15th century Italy witnessed an explosion in art, literature, science, and especially the humanities, known as the Italian Renaissance. Great thinkers like Leonardo Da Vinci and Galileo were supported by a patronage system but detested by the Catholic church.

The history of the harmonica dates back to an 1100 BC Chinese instrument called a Sheng, until the modern mouth organ debuted in 1820, rapidly spreading across Europe and the US. Beloved by vaudevillians, Hollywood westerns, blues musicians, and more.

A popular icon of witchcraft, the witches’ broomstick has roots in pagan fertility rituals, broomstick dances, and accounts of witches using brooms to fly up and out their chimneys.

Disfigured female orphans who sang like angels and played a wide variety of musical instruments, the Figlie del coro worked with composer Vivaldi to create masterful symphonies.

The richest and most famous female artist of 19th century France, Marie-Rosalie (Rosa) Bonheur spent the last forty years of her life entrenched in her small chateau above the Seine River town of Thomery.

A sounding board for the wisdom of its colonial author, Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Alamanack was in print uninterrupted from 1732 to 1758.

Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novel entitled Orlando, which was ahead of its time in terms of understanding fluid sexual orientation and transgenderism.