Channel History Hit

This is the SEVENTH of our special Christmas-themed micro-histories in which we will embrace the task of demonstrating how an unexpected subject not only has a history but is massively important and interesting - in just 15 minutes! We will start with a shared example and then have just five minutes each to make a case for an interesting history on that very unexpected subject. Contributions will be rigorously timed and you - dear listeners - will get to vote on SM on what YOU think was the most interesting fact you heard today.Today’s topic is OBSCENITY - nothing quite says Christmas like obscenity! Christmas was a time for subversion during the High Middle Ages and Renaissance when snowmen were regularly built as winter effigies. During the cold winter of 1510-11 the citizens of Brussels built around 110 individual snowmen around the city, depicting in snow folklore figures such unicorns and mermaids, religious and political themes, as well extreme sexual and even scatalogical imagery. One of the more