"...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, November 29, 2019

Weekend Link Dump

Renoir, "Luncheon of the Boating Party"

Before we get on with the links, here's a pic of Strange Company HQ's Thanksgiving dinner.



Yes, it's still being debated:  What the hell is the Shroud of Turin?

Yes, it's still being debated:  Who the hell was D.B. Cooper?

Gin folklore.

The ghost of a Puritan maiden.

Caring for the mentally ill in medieval times.

Ice Age humans in the Arctic Circle.

Looking for lost dogs in Regency England.

A notable Georgian era woman.

19th century national stereotypes.

The Bosak encounter: a particularly weird UFO report.

The execution of the last of the Plantagenet heirs.  Replacing that dynasty with the Tudors was a sad event for England, IMO.

The man-beast of Sugar Valley.

Victorian DIY Christmas decorations.

The first woman hanged in colonial Australia.

The woman who created America's Thanksgiving Day.

Let's talk really, really bad Thanksgiving plays.  A play that's a real turkey!  Get it?  Get it?...Never mind.

This week in Russian Weird gives us high-tech cows.

The werewolf panic of the...1970s?  Actually, for those of us who remember the '70s, this isn't surprising.

This is really not the way to get published.

That time President Coolidge didn't eat a raccoon.

Some good news:  French ducks just won a lawsuit.

The 1969 Scientology murders.

The creepy mystery of the sand dune that swallowed a child.

A dual disappearance and death that sounds like a real-life "Blair Witch Project."

Maybe this is why people eat turkeys.  Self-defense.

The historical mystery behind Lincoln's first inaugural photograph.

There are times when I really hate the 18th century.

Mary Lincoln and Queen Victoria, pen pals.

The story behind a famed melody.

Some adventurous female sailors.

The man who cursed plums.

A 45,000 year old figurine.

A day in the life of Queen Victoria.

The ghosts of paleontology.

Sad news from 1858 India.

Did we kill off all the other humans?

The "world's most loyal dog."

More on the Chinese seals of Ireland.

More on the Great Pyramid's "hidden chamber."

That's all for this week! See you next week, when we'll look at one of Idaho's most baffling cold cases. In the meantime, here's the SFO:

4 comments:

  1. The RCC will never allow for an honest study of the shroud to be held. Remember, the RCC was the first to call it a fraud - until they realized how much cash it could bring in, then it became a 'miracle'.

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  2. The story about the examination of the mentally ill woman was interesting. I find that much that people believe about the middle ages is erroneous - the most notable misbelief is that people didn't bathe.

    As for the last of the Plantagenets, the Tudors were not an improvement, however much they brought stability to the land after the Wars of the Roses. But the Plantagenets did themselves in, really, with their internecine battles. A dynasty doesn't last long when it's trying to kill itself off.

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  3. My D.B. Cooper theory is that he was a she. Barbara Dayton was a librarian at the University of Washington who had been born Bobby Dayton and in the late 1960's underwent one of the country's first transgender procedures. Years later she bragged to people that she had temporarily reverted to her former male identity to pull off the hijacking, knowing that as a woman she'd never be a suspect, but quickly shut up when someone told her that the statute of limitations had not run out.
    Cooper the hijacker was knowledgeable about aviation, almost certainly had parachuting experience, and was familiar with the geography of the Puget Sound region. Dayton is one of the very few suspects who met all three requirements. In addition, she had been known to have a grudge against the airline industry, due to repeated failed attempts to get hired, and according to everyone who knew her had a bold, risk-taking sort of personality. There also have been claims that she would have resembled Cooper in a man's clothing and haircut. While Dayton was an inch or two shorter than the lower end of Cooper's estimated height range, height estimated for a seated person (no one recalled seeing Cooper standing) are notoriously inaccurate.

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