Videos

In 2020, we applauded en masse for our healthcare heroes. But did you know that for a very long time, nurses in Belgium hardly got paid or did not get paid at all? And that they hardly received any recognition? Historian Luc De Munck explains why that was the case.

Aproved"* reads a Royal Decree that was possibly signed by Cleopatra (or at least by one of her ministers). But how did such a spelling error get into such an important document? Couldn't Cleopatra and her ministers spell? That's what classicist Geert De Mol (Ghent University) is looking into in his PhD.

Football supporters, the scouts, students, churchgoers, ... They all like to sing together because singing together unites. People were already aware of this in the 18th century. In her research, Renée Vulto (Ghent University) looks at how singing together was used as a political instrument at that time, in order to strengthen national identity and create a sense of belonging.

On Armistice Day we traditionally commemorate the tens of thousands of fallen soldiers of WWI & WW II. But what happened to the almost 200,000 disabled soldiers and civilians of the world wars? This is what Marisa De Picker (KU Leuven) is researching in her PhD.

Did you know that the Greek philosopher Aristotle considered the idea that the woman is inferior to the man as a scientific fact? But how did Islamic philosophers of the Middle Ages, who were quite fond of Aristotle, think about the role of women? Completely different, according to the research of philosopher Tineke Melkebeek.  

On social media clips of skirmishes between citizens and the police regularly pop up and, in a flash, go viral. They elicit a lot of reactions, not least the classic "things used to be better in the old days". But was there less violence on the streets in the past? Historian Martin Schoups delves into documents from 19th-century Antwerp.

As a result of climate change, more and more areas in the world are suffering from drought. Can we draw lessons from the Ancient past, where people learned to adapt to life in arid regions of the Near East and built entire communities there?

Each rock really has a story to tell about events that occurred on our planet”, according to Brazilian geologist Fernando Araujo. Listen to his story about fascinating and colorful pegmatite rocks