I am a sucker for Medieval Times . I know that it is lowkey a scam that is not worth the nearly $100 price tag, but I do not care. Every time I drive by a Medival Times restaurant, my heart sings with happiness. My parents live like 5 minutes away from one of those giant castles on the side of the freeway, and if I were them, I would be going to that bad boy constantly. I don't think Medieval Times has a season pass like Disneyland or Six Flags does, but it darn well should. Even though eating…

LOLs in human

History lesson time! Today we're going to discuss the origin of memes. Yes, internet memes. Why am I differentiating the two? Well, it's because the term “meme” was first used by Richard Dawkins in 1976 - and wasn't about the internet. A meme, by Dawkins' definition (via the Oxford Dictionary) is “An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.” It's all about the transmission of ideas. Some great historical examples…

Didn't know he was so problematic :/

A life of crime

What's the coolest dinosaur of all time? The top three that I've always heard people say are Tyrannosaurus Rex, Pterodactyl, and Velociraptor. Sure, all pretty good picks. T. Rexes are massive and funny looking. Velociraptors are fast and cool. Pterodactyls are the ones that can fly. Those three are definitely the most represented within dinosaur-affiliated media, but I have a dark horse candidate for the coolest of the animals: supersaurus (AKA the massive dinosaurs with the ridiculously long…

Did you pay attention in history class ? Personally, history was my favorite subject growing up. It didn't really require a ton of critical thinking, at least for me. You kind of just had to show up to class, listen to the teacher tell stories of what happened before our lifetimes, and maybe read a little bit. Doing the bare minimum of what's listed there, I performed well enough. Of course, not everyone had the same experience. History is just an interesting subject to learn about. So why don'…

Giving Joanne the Scammer a run for her money

We here at Memebase feel that history memes are a special breed. I usually have one of two reactions to them. A knowing smirk, chuckle, or nod at a meme dealing with history that I'm well-versed in. Shock, horror, and an hour-long voracious time-traveling trip through the depths of Wikipedia. Generally speaking, I mostly react in the former manner. It's good to feel smart. But every now and then a meme will introduce me to an era, event, or cultural tidbit that just leaves me feeling ill, but a…

Now, I've never been to a Renaissance fair, but it's definitely on my bucket list. Hanging out with my buds, eating a cartoonishly large hunk of mutton, drinking brews out of a gilded stein, and pretending we're in the late 1300s? That sounds like a dream come true. If you subtract the inherent suffering found in the medieval ages , it seems like a pretty good time. Who needs modern medicine? I'll just let one of those plague doctors in the bird mask tell me how to fix my ailments. Medieval mem…

Cut them some slack

Whether you enjoy having a little giggle at the past, or fact-checking nerdy history memes in your free time, we've got a bunch of funny stuff right here for dunces and history buffs alike. And they're all over the historical map. If you're into exposing the super-sus and sketchy actions of the CIA, there are memes for you. Prefer the World War II? You guessed it, there are memes about that, too. If you're into a more all-out style of conflict, the jokes here rely heavily on wars, even shouting…

Hey, did you know that the Gallipoli front during World War I was a total disaster? British veterans who were there called it one of the worst military campaigns ever. Crazy, right? I actually found out about it from some random history meme that I just had to Google. As it turns out, when the Brits weren't busy fighting the Ottoman Empire, they were dealing with swarms of flies from rotting bodies, running out of water, scorching heat, lice, dysentery, and not enough food. It was a pretty nast…

Historical Fiction is a wildly popular genre. Some movies and television series that fall under the umbrella strive for complete historical accuracy, others, like Bridgerton and D ownton Abbey occupy a historical alternative universe, which allows them to take some liberties where casting and even plotlines are concerned. The increasing popularity of these alternative timelines begs the question: Exactly how faithful do these programs really need to be when it comes to history? A recent Twitter…

Dessert, anyone?

One of the first things I learned about in film studies, after Eadweard Muybridge's The Horse in Motion, and the works of the Lumiere brothers, was the Hollywood Studio System. While it was technically the creation of Jewish immigrants, which sounds progressive, it was, in fact, a very toxic empire and way of conducting business. The demands placed on actors were brutal, especially concerning body image. Despite the toxicity, my fascination with the era remains, and I was delighted this week to…