3:00pm-3:30pm on Saturday 21 March
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Free School Lane, CB2 3RH
In the early modern world, giants were often thought to belong to legend – figures from biblical stories or ancient Greek myths. But in the early 1700s, King Frederick William I of Prussia developed a fascination with extraordinary height. Scouring Europe for the tallest men he could find, he built a regiment unlike any seen before in history: the Potsdam Giants.
To other kingdoms, these soldiers were impossible to ignore – a striking, living display of Prussia’s rising power. To scientists, they were a mystery, their extraordinary height and body proportions offering clues about how traits such as size and shape run in generations. Could people be made taller? Could physical traits be shaped, improved or even controlled?
Drawing on royal records, anatomical studies and museum collections, this talk explores how wonder, ambition and anxiety shaped the study of human difference in Enlightenment Europe. Audiences will discover how the fascination with giants transformed ideas about health, beauty, heredity and what it means to be ‘normal’.
