This week's Link Dump is sponsored by the League of High Society Cats!
Why the hell did the 1918 flu kill so many young people?
What the hell did 17th century food taste like?
What the hell was Mithraism?
Watch out for Jolly Jane!
Watch out for those naked Scottish mermaids!
Watch out for those false fashionistas!
Watch out for those hairy dwarfs!
Butchery on First Avenue.
Elizabeth Armstrong, who won the battle but really, really lost the war.
A murder and an early "paranormal investigation."
How a pigeon tendon confirmed Queen Victoria's chops as an art historian. Never mind, just read.
R. Stevie Moore, the most prolific of musicians.
Byzantine science.
If you want to trace the steps of Lewis and Clark, just follow the mercury-laden latrines!
The man behind Gilligan's "Professor." (Side note: I remember when I was 4 or 5 or so, watching "Gilligan's Island" simply because I had a major crush on Russell Johnson. I thought the Professor was the best thing about the show.)
Peterborough folklore.
A "scandalous and formidable" lady.
A brief history of kitty litter.
Sammelbands and frisket-bites.
The last days of a 19th century poisoner.
A teenager's weird disappearance.
More proof of how life insurance has enriched the true-crime genre.
The dangers of "knitter's face."
Weird Wills of the Georgian era.
Wonderful photos of the old pubs of Wapping.
Tales from 19th century London prostitutes.
Tales from a 19th century Italian bandit.
People who got on Marie Antoinette's nerves.
A Mesopotamian marriage contract.
Because I know you're dying to discuss medieval toilet habits.
And then let's move on to Alexander Hamilton's secretions. Not to mention his manicules.
And a bit of bodysnatching.
Unitarians, a Polish swamp, and a life-saving gnome. Read on.
Thomas Cream: he wasn't Jack the Ripper, but he surely still deserved to hang.
Celebrating a WWII veteran on her 15th birthday.
The railroad telegraph version of Phone Calls From the Dead.
The tragic death of a 19th century stationer.
The murder of a society bootlegger.
The hazards of dating the dead.
Byron's manservant.
The executions of Old London.
An operatic parrot.
The execution of a famed Danish witch.
A ghost story from WWI.
The dreadful summer of 1816.
Postcards from the U.S./Mexico border, 1916.
The "Despard Plot."
Musical Renaissance knives.
And so yet another Link Dump comes to a close. See you on Monday, when we'll meet an unusually chatty cat. In the meantime, here's some Altan:
I always thought it was especially tragic that so many millions died in the Spanish 'flu epidemic of 1918-19, after being through the Great War. And I thought it had to do with the lowered resistance of having been through the war - people on rations, living in poor hygiene.
ReplyDeleteIn her memoirs, writer Molly Kaye, an Indian-born Englishwoman, told of how the crocodile population exploded after the epidemic, because Hindus cremated their dead (often incompletely) and put their remains in rivers, where the scavengers found them. But most crocodiles killed for years afterward had spongy skin and tissue and was no good for bags and luggage.