"...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, August 28, 2020

Weekend Link Dump


“The Witches’ Cove,” Feller of Jan Mandijn


This week's Link Dump is enough to make a cat laugh!



The Tower of London ravens are getting bored.

How to sell the Eiffel Tower.

John Quincy Adams did not believe in mole people.  Good to know.

Ancient Egyptian monkey burials.

The hidden rural side of Paris.

A left-handed Viking.

The life of an English princess.

When Britain had bull running.

The Fortean side of London's Underground.

Clark Gable and the obsessed fan.

That time they tried to cancel Robert Southey.

A brief history of mirrors.

That time a supernova may have caused a mass extinction.

Reconstructing ancient ivory carving techniques.

The oldest evidence of humans starting fires.

Yet another murderer who got away with it.

A remarkable case of insurance fraud.

Why 1066 wasn't quite what you think.

Justice in Regency England.

Corpses as drug smugglers.

A mysterious ancient tomb inscription.

Female novelists who went from best-selling to forgotten.

These may be the world's oldest monuments.

Victor Emmanuel II was way too fond of his toenails.

A mysterious locked safe just turned up in a New York field.

Corvid folklore.

A famously incompetent hangman.

A famously competent hangman.

Edward VII, firefighter.

The early days of British heritage conservation.

William McGonagall, the "Plan Nine From Outer Space" of poets.

An opera singer turned accused spy.

Vikings and slavery.

Unsolved disappearances and the Button Man.

Tolstoy's everyday inspirations for "Anna Karenina."

More evidence that Neanderthals are underrated.

The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894.

Tragedy on the steamer Princess Alice.

A camper's very mysterious death.

A haunted home and mysterious bones.

Sir Walter Scott as a judge.

A cliff collapse reveals significant fossil footprints.

The recent discovery of a 17th century shipwreck.

A puzzling murder-suicide.

The role of the wives of 19th century pastors.

Ancient Egyptian recipes revealed through their tombs.

The life of a Tudor courtier.

And...that's all for this week!  We will return on Monday, with a look at an Australian poisoning mystery.  In the meantime, here's a fun bit of '60s pop.


1 comment:

  1. The article on the mirror was most interesting; I think the every-day things, like 'ordinary' lives are the most informative elements of history.

    And the left-handed Viking reminded me of the Kerrs, the Border reiver family, which you probably recall from the book "The Steel Bonnets"; some of their facts may be worthy of a Strange Company article, especially how most tower-house and castle staircases circled clockwise, but the Kerrs' went counter-clockwise.

    Don't crows get a bad rap? I didn't know that about the 'four and twenty blackbirds'; my references to rook-rifles usually come from Agatha Christie...

    ReplyDelete

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