SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

There is a popular YouTube channel named Voices of the Past. It presents a series of videos that combine images and audio to tell stories from the past—hence the name. What makes this channel especially interesting is that it uses the text from historical documents to tell the stories. In other words, it’s a collection of (mostly) first-person accounts of historic events by people who were there.

Voices of the Past covers everything from an ancient Chinese description of the Roman Empire, to a first-hand account of the destruction of Pompeii, to a tenth-century Muslim Ambassador’s eye-witness account of a group of Vikings on the shores of the Volga River, in what is now Russia, to the first European description of the Philippines in the sixteenth century, to an Indian traveler’s description of England and European life in the eighteenth century, to five historical accounts of werewolves, to a horrified Soviet tourist’s description of California and Hollywood in the 1930s.

Quite fascinating.

Recently, Voices of the Past posted a new video titled…

Enslaved Icelander Describes Horror of Ottoman Slave Market (1627) – Diary of Ólafur Egilsson

The folks from Voices of the Past contacted me and my Icelandic colleague, Karl Hreinsson, to get permission to use part of the text of The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson.

The video they put together using that text is now available for viewing on YouTube.

Here’s the link:

Voices of the past – Diary of Ólafur Egilsson

Enjoy!