The Why of Buttoning a Shirt

On this site, I try to explain some deep topics, but I also hit a few lighter ones. 

If you have ever put on a shirt that was designed for someone of the opposite gender, you may have noticed that the buttons are on the “wrong” side. Men’s shirts button left over right, with buttons running down the right side and buttonholes on the left. Women’s shirts do the opposite, buttoning right over left. 

In the time before buttons, garments were laced together or fastened with brooches or clasps. Buttoned closures for garments only became prevalent in the 13th century with the advent of the reinforced buttonhole. 

The two opposing button configurations for men and women have existed for centuries. But why? 

Historians don’t know for sure, but some of the most common explanations involve military considerations. Medieval breastplates were formed of two separate and overlapping plates, and so that an enemy’s lance point would not slip between the plates, they were pieced together with the left plate overlapping the right. Why? Because it was standard fighting practice that the left side, protected by the shield, was turned toward the enemy.

Right-handedness accounts for about 90% of humans, and so swords were typically worn on the left side, so they could be drawn with the dominant right hand. Men’s shirts and jackets buttoning left over right would avoid catching the pommel of a sword in the opening, when drawing it right-handed.”

So, why didn't that just become the standard for women too? 

One plausible explanation is that those early buttons were often made from expensive materials such as gold, silver, and ivory, and were an indicator of status and wealth. Wealthy women with complex clothes often didn’t dress themselves and relied on the help of maids. 

I read some other explanations that seem less likely, such as breastfeeding. Due to right-hand dominance, women tend to hold their infants in their left arm to keep their right arm relatively free. So, the theory posits, a shirt with the buttons on the left makes it easier for mothers to unbutton using their right hand, while providing slightly easier access. 

Summer Vacation with Ancient Romans

Did you ever think about what the ancients did on summer vacations? I don't mean your grandparents. I'm talking about wealthy Romans who were fleeing the city heat for health resorts in Greece, taking mental photos of the Egyptian pyramids and partying on the Gulf of Naples.

The Gulf of Naples was the place to be. The ancient 1% built villas by the sea and up in the hills. As the poet Horace put it: "No bay in the world can rival the beautiful Baiae." There were excursion boats, and evenings might end with lavish oyster dinners.

More economical spots were Tibur (Tivoli today) Antium (now Anzio), and Baiae itself. You can't visit that last one now because it sank to the bottom of the sea. They weren't tanning, but the thing to do was to soak in the thermal baths. Ancient hot tubs. 

One of the more modest Roman couples enjoys a thermal beside the bay

The philosopher Seneca thought that all this was the absolute peak of Roman decadence.  "Why must I look at drunks staggering along the coast and endure the noise of parties blaring from sailboats?"

Some wore Roman "spa flip-flops" made of glass and filled with perfume for pampered feet.

If you really wanted to get away, Egypt was a big destination. The Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, the Lighthouse of Alexandria would all be on your guidebook list. 

Not into hedonism or sightseeing but interested in some history? 

Other travelers did the history-nerd tour: walking in Homer’s footsteps through Troy, or visiting famous battlefields like Marathon, where the Greeks beat the Persians in 490 BC. Try Naples or to Athens. Greece’s more ancient temples were popular. Look, here is where the Oracle of Delphi was, and over there is Mount Olympus, home of the gods. 

Did they actually have guidebooks? Greek author Pausanias (110-180 AD) essentially wrote one of the first-ever travel guidebooks, covering the sights of his homeland.

How about souvenirs? No t-shirts, but miniature pyramids, silver statues, little clay jars painted with the Lighthouse of Alexandria are at the gift shop.

Walden Enters the World

On August 9, 1854, Henry David Thoreau published Walden; or, Life in the Woods. 

His friend Ralph Waldo Emerson said he saw a “tremble of great expectation” in Thoreau just before publication day. 

Though the book is a classic now and Thoreau is established in American literature, things weren't so auspicious then. Thoreau’s previous book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), a travelogue that he wrote with his brother, John Thoreau, sold fewer than 300 copies. On the day he got his 706 unsold copies back from the publisher, he wrote in his diary: “I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself ...” 

Walden didn’t do much better. It took five years to sell off the first edition of 2,000 copies, and Thoreau did not live to see a second edition. He managed to arrange a nationwide lecture tour, but only one city made an offer, and so Thoreau kept his lectures to the Concord area. 

Since then, millions of copies of Walden in many editions have been sold.

Thoreau was deeply influenced by the transcendentalist movement, which emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and a close relationship with nature. He also became involved in the abolitionist movement and was a strong advocate for civil disobedience as a means of protesting unjust laws.

Thoreau’s health began to decline in the 1850s, and he died on May 6, 1862, at the age of 44, of tuberculosis. Despite his relatively short life, Thoreau’s influence has been enormous, and he is considered one of the most important figures in American literature and philosophy.

The Not-So-Dark Ages

The idea of the "Dark Ages" is closely tied to one influential figure: Francis Petrarch, a 14th-century Italian poet, scholar, and humanist. Widely regarded as one of the greatest intellectuals of his era, Petrarch looked back on ancient Greece and Rome as a brilliant age of learning and culture. By comparison, he believed that the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire—including his own time—were marked by decline and intellectual darkness.

Petrarch was optimistic that this period would eventually end. "This sleep of forgetfulness will not last forever," he wrote. "When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance." 

His admiration for the classical world helped inspire the humanist movement of 15th-century Italy, which in turn fueled the Renaissance. Because of Petrarch's influence, the idea of a long "Dark Age" became widely accepted by both scholars and the public for centuries.

The term "Dark Ages," however, has also been used in a more limited and neutral sense. In the late 16th century, Italian cardinal Caesar Baronius used the Latin phrase saeculum obscurum ("dark age") to describe the 10th and 11th centuries. His point wasn't that the period was uncivilized or culturally barren. Instead, he was referring to the lack of surviving written records from those centuries.

The Roman Empire produced an extraordinary number of official documents, histories, and other written records. After the empire's collapse, far fewer documents were created and preserved for several centuries. As a result, historians often know much less about the Early Middle Ages than they do about Roman times. In that sense, the period can be considered "dark" not because nothing important happened, but because fewer historical sources survived to illuminate it.

When Rome collapsed, Europe was left without a central authority to keep things running. Step in: the Christian church. Monasteries quickly became the ultimate hubs for literacy, learning, and the arts, with monks preserving knowledge and funding artists. It wasn't long before the very first universities were born, keeping higher learning alive and kicking.

Meanwhile, over in the Arab world, things were positively glowing. The 8th through 13th centuries marked the Islamic Golden Age—a massive boom in science, economics, and culture that produced some of the smartest minds in human history.

The "Dark Ages" basically overhauled everyday life. Farming got a massive upgrade: The invention of crop rotation, the heavy plough, and the horse collar transformed agriculture overnight, allowing farmers to feed more people than ever.

Energy went green (literally): Watermills and windmills started popping up everywhere, completely revolutionizing how power was generated. Gothic architecture began towering over cities. Early musicians finally refined musical notation so songs could actually be written down and shared.

European battlefields saw the arrival of heavily armored cavalry and the scary new appearance of early cannons. Major, groundbreaking progress was made across mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

Most modern historians now reject the pejorative “Dark Ages” label, although it continues to be used in popular culture. Typically, the term “Early Middle Ages” is now used to describe the era, or, in a wider sense, the “medieval era.” While the period certainly had its challenges, it was far from the uniformly bleak and intellectually barren time that historians once portrayed. It was, in fact, a crucial transitional era that bridged classical antiquity and the Renaissance, laying the groundwork for developments that shaped the future.