Behind the stone walls of the Pedralbes Monastery, countless generations of women have lived for seven centuries. Each corridor holds many stories, not only of prayer and introspective silence, but also of struggles, conspiracies, survival, and creativity. It is a rare and ancient place because neither the confiscations of church property, nor revolutions, nor dictatorships, nor even the voracious appetite for real estate, have been able to swallow it up. Those who entered were required to take vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, but for a long time it was a space where patriarchal power could be transcended. This year it celebrates its 700th anniversary with exhibitions, panel discussions, and the revelation of many of the secrets hidden within the tombs of a queen and the ladies who accompanied her. We invite you to explore all the spaces of the monastery through the lives of seven women, some powerful, others very humble.

A claw, a chair, a laundry paddle, a plume, a printing press, a dress, an urn, or a corset. These are some of the 25 objects that journalist Sílvia Marimon Molas, Culture Editor at ARA, has featured in the book Inventory of silenced stories (Eumo Editorial), an essential and highly educational journey through everyday objects that have been crucial in shaping our society today. Objects that Marimon links to both renowned and anonymous women who have too often been forgotten in history books.

In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Augusto de Muller y Ruinart de Brimont (1829-1893) arrived in Tarragona from Reims. Belonging to a prominent winemaking family from Alsace, De Muller sought an area in Spain untouched by the phylloxera plague, where he focused his activities on the production and export of wines. The volume of his international sales, with branches in Bordeaux and London, made him the leading businessman in Tarragona during his time, a city where, for much of the first third of the 20th century, the wine trade was the main economic driver, overshadowed by other, far less significant, activities. The port of Tarragona became De Muller's export hub.

No one could have written his story. A spy, a gigolo, a con man, a charlatan who was the monarch of Andorra in 1934, for little more than a week. If thousands of documents didn't exist to prove it, Boris Skossyreff's life would seem like a delirious fiction, a spy novel written under the influence of morphine during the height of modernism. For twelve days in the summer of 1934, a Russian-born con man with ties to the Nazi regime proclaimed himself King of Andorra and placed the small Pyrenean principality at the center of international attention.

Looking back This is an ARA podcast that explores the silences, struggles, and wounds of the Franco regime to understand how this past continues to shape the present.

Ramon Alberch (Girona, 1951) is a historian and archivist. He has been director of the Girona Municipal Archive, archivist in Barcelona, ​​director of the Barcelona Municipal Institute of History, and deputy director general of Archives for the Generalitat of Catalonia, where he negotiated the return of the Salamanca papersHe is also one of the co-founders and the first president of the Association of Archivists of Catalonia. Internationally, he chaired the Municipal Archives Section of the International Council on Archives (2000-2004) and was the driving force and first president of the NGO Archivists Without Borders. He has now published We create archives, we build citiesA history of the Barcelona Municipal Archive from 1249 to the present day. We talk about cats and rats, papers and power, Barcelona and Catalonia.

Today, the hair that falls from our scalp lands on the floor and ends up in the trash when we do our Saturday business, if it hasn't already gone down the shower drain or been flushed down the toilet. But until recently, these same strands—ephemeral, intimate, laden with identity—could be transformed into personal treasures, crafted with precision and combined with precious materials like gold or ivory. We're talking about hair jewelry, an ancient practice that reached its zenith in the 19th century, amidst the moral and sentimental fervor of the Victorian era.

Two Wild West wagons, a Finnish sleigh over two centuries old that can be pulled by a reindeer or a horse, the carriage in which General Prim's mother traveled from Reus to the Vila-seca farmhouse, and a cart carrying 72 cases of Chartreuse bottles in their original packaging, ready to be opened. These are just some of the more than one hundred animal-drawn vehicles that make up the collection of carts, carriages, and wagons that Jordi Rovira Fortuny, from Torrent, has assembled over half a century of research and countless hours of restoration work. Rovira is certain that, with over one hundred vehicles, his is the leading collection of carts in Catalonia, and in the entire country, only a handful can be counted on one hand that can compare in some aspects. Most of the cars he collects are on display in a warehouse in the Francolí industrial park, and this November and the first week of December, they can be visited thanks to the Tarragona Cancer Association. The cost is 5 euros per person, and all proceeds will go to the association, which supports projects focused on support, research, and prevention in the fight against cancer. Those interested should send an email to tarragona@contraelcancer.es indicating the day, time, and number of people in their group, and an attempt will be made to arrange the groups.

With the death of dictator Francisco Franco on November 20, 1975, Catalan society awoke from a nightmare. It had long been brimming with expectations and dynamism. But until the death of leader The latent energies did not fully erupt. This was also true in the cultural world.

Nostalgia is a profoundly human and universal feeling. Virtually everyone experiences nostalgia at some point in their lives. It's inevitable: as time passes, we change. And so do the people around us and the places we inhabit. Sometimes these changes are slow and only become apparent when one day you look back and find yourself longing for a world that no longer exists. Sometimes looking back can be comforting. Other times it hurts more. Especially when the changes are sudden and your world suddenly collapses.

"We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save future generations from the scourge of war." Thus begins the text signed by 50 countries in the summer of 1945, still amidst the smoke from the bombs of World War II. Four months later, on October 24, 1945, the United Nations Charter came into force. The text committed the world's governments to resolve conflicts without the use of weapons, to promote peace and respect for human rights, cooperation among nations on equal terms, and economic and social development throughout the world. These principles—currently so much in question—have been adhered to so far by 193 states, almost all of those in existence.

In 1919, the modern, cool, cool, those at the top must look down: "So insatiable was my sardana passion that on Sundays I would attend sardana dances morning, noon, and night. One day at the Aplec de la Sardana, counting the morning tandas in Vil·la Joana, the afternoon in the bala, the afternoon in the Planes, and not missing a single one in the evening, to the tune of a hundred sardanas."

Not even with their hands on their heads. Not even with a penny in their pockets. Not even with the tragedy stuck in their skin. In 1940, they still didn't know if they would be able to return to Catalonia...

The town of Mollerussa is what we all know today (a regional capital with more than 15,000 inhabitants) thanks to two fundamental historical events: the construction of the Urgell Canal, which began irrigating land that had previously been a veritable desert in the mid-19th century, and the simultaneous construction of the train station and a line that would connect the town. A population boom was assured. Hundreds of farmers and merchants took advantage of this favorable economic climate, as did the most far-sighted entrepreneurs.

On this day, 216 years ago, a Girona, greatly weakened by months of siege by Napoleon's troops, managed to repel yet another attack by the French army. It was September 19, 1809, and that day would be celebrated until the Franco regime as the Great Day of Girona, on which absolutism managed to defeat an army of republican values. Only a few voices, such as that of the Girona-born writer and journalist Prudenci Bertrana, would dare to question the official story, which led to public rejection, arrest, and having to move to Barcelona.

"It was the East that pushed Europe towards the West," writes historian Alessandro Vanoli. Columbus and Magellan wanted to reach the Indies, where so much wealth came from, where knowledge had always come from. First and foremost, America was the West Indies. The concept of the West was born looking towards the east and was in parallel with the redefinition of Europe, a name-idea that the Greeks had invented and that had been used in the early Middle Ages, soon replaced by the term Christendom in opposition to Islam. There was then a time of alliance between Christianity and the Chinese Empire against the powerful Ottoman world.

In June and July 2018, the festival was held on the National Mall in Washington DC, between the Capitol and the monument dedicated to the first American president. Catalonia: tradition and creativity from the Mediterranean, promoted and produced by the Ministry of Culture but also by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. A year ago, preparations were underway just months before the October 1 referendum, and the nervousness of the Spanish embassy in the U.S. was evident: explanatory letters, demands for justification of budgets, interventions at every public event... These were extremely tense times, as the Smithsonian Foundation's own curator, Michael Att, knows.they are building human towers for democracy", he wrote), but the festival's celebration was impeccable. An exhibition of castles, sardanas, giants and big-heads, cultural enterprises, musical performances, and a long etcetera. But along the route of stops on the grass were the buildings of the National Museum of History and Culture, Air and Space, and the National Museum of the American Indian, all of them (and others) promoted by the Smithsonian Foundation, and all of them now the subject of discursive revision by Donald Trump.

Can dancing shoes be made with just two rolls and two forks? Are the sole and nails of a climbing boot edible? Can a cabin on a snowy mountaintop sway as if suspended over nothing? Is emotion tangible? Can the truth of life be filmed? Questions that range from the most comical to the most metaphysical and intangible. They are all contained in The gold rush (1925), one of the essential films in the history of cinema, a masterpiece, a singular work of art by Charles Chaplin that celebrates its centenary this year. Incredible, isn't it? One hundred years old and as young as the first day, so inspiring, so poetic, and precious. Eternally sustained in time, it will be admired forever. No matter what new generations come next, they will continue to be surprised like all the previous ones, they will continue to laugh and smile at the wit and gags of the tramp with the mustache and the bowler hat. Charlot's charlottes, yes, that's what Charlot's comic discoveries are called. Even if you know them almost by heart, you always want to go back to see if they still have the same beneficial effects as all the previous ones. It's relevant that we celebrate today. The gold rush And we envy those who can enjoy it for the first time these days, as it returns to movie screens for its centenary. If you can't enjoy it on the big screen, you have multiple home options. From Movistar and Apple TV to the still-popular DVD and Blu-ray formats.

Superman was born in 1938, amidst political uncertainty and the rise of mass media. His escape from the devastated planet Krypton in search of asylum on Earth connected vitally with his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, sons of exiled Jews. As a hopeful response to the Great Depression and, later, a symbol of the democratic ideal during World War II, Superman personifies values such as justice, truth, and equality. He represents theAmerican way of life and the self-made man, and projects the narrative of the United States as an exceptional and morally just nation. Thus, Superman not only inaugurates the age of superheroes, but lays the first stone of a new American popular mythology, through which symbolic structures are consolidated and ideologies are conveyed in the social fabric. A superman connected to the classic patriarchal ideal—combining extraordinary physical power with unquestionable ethics—and who is presented as an aspirational model of masculinity.

The simplest designs are often the most extraordinary, because they solve complex needs with extreme economy of resources. This is the case with the paper clip or the sewing needle. In fashion, a good equivalent is the flip-flop: one of humanity's oldest and most essential designs. Already present in Ancient Egypt—as evidenced by examples found in Tutankhamun's tomb—they were made from plant fibers such as papyrus or palm leaves. Their shape was minimalist: a single toe and a Y-shaped strap between the first and second toes. Nothing more. Similarly, similar variations appeared in ancient Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, India, China, Japan, and sub-Saharan Africa, made from materials such as leather, wood, or horn. It's surprising how, in such distant places, the same solution was found for a common problem.