Category: History

Haunted mansion that has witnessed TWO mystery deaths goes on sale for the cut-down price of $159,000

A haunted Chicago mini-mansion, once owned by the inventor of barbed wire, has gone on sale for the frighteningly low price of $159,000. The home, […]

The 19th century illustrator whose imagination fueled the work of H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft is famous for creating monsters so bizarre they are almost impossible to visualize. And yet he was inspired by many painters and visual […]

Airships and Invaders: Background to a Social Panic

  • May 7, 2014
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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the invasion and spy scares which were prevalent in conjunction with the British 1909 and 1913 airship […]

An Actual Recording Of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Spirit” From A 1934 Séance

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle often wished that he would be remembered for his writings on Spiritualism rather than his Sherlock Holmes novels. That didn’t happen. […]

New technology unwraps mummies’ ancient mysteries

Our fascination with mummies never gets old. Now the British Museum is using the latest technology to unwrap their ancient mysteries. Scientists at the museum […]

Shipwreck hunter recovers first gold from what could be $80m find

Odyssey Marine Exploration NASDAQ CM:OMEX announced Monday that it recovered nearly 1,000 ounces gold from its first reconnaissance dive to the SS Central America shipwreck […]

‘Wild-haired and witch-like’: the wisewoman in industrial society

  • May 6, 2014
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Many of us rely on herbal remedies to maintain our health, from peppermint tea to soothe our stomachs to arnica cream for alleviating bruising. Such […]

The Cadaver Synod: When a Pope’s Corpse Was Put on Trial

Roman churches usually aren’t shy about their macabre histories. At Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte a nun will be happy to let you photograph their […]

No flogging the church treasure

A Hampshire parish has been prevented by a court from selling off a “treasure” – a 500-year-old helmet with visor – even though it has […]

Ghosts be here? A mystery writer’s guide to the Cornish coast

If ever there was a place for ghost stories, it’s Cornwall — the rugged peninsula of southwest England that tumbles into the Atlantic Ocean. Already […]

Joyita — the ghost ship mystery

It was built in Los Angeles, US, in 1931 as a luxury yacht for movie director Roland West. Naming it Joyita, meaning “little jewel” in […]

Big Bird’s Last Stand

No animal has had more speculation heaped upon it than the Moa. These birds evolved around 85 million years ago on the southern Super-continent called […]

Jousting season begins at Blenheim Palace

The noble sport of jousting is set to be re-created in Britain this weekend as the new season begins at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordhshire. The […]

Weighing Witches

How do I know if, c. 1750, old Mother Shipley down the road is a witch. Obviously the dying chickens, my children’s illnesses, the unpleasant […]

How Censors Killed The Weird, Experimental, Progressive Golden Age Of Comics

  • May 4, 2014
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Comics histories sometimes reduce the Golden Age to the Superman Age: an era of lily white, squeaky-clean, manly-man heroes punching bank robbers and selling World […]

Dark Figures of the Victorian Era

The Victorian Era produced an unprecedented and prolific group of thinkers, writers, mystics, spiritualists, inventors, and more. They embodied the basic framework for all of […]

Eerie African Ghost Town Engulfed by the Desert

Abandoned places that once bustled and thrived with people, ghost towns are remarkable because they provide a vision of what once existed. While there’s a […]

The Day Batman Was Too Late

I see that IDW have just published a collection of Batman Sunday newspaper strips from the sixties. (Batman: The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Vol.1: 1966 […]

Damnatio Memoriae: When the Romans Purposely Erased People from History

Damnatio memoriae condemnation of memory was a punishment reserved for certain people the Romans decided to dishonour for one reason or another. Rather impressively, it […]

‘You keep wondering if it’s going to be your turn’: Letters discovered in a loft uncover amazing story of the WW1 soldier who survived a U-boat attack only to be tragically killed a few months before the end of the war

Letters from a First World War soldier to his sister which reveal how he survived a German U-boat attack months before he was killed at […]

The Bennington Triangle and the Man-Eating Stone of Glastonbury Mountain

There’s been a lot of focus lately, on weird happenings in faraway lands. The middle-east, Russia, Asia, even Australia, which from a Can-Am-centric worldview I’m […]

How Sheep Became Livestock

The domestication of plants and animals was one of the most important events in human history, but rarely have archaeologists been able to catch the […]

‘Psychic Surgeons’ Say They Can Operate With Bare Hands – Canadian scientist calls it a harmful fraud

Can a person reach into a human body and pull out tumors and other unhealthy elements leaving no wound or scar? That’s the claim of […]

DNA sought to close 1926 missing-person case

Marvin A. Clark vanished during a short trip to Portland on Halloween weekend 1926, but the search to find out what happened to him may […]

In England, Researchers Investigate Case of the Talking Mongoose

The University of London’s Senate House Library is one of the finest academic research institutions in England. On a recent day, a lecture room in […]