"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Friday, April 13, 2018

Weekend Link Dump


As this is Friday the 13th, this week's Link Dump is sponsored by an array of lucky black cats!








Why the hell do we have eyebrows?

Who the hell was Jane Austen?

What the hell killed off the dinosaurs?

What the hell formed Giant's Causeway?  Now we know?

Watch out for those haunted farms!

Jesse James and the paranormal.

The Army Cyclist Corps.  ("Cycle for the King!")

Some mid-20th century photos of London.

An island associated with Franklin's expedition.

A possible ancient Roman refrigerator.

The obscure French village that hides an ancient treasure. (No, it's not Rennes-le-Château...)

Spring cleaning, 19th century style.

The long history behind a famous insult.

The British theft of Ethiopian manuscripts.

Superstitions for drivers.

The very, very strange Silent Twins.

You wouldn't want to be around Jeremiah Meacham when he was mightily distressed.

The Witch of Huntingdon.

A man who had an unenviable "first and last."

Fairies in the Folklore Society.

I'm not sure why I'm linking this, because I've always hated this story: the ill-fated Laika, space dog.

The young author and the fateful seance.

A recent murder case that shook Iceland.

The history of punch, the "middling drink."

A French conjurer in England.

A mayor of Zurich comes to a bad end.

As a side note, "Biddy Early" is a great name for a witch.

Esperanto lives!

This week's Advice From Thomas Morris:  Ladies, this is what not to do with a pot of cosmetics.

A massacre that shaped English history.

Yet another potential "Robin Hood."

A dream of death.

A ghost who wanted a coroner.

A finger bone stars in this week's "pushing back human history" link.

A look at 18th century Bristol.

The dangers of 19th century railway stations.

The snake-woman of Jamestown.

The man who tried to buy the Devil.

Embalming should really wait for when you're dead.

"I have shot my husband."  And she got away with it, too.

Chatelaines: Victorian mobile devices.

A baby boom at sea.

If anyone offers you a "Whistle-Belly Vengeance," I advise saying no.

Two persistent 19th century bachelors.

La Belle and her lemonade stand.

The peripatetic life of Alexander von Humboldt.  (Poe fans know that "Eureka" was dedicated to von Humboldt.)

How the skull of a 19th century Indian murderer wound up in a British pub.

Frankenstein bog mummies.

A Victorian doppelganger.

So, let's talk zombie raccoons.  And body-snatching wasps.

Parts of Stonehenge may have predated humans.

Documenting the weird side of Irish history.

A strange 17th century disappearance.

The colonel and the sheikh.

The woman who gave birth in her sleep.

The "El Faro" maritime tragedy.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a play that wound up having a ghostly co-star.  In the meantime, here's Jimmy Cliff.



2 comments:

  1. Reading the article on Jane Austen makes me think that far far too much has been written about Jane Austen.

    The article about the cyclist corps was interesting. Such units were actually common in many armies at the turn of the twentieth century. The German Army had one. With plenty of highways throughout Europe and not many automobiles, bicycles seemed a common sense means of getting around, even for soldiers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And a most interesting article about Robin Hood. I believe he was indeed an amalgam of several men, but the two mentioned in the article seem very likely suspects.

    ReplyDelete

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