"...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, May 24, 2019

Weekend Link Dump



This week's Link Dump is sponsored by the lovely and talented Princess Mickey.

Brooklyn Cat Show 1948, via New York Public Library





Some peculiar wedding ceremonies from the past.

A professional malpractioner.

First, it was the bones of Richard III.  Now, it's the remains of Queen Emma.

When Agatha Christie met true crime.

What the Chinese are discovering on the dark side of the moon.

We really don't know one damn thing about the universe.  Not even its age.

Going back to planet earth, we really don't know one damn thing about our own history.

The world's loneliest duck.

A "real life" children's book from 1819.

The birth of Queen Victoria.

A man who carried a bullet in his heart for 13 years.

The end of Uncle Tick-Tock.

A British gardening power couple.

The importance of cooking pots to Ottoman Janissaries.

The very strange Mirin Dajo.  (Warning: if photos of a guy sticking a sword through his body are not for you, I advise moseying along to the next link.)

What do you get when the War Food Administration decides to put on a play?  "Niacin Theater," of course.

A Crimean War nurse who "did not like the name of Nightingale."

As someone who was born in a rural area and has been forced to live in urban areas ever since, I believe this.

A life not untypical of 99.99 percent of us.

Crystal skull hoaxes.

When ravens spread bad vibes.

The first facial hair competition.

When the worst problem large cities had to deal with was horse manure.

Bee folklore.

The advertising of 18th century pleasure gardens.

Here's your big opportunity to own the most haunted house in Essex.

Warning bells for the newly-buried.

Research into the Nazi destruction of libraries.

A monument to a murdered stray dog.

More on Lillian Russell, the fishing golf cat.

Mark Olmsted just would not die.  This was a major problem for him.

Wodehouse goes Continental.

A very unsubtle poisoner.

India may once have boasted kangaroos.

A workhouse pauper and his remarkable tattoos.

A youthful female serial killer.

The beginning of the craze for cashmere shawls.

The mystery of the "jars of the dead."

One very cold murder mystery.

That's a wrap for this week! See you on Monday, when we'll look at the Great Toothache Curse. In the meantime, here's a bit of Renaissance dance music. Party like it's 1519!

1 comment:

  1. I'd read about Agatha Christie's links - usually involuntary on her part - with true crime in a biography of hers (an interesting book that described her life as she wrote her books, as it were). Having someone use your fictional methods in real life must be a writer's nightmare.

    And as for P.G. Wodehouse (whom I've always liked despite his childish attempts to bring warring countries together in World War Two), the covers of his continental editions are almost as entertaining as what went inside them.

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