"...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, March 13, 2020

Weekend Link Dump

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

For this week's Link Dump, the cats of Strange Company HQ offer some timeless vintage advice:




The Dancing Marquess.

The evolution of the afterlife.

Detailing who was on the Mayflower.

Commemorating the Tower of London's menagerie. 

The lives of imprisoned women in early 20th century England.

The logic of animal conflict.

The literature of pandemics.

The Judge vs. the Deputy Chief Constable.

Cults, conspiracies, and kabooms.

The execution of an infamous "baby farmer."

A dinosaur trapped in amber.

The North Star is being weird.

The magic of seeds.

In defense of Bloody Mary.

A tiny Polish cat museum.

The death of the novel?

The execution of an Irish rebel.

A murder sparked by secession.

An unsolved--and particularly senseless--murder.

A significant cosmic impact.

If you want to make archaeologists happy, show them a medieval cesspool.

The era of poison pen letters.  Nowadays we have social media, which can't be called an improvement.

A look at ancient mariners.

Voyager 2 is about to become very lonely.

The birth of revenge tragedy, and other theatrical links.

A pioneer of artificial intelligence.

More on the life of General James Wolfe.  (And here!)

A mother and son expose a geographic hoax.

The hunt for a stolen cat.

A 5,000 year old sword.

Epic poems and epic memories.

Using bread and quicksilver to discover bodies of the drowned.

The Duchess and her necromancers.

Madame Recamier's famed bedroom.

Found: the bones of a 7th century saint.

The game of checkers.

A failed Nazi aircraft.

The death of the apostrophe.

The Bishopsgate Goodsyard.

Praising the passive protagonist.

So, Betelgeuse isn't exploding, it's just sneezing.

The restoration of Egypt's oldest pyramid.

Two new biographies of Hitler.

A terrible theater fire.

The anti-vaccination movement of the early 20th century.

A medical mystery: the toxic death of Gloria Ramirez.

Ghosts and the stone tape theory.

The first transatlantic telephone call.

Soldiers recall the Napoleonic Wars.

The deadly "sweating sickness."

How the Whitechapel killer became "Jack the Ripper."

The Death Clock of Doom.

A brief history of pizza.

And, finally, a cat says goodbye to her human.  This story reminds me of the night my grandmother died some years ago, after a long battle with both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.  Our cat Pongo was on the bed with her when she passed away.  He immediately began wailing, and was visibly terribly upset, and remained so for days afterward.  So don't tell me animals don't understand death.

That's all for this week.  See you on Monday, when we'll look at the adventurous life of an 18th century Dutch woman.  In the meantime, this song seems appropriate to kick off the weekend.


1 comment:

  1. Animals do indeed know about death. How can they not understand it? There is nothing hidden about it in nature. To them, it is the end, and they will mourn the passing of a loved one, undoubtedly. Poor Coco - and Pongo.

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