SPAM, often heralded as America's favorite canned meat. The Hormel company created SPAM in 1937. Museum visitors can practice canning SPAM and brush up on SPAM trivia including its role in World War II.

The Museum Of Bad Art

Good art can be found anywhere, but bad art? That's a whole different thing. This museum, founded in 1993, has three Massachusetts locations—Dedham, Somerville, and Brookline and is "dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition, and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory."

Devil's Rope Museum

This McLean, Texas, museum was founded in 1991 and is the largest barbed wire museum in the world. Appropriately nicknamed devil's rope, the barbed wire museum gives the history of barbed wire, shows artifacts, the significance of the invention, and the impact on the development of the Old West.

The National Museum of Crime and Punishment

Located in Washington D.C. and opened in 2008, the museum contains artifacts and interactive exhibits including an FBI shooting range, high speed police chase simulator, and various forensics techniques. There are also historical exhibits, forensics workshops, and CSI summer camps for teens.

There are several museums dedicated to this topic. Our fascination with crime and forensics is obvious. Just check out the number of television shows—both entertainment programs and documentary style programs—that deal with solving crime using forensics, all the cold cases that have been solved, and wrongly convicted people released from prison since DNA testing became part of our daily reality.

Spark Museum Of Electrical Invention

Located in Bellingham, Washington, the museum has been around in various stages since 1985 and moved to its current home in 2001. You'll find lots of gadgets and complicated objects that look like they came out of a steam punk scenario but in reality changed the course of history and modern life, items paying tribute to Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Enrico Marconi and Nikola Tesla.

The Neon Museum

Located in Las Vegas, Nevada, the museum houses the neon signs no longer being used by casinos, chapels, restaurants, and other businesses. Vegas' iconic art used to be sent to the scrap yard. In 1996, the non-profit Neon Museum began preserving the city's legacy in a three acre lot referred to as Neon Boneyard. The museum has assembled an outdoor gallery along the east end of Fremont Street and is available free to the public 24 hours a day.

American Visionary Art Museum

Located in Baltimore, Maryland, this innovative museum houses such oddities as an enormous ball made out of more than 18,000 bras, a replica of the ill-fated Lusitania constructed of nearly 200,000 toothpicks, a floor mat created out of hundreds of toothbrushes, an extensive Pez collection, and sculptures made from Styrofoam cups. In the spring the museum hosts the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race where entrants create wacky sculptures that travel on both land and sea.

The International UFO Museum And Research Center

Located in Roswell, New Mexico (obviously), it is the result of the famous (or infamous) UFO crash in Roswell in 1947. At first identified as a UFO by the Air Force, they quickly recanted and declared it a downed weather balloon thus beginning decades of cover-up accusations. The furor finally died down until 1978 when a UFO researcher started interviewing locals who claimed to have seen the debris and said it was part of an extraterrestrial craft. From that, the stories expanded and Roswell became the world's most famous UFO crash.

Have you come across any odd or unusual museums in your travels? 

10 AWESOME MUSEUMS NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Museums—those public and private repositories of anything and everything that might be of interest to someone. Collections open to the public to enjoy and those that educate.  They encompass a wide variety of interests such as fine art, items showing the natural history of a region, or something as specific as a hair collection (yes, there is a hair museum).

I recently found a list of 10 very specific museums/collections with a common thread—they are not open to the public.

CIA Museum

Needless to say, one of the most secretive agencies in the entire United States government (and the world) wouldn't just throw the doors of their archives open for everyone. The Central Intelligence Agency's internal museum is one of the most thorough collections of intelligence memorabilia on Earth with over 3,500 items. The collection includes documents from the OSS [Office of Strategic Services created in WW II, the forerunner of the CIA which was created in September 1947], spy weapons and equipment, and even an AK-47 rifle that belonged to Osama Bin Laden. The only public aspects of the Museum are three showcases at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. And that building isn't easy to get into, either.

International Museum And Library Of The Conjuring Arts

If you’re looking for a community of people who like to keep secrets, the CIA isn't the only place to look.  Professional magicians are right up there, too. Considering that their careers hinge on being able to fool people, magicians aren't crazy about opening up to the public. David Copperfield has used his vast fortune to amass a collection of over 150,000 pieces of magic history from practitioners like Harry Houdini and hundreds of others.  It's located in a 40,000 square foot Las Vegas warehouse that has a fake hat shop in the front. [I saw a television special about Houdini including an auction of items from his career with David Copperfield being one of the major successful bidders on several items]

MIT Museum Of Espionage [in Turkey, not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology :) ]

The United States isn't the only nation that keeps its intelligence archives in a private museum. Turkey's MIT spy group has been amassing an impressive collection of memorabilia from top-secret operations for years. Stored at the group's headquarters in Ankara, the museum's glass display cases contain such spy craft relics as a shoe wedge designed to store a hidden microphone, hollowed-out objects for secreting code books, and bugging devices discovered in Turkish embassies abroad during the Cold War. A Turkish newspaper requested access to the museum and was allowed in for one day, but that's the only time the Museum of Espionage has ever been seen by the public.

Canadian Museum Of Making

It is possible to get inside the doors of the Canadian Museum of Making, which is located on a private ranch near Cochrane, Alberta, but it's not easy. The museum's owner, Ian MacGregor, is very picky about who he allows through the doors. From the outside, you'd never know that the 20,000 square foot museum is even there, because he constructed the complex entirely underground. Inside is one of the world's most extensive collections of mechanical objects from between 1750 and 1920. Every once in a while, MacGregor will open the doors to select people, but it's a rare occasion.

El Museo del Enervantes

Intended for use in the training of military staff waging Mexico's seemingly endless war against the drug cartels, El Museo del Enervantes, located in Mexico City, is a private museum that chronicles every aspect of the world of narcoterrorism. In-depth exhibits illustrate the manufacturing process involved in making cocaine, heroin, and other drugs. A huge display case shows off dozens of handguns confiscated from drug lords, many encrusted with gold and jewels. There is also a plaque commemorating all the Mexican soldiers who died on duty since 1976.

The Honda Secret Museum

Many automakers rent out space to spotlight important moments in their history, but Honda defies the trend by making their history museum closed to the public. Assembled by company veteran Lou Staller, it's a collection of almost 50 cars and motorcycles that commemorate Honda's successes and failures. Included in the collection is a Honda N-600 from 1970—the first passenger car the company sold in the States—and the 1997 EV Plus, the very first electric vehicle to be marketed here. The museum is only accessible to Honda employees, and the vast majority of them have never been there, making it a treasure trove for car enthusiasts.

Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière

The Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière permanently closed its door to everyone—public and invited only—in 2005. Prior to that time, it was the largest and most complete anatomy museum in France. The Museum's collection began in 1794 and expanded steadily over the years to include upwards of 5,800 anatomic items from humans and other animals. Some of the items on display includes casts of the heads of executed 19th century criminals, comparative anatomy displays of reptiles and birds, and skulls of deceased mental patients. It occupied the eighth floor of the Descartes University's school of medicine, and access was granted only to the medical elite.

The Black Museum

Scotland Yard, one of the most famous crime-fighting institutions in history, has amassed some serious items. If you want to see them, they're kept in the Black Museum. Located at police headquarters in London, this collection of evidence from some of Scotland Yard's most notorious crimes includes the pots serial killer Dennis Nilsen used to cook his victims and a taunting letter from Jack the Ripper. Also on display is a vast array of weapons used in the commission of crimes, including some cleverly disguised tools of mayhem. There have been discussions about finally making the museum open to the public. I believe it's now open on a limited basis.

The U.S. Secret Service Museum

It appears that taxpayer money is supporting a disproportionate number of museums that aren't open to the public. Located in the nondescript office building that houses the Secret Service headquarters is a small private museum that's only open to invited guests. Inside the one-room museum are artifacts from some of the most shocking crimes in American history—assassination attempts on Presidents. Among these artifacts is the bullet-scarred window from Ronald Reagan's limousine on the day that John Hinckley attacked and the assault rifle that Francisco Duran used to spray bullets into the White House in 1994.

The Zymoglyphic Museum

The Zymoglyphic Museum in San Mateo, California, is open to the public—but only for two days out of every year. The museum's creator houses his collection in a small outbuilding off of his garage, down a nondescript suburban cul-de-sac. Inside is the world's largest assemblage of animals and artifacts from the Zymoglyphic Era…a period in Earth's past that never existed. The dioramas, housed in aquarium tanks, are well thought out and executed with incredible attention to detail. 

13 of the World's Most Common Superstitions and Their Bizarre Origins part 2 of 2

This week is part 2 of my 2-part blog about superstitions and their origins. Last week I covered number one through six (in no particular order). Now, let's take a look at the rest of the list.

7. Crossing your fingers:

This one has two meanings with numerous possibilities about the origin of the "good luck" version. Some theories say that crossed fingers were used by early Christians to identify each other when their religion was still illegal in the Roman empire, that crossed fingers were a way to ward off witches, and that medieval archers crossed their fingers when pulling their bow back for better accuracy. The other version—the idea that crossing your fingers means you don't believe what you say and are lying—may have also originated from a belief in witches. It was believed that the act of crossing your fingers was a way to swear an oath to the devil without actually giving up your soul.

8. Toasting with water:

Raising a glass in celebration should be a show of good faith regardless of what is in the glass. However, if it's water, the opposite is true. When toasting someone with water, it actually means you're wishing death upon them. The ancient Greeks were the first to warn of this practice, as they would only toast with water to honor the dead. This belief stemmed from the myths that drinking the water from the River Lethe served to help the souls of the Underworld pass on.

9. Being third on a match:

Historical origins for this superstition are set in World War I. It was a conventional wisdom among soldiers in the trenches that if you kept a match lit long enough for three people to light their cigarette from it, the enemy would spot the flame and determine your position. Soldiers brought the belief back with them, but there's evidence to suggest that after the war, match companies rather cynically helped popularize the superstition to sell more matches.

10. Stepping on a crack will break your mother's back:

It's been popularly suggested that this superstitious saying has evolved from a more racist 19th-century version of the rhyme, but historians suggest that both versions probably came about at the same time. The rhyme is likely an American formulation of a long-held British superstition in which stepping on pavement cracks represents crossing other unseen lines that will have bad consequences.

11. Tossing spilled salt over your left shoulder:

You've probably seen some people do this, but do you really need to be tossing seasoning at the dinner table? According to superstition, if you don't, the devil standing over your shoulder is sure to stick around. The basis for this superstition is as practical as it is religious, as salt was once considered extremely valuable—in some cultures it was actually a form of money. Only someone under the influence of evil would waste such a priceless resource. Tossing it over your left shoulder and into the devil's face prevents further temptation.

12. Knocking on wood:

Have you ever told a friend you're hoping for some good news? Or that you really hope something terrible doesn't happen? You better find the nearest wooden table or chair and knock twice, or else you're going to be in for a bad time. That's because early pagans believed that trees contained fairies, spirits, and other mystical creatures. By knocking on wood, they believed these creatures would grant them good luck or even keep evil spirits from influencing their lives.

13. The number 13:

And finally, the number thirteen itself. Friday the thirteenth is considered the unluckiest day of the year. Most tall buildings are built without a designated thirteenth floor. Of the infinite combinations of numbers in existence, why is thirteen so universally feared? Norse mythology is the culprit. In one legend, Loki, the god of mischief, was the thirteenth guest at a feast in Valhalla and caused the death of Balder, god of light and purity. The evils of thirteen later became associated with the Last Supper, as Judas was the thirteenth guest.

I could have eliminated one of the superstitions and restricted the list to only twelve, but presenting a list of thirteen superstitions seemed more appropriate.  :) 

13 Of The World's Most Common Superstitions And Their Bizarre Origins part 1of2

I have another multi-part blog for you.  This week is part 1 of 2 presenting a look at superstitions and their origins as a lead up to Friday the 13^th which is this month. I'm sharing six of the superstitions this week and will conclude next week with the remaining seven.

Some people are very superstitious and believe the ancient myths about good and bad luck. However, for the most part those who really worry about broken mirrors and stepping on cracks don't know where those beliefs came from.

Let's take a look at the wild explanations behind these commonly held superstitions.

1. Opening an umbrella indoors:

This superstition has somewhat recent origins. Umbrellas were much more cumbersome objects than they are now. People in the 19th and early 20th centuries viewed opening the bulky, sharp-pointed objects indoors as a safety hazard to everybody in the room. Over time, this evolved from a safety concern to a more general sign of bad luck.

2. Walking under a ladder:

The suspicion about walking under ladders goes all the way back to ancient Egypt. In that culture, triangles had magical symbolism and supposedly supernatural properties. The triangle shape that formed by leaning a ladder against a wall allegedly created an area that would trap both living and dead souls. Passing through that triangle had to be avoided. Bits of this belief continued throughout history. It eventually became considered bad luck rather than soul-stealing.

3. Breaking a mirror:

We can thank the ancient Greeks for the superstition about breaking a mirror causing seven years of bad luck. Like Narcissus, many Greeks looked at their reflections in the water. Over time, a superstition developed that distortions in the water reflecting their image were symbolic of distortions of the soul. As mirrors became more widely used, this superstition evolved and eventually became associated with the number seven, which has numerological significance in Judaism and Christianity.

4. A black cat crossing your path:

This is another superstition that goes back to ancient Egypt, where cats had religious significance and were thought to have supernatural powers. The interesting thing about the black cat superstition is that it represents different things in different places. In the U.S., a black cat crossing your path is bad luck. In England, black cats are considered good luck—a belief given some validity when King Charles was charged with high treason the day after his favorite black cat died.

5. Hanging a horseshoe:

An old Irish legend tells of St. Dunstan, a blacksmith who was visited by the devil in search of horseshoes. Dunstan decided to nail a searing hot horseshoe to his hoof, removing it only when the devil agreed to avoid any place marked with one. A more grounded explanation comes from the ancient Greeks, as they believed iron's flame-resistant properties made the metal magical. They also shaped the horseshoes to resemble the crescent moon, a symbol of good luck and fertility.

6. Saying "God Bless You" when someone sneezes:

Saying "God bless you" has its origins in the Middle Ages and is associated with the black plague. Since sneezes often foretold much more serious illness, people thought a sneeze was a sign that the soul was trying to escape the body. By offering a blessing, they hoped God would spare the person the illness and their soul could remain with their body just a little bit longer.

Be sure to check back next week when I present the remaining seven superstitions and their origins in part 2 of my 2-part blog. 

Middle Ages/Medieval Times part 3of3

                                    

This week is part 3 of my 3-part blog series about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. This period in history has many documented tales of truly barbaric treatment. But, unlike the message we get from Hollywood's entertainment industry and many novels, Medieval times overall weren't as barbaric as we've been led to believe. And with that thought in mind, here's a list of the ten biggest myths about justice in Medieval times.

10)  Go Directly To Jail?

Most Medieval communities actually had a judge and jury type of system, although it was much quicker than today's long drawn out sessions. Court generally lasted less than half an hour. At the judge's discretion, he could ask a few simple questions and deliver a verdict without consulting the jury.

9)  The Lawless Middle Age Villages?

Earlier Medieval communities had much more social responsibility than today.  If one member claimed to be wronged, every resident had to join in the hunt and persecution of the criminal, otherwise they would all be held responsible.

8)  Those Strict Church Types?

The pious Middle Ages were serious about religious offenses. Each town's church usually ran its own kind of court to investigate everything from bad attendance to heresy. However, the concept of sanctuary was also well known with the church as a place where criminals could avoid sentencing or punishment.

7)  Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind?

Criminals who committed lesser offenses were often subject to a policy of three strikes and you're out—literally. Repeat offenders were often simply banished from a city and not allowed back rather than killing them or having them clutter up the prisons. Humane and cost effective.

6)  Executions: Left, Right, and Center?

According to Hollywood, Medieval evil-doers were killed on whim and often in public squares for even the slightest of offenses. In reality, capital punishment was used only in the most serious cases which included murder, treason, and arson with the guilty usually hanged.

5)  Royal Highnesses High Above the Law?

Medieval nobles did enjoy certain privileges when it came to bending laws or making new ones to serve their purposes. However, most European countries had legislation preventing their kings and queens from running wild, such as England's Magna Carta signed by King John in 1215.

4)  Public Beheadings as Weekly Spectacle?

Beheading was swift and painless—as long as the axe was sharp. It was considered a privileged way to die and reserved primarily for the nobility. Treason was the crime of choice with the beheadings usually taking place inside castle walls rather than in public. Henry VIII had two of his wives beheaded—Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn.

3)  The Burning Times?

A few witches, as proclaimed by their accusers, were burned at the stake during Medieval times. But it was during the following Reformation period (beginning approximately in 1550) that burning witches at the stake really took off. However, in England witches were rarely burned. They were hanged instead. At the Salem witch trials in the U.S., most of the accused who were actually put to death were hanged.

2)  Off With Your Ear?

Mutilation—severing of an ear or hand—was occasionally used as a punishment for serious crimes, especially in larger jurisdictions such as London. But more often, Medieval law enforcement used it as an empty threat rather than actually doing it.

1)  Rack 'Em Up?

Immortalized in the film Braveheart, the most famous torture device of all time was the rack. It probably wasn't used in England until the very end of the Medieval period. It was used extensively along with other devices beginning in the torturous days of the 1500s when Queen Elizabeth I, and other European monarchs, began purging religious opponents.

So, next time you're watching a high budget film set during Medieval times filled with bloody and torturous actions, remember—there's a good chance it didn't really happen that way. 

Middle Ages/Medieval Times part 2of3

This is part 2 of my 3-part blog about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. Last week I presented 11 Bizarre Medieval Trends. This week it's 9 Surprising Facts.

1)  They weren't all knights or serfs or clergy

Although some medieval writers described their society as divided into three parts—those who prayed, those who fought, and those who labored. That became an increasingly inaccurate description after the beginning of the 12^th century. The population of Europe increased considerably during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, with cities and towns becoming much bigger. In the cities, people had all kinds of jobs—merchants, salesmen, carpenters, butchers, weavers, food sellers, architects, painters, jugglers…

In the countryside, everyone was not an impoverished serf (someone not free who was tied to the land). Many peasants were free men and women who owned their own land, while others who were to some degree not free bought and sold land and goods, much like other free men. There certainly were poor, oppressed serfs, but it wasn't a universal condition.

2)  People had the vote

Well, some people had the vote—not a vote for national, representative government. That was not a medieval thing. But they did have a vote in local politics. In France, in the 12^th and 13^th centuries and beyond, many towns and villages were run at a local level as a commune, and there were often annual elections where most of the male inhabitants could vote. Women could not usually stand as officials and could not vote, but some of them were noted in the agreed charters of liberties that French towns proudly possessed.

3)  The church didn't conduct witch hunts

The large-scale witch hunts and collective paranoid response to the stereotype of the evil witch is not a medieval creation. It was an early modern phenomenon found mostly in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. There were some witch trials in the Middle Ages, and these became more widespread in German-speaking lands in the 15^th century. But those doing the prosecuting were almost always civic authorities rather than the church.

For much of the Middle Ages, the main message that churchmen gave in regard to magic was that it was foolish nonsense that didn't work. The infamous Malleus Maleficarum in the late 15^th century was written to persuade people of the reality of witches. In fact, the book was initially condemned by the church, and even in the early 16^th century, inquisitors were warned not to believe everything that it said.

4)  They had a Renaissance and invented experimental science

When people talk about the Renaissance, they usually mean literature, art, architecture, and learning found at the end of the Middle Ages. This is usually taken to be one of the ways in which we moved from medieval to early modern thinking. But medieval intellectuals also had a renaissance of classical learning and rhetoric. This was in the 12^th century and depended particularly on the works by Aristotle and other classical authors. One of the outcomes was an inquiring approach to the physical world, and it led Roger Bacon and others to think about observing and experimenting with the physical world to learn more about it.

5)  They traveled and traded over very long distances

The majority of medieval people, particularly those who lived in the countryside, rarely traveled very far from where they were born. That would be the case with lots of people in much later ages as well. It is not the case, however, that medieval people never traveled. Many went on pilgrimage, sometimes journeying thousands of miles to do so. And those involved in trade certainly traveled, linking parts of the world together with merchandise.

6)  They had some great 'folk' customs

Much of the public culture of the Middle Ages was molded by Christianity. There were also some curious customs, usually tolerated by the church, but which may have had older roots. One was the practice of rolling burning barrels down a hill on Midsummer's Eve. Another was to throw wheat over the heads of a newly married couple. It was also common to raise money for charity by holding a 'help ale'—brewing up a batch of ale, having a big party to drink it, and collecting donations.

7)  Most great medieval authors didn't write

We tend to think of literacy as one thing, but in fact it combines various different skills with the physical act of writing being only one. For much of the Middle Ages, working as a scribe was seen as a kind of labor and was not something that important people like theologians and intellectuals would bother doing themselves. Instead, a scribe would usually write down what the author dictated.

8)  Some people weren't very religious

The Middle Ages famously features great examples of extreme religious devotion—mystics, saints, the flagellants, mass pilgrimage, etc.  But it would be wrong to assume that people were always very focused on God and religion and definitely wrong to think that medieval people were incapable of skeptical reflection.

There is solid evidence of some ordinary people who looked suspiciously at particular beliefs—at the miracles performed by saints, or the nature of the Eucharist, or what was said to happen after death. There is also ample evidence of people just not bothering very much with religion, most of all not going to church on Sunday.

9)  They didn't believe the world was flat

Columbus was not battling a society who believed the world was flat when trying to finance his voyage across the Atlantic to what he believed would be a route to China and Japan. It was a generally accepted belief that the world was round. Most people probably know this already, along with the fact that Viking helmets did not have horns. Both are bits of Victorian myth about the period. What makes studying medieval history fascinating is that you have to grapple with both the puzzle of extracting information from difficult and often fragmented surviving records, and the challenge of constantly checking your own thinking for assumptions that you might be inadvertently inserting into the information as fact.

Next week is part 3 of my 3-part blog series about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. In part 3, I'll be unraveling some of the wide spread commonly held myths about Medieval torture.