ON THE SUBJECT OF A TO Z...

     I've already revealed my theme: 16th-century analogues of 21st-century memes.  What I thought I should add here before the Challenge actually launches is that, despite my best intentions, my posts are going to be almost entirely Eurocentric.  Regrettably, I've found information in English about 16th-century Europe to be much more easily accessible than information about other continents.  (Of course, this fact says a lot in and of itself.)  Please don't take this to mean that I find only European cultures to be interesting or worthy of examination!  It's just that I have a limited amount of time to do research for each post, and so I've gone with what was easiest.  If I do the Challenge again in future years, I'll try to remedy this problem.  But for this upcoming April, our time machine will (with rare exception) be planted in European soil.