Welcome to the first Link Dump of Spring 2019!
Time for Strange Company HQ's spring cleaning!
Where the hell did we get the phrase, "red herring?"
How a child's murder became folklore.
Yes, they're still trying to find Jack the Ripper.
And, of course, Amelia Earhart.
This week in Russian Weird: nothing to see here, just mysterious black insects taking over.
There's a town in Switzerland where the answer to the universe is not 42, but 11.
Why the Duke of Wellington should have confined his shooting to the battlefield.
More of the horrors of Victorian food.
Yet another sign that the human race is past its sell-by date.
Parson Patten vs. the ghost.
The red Taj Mahal.
Man deprives koala of air conditioning.
The $1.4 million pigeon.
The last of the leprechauns.
Hannah Martin, Messiah.
Portraits of a notorious Georgian era woman.
The race for the first artificial heart.
La Castiglione: Queen of the selfies.
Hunting for leprechauns.
Ireland is home to what may be the world's oldest pub.
Three early female detectives. (Reminiscent of Cora Strayer and Alice Clement!)
Searching for dinosaurs in Central Africa.
The sea monsters of San Francisco Bay.
18th century organized crime.
How a recent ancient shipwreck discovery vindicates Herodotus.
There are rocks on Africa that, according to science, shouldn't be there.
The oldest known marine astrolabe.
The execution of two failed regicides.
St. Helena as it is today.
Nice's Avenue of the English.
That time Irish Americans fought for Mexico.
A man who probably got away with murder.
King Charles I's execution vest.
The life of a Tudor courtier.
A heroic dog.
Britain's oldest horse race.
Ancient DNA is...complicated.
Why so many ancient statues are missing their noses.
Marie Corelli, one of the most popular Victorian authors. (Out of curiosity, I once read "The Sorrows of Satan." The writing was laughably awful--a perfect parody of Victorian melodrama--but she was one of those authors who keeps you reading, in spite of yourself. She knew how to hold your attention. I have no desire to read any more of her books, but I understand why they were so immensely popular in her day.)
A rivalry between undertakers.
Caraboo, the strangest of princesses.
Good luck to ya, guys.
Well. That taught him a lesson.
An Irish Roswell.
The first female film director.
That's it for this week! See you on Monday, when we'll look at a once-notorious Bluebeard and his ghostly footnote. In the meantime, here's what was Top of the Pops in ancient Greece.
Another great Friday collection. I know of Princess Cariboo from the movie, starring Phoebe Cates, which I saw years ago and was my introduction to the character, a kind of female Psalmanasar. The red herrings I know of from my days of reading mystery books. After all, Sayers wrote a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery entitled "The Five Red Herrings" - though I like the tv adaptations of the books, the books themselves were not among my favourite mystery series.
ReplyDeleteAnd writing of red, John Hessing's tomb was new to me. It's beautiful, like a miniature version of a palace. The early days of European contact with India is a special interest of mine, and I think it must have been a great - and dangerous - time in which to be an adventurer, taking service with Indian princes, great and small. The British and French were the principal players but, as this article points out, other nationalities joined in, and benefitted. And many, like the British after them, came to love India.