Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here is your 30-second summary.

Sometimes you have to color the background around a figure in order to reveal it to yourself.

That's what we're doing today with the mathematician and philosopher whose death marked the end of a great era of human progress.

Let's talk about Hypatia of Alexandria.

But first let's drop her into history.

In 415 AD, Newish inventions included the Vending Machine, the public hospital, the earthquake detector, and the steam turbine.

It was 445 years after Cleopatra died, over 350 years after Agrippina the Younger walked the Earth, and it would be another thousand years before Eleanor of Aquatainwood rule.

The world was sandwiched between the waning years of the Roman Empire and the rising of the Dark Ages, when in 415 AD, Hypatia of Alexandria's life ended in a most dramatic way.

Hello and welcome to the show.

We are going in the way back machine today, so rather than jump right into Hypatia's story, we thought we'd begin with a little background on her environment, specifically the city of Alexandria and which she lived.

The city was founded around 331 BC, an ideal layout overlaid on an existing town right on the coast.

Like if Egypt's a squareish sort of place, it's right in the center, top, directly on the Mediterranean Sea.

And you know how cities become famous for different things, Las Vegas for gambling, LA for the movie industry, Kansas City for barbecue?

You can fight me about that one.

I'm sorry.

That's funny. It's so true though.

It is true. Well, Alexandria developed a reputation for wisdom during the construction of Alexandria, an institute called the Museum of Alexandria was built.

Museum means institute devoted to the muses.

Our modern word museum comes from this like auditorium dedicated to hearing sanatorium, a place of healing,

vomatorium, use your imagination.

Sorry, that does not fit the pattern.

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