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  • The Index Biography #15: Prize = A Good Book January 31, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Index Biography #15: Prize = A Good Book

    The Index Biography is a new form of biography pioneered by this blog and introduced in a previous post. The creator must find a biography of a famous individual from history, they must turn to the index and write down eight peripheral facts about the individual’s life. We offered up previously here Sheridan le Fanu and Joseph […]

    Daily History Picture: Snail City January 30, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Snail City

    I have no idea….

    Ghost at Lynton January 30, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Ghost at Lynton

    Beach is a sucker for these ghost stories from the Victorian, the Edwardian and immediate post Edwardian period. This particular series of horrors relates to the Ewings who lived as tenants at St Vincent’s Cottage, Lynton, 1937, ‘where a large number of bones have been found’. Here is Mrs Ewing: From the very start of our […]

    Naked Christianity January 29, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Naked Christianity

    Beach recently shared the splendours of naked fertility rituals in Missouri from Colonial times to the Great Depression. The author of that article (Vance Randolph, Nakedness in Ozark Folk Belief, The Journal of American Folklore 66, 333-339) also describes what may be spill over into local Christianity. In 1905 a preacher, Jim Sharp from Missouri, […]

    Daily History Picture: Bang Goes the Hindenburg January 29, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Bang Goes the Hindenburg

    The Hindenburg comes crashing to earth, 1937… 36 died

    Daily History Picture: Helen and Charlie January 28, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Helen and Charlie

    Helen Keller meets Charlie Chaplin

    The Lost Tragedy of Anne Boleyn January 28, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Lost Tragedy of Anne Boleyn

    An entry in the burning libraries catalogue… In 1536 Anne Boleyn was executed for sexual betrayal and for plotting the murder of the king, her husband Henry VIII. Beach has examined these extraordinary claims in another post, sufficient to say for now that there was almost certainly no substance to them, but that Henry VIII […]

    Daily History Picture: Running for Freedom January 27, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : History Roundups
    Daily History Picture: Running for Freedom

    Hans Schumann runs for freedom in Berlin, 15 Aug 1961

    The Eighteen Year Old Problem: Murder in WW2 France January 27, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    The Eighteen Year Old Problem: Murder in WW2 France

    Beach had, as a historically-inclined teenager, a recurrent dream, where he was on an island in a lake and a Viking boat full of blond psychos was coming toward him (and there was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide). The extract below has something of the same terrible inevitability. Certainly, having read this a […]

    Daily History Picture: French Resistance Amazon January 26, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : History Roundups
    Daily History Picture: French Resistance Amazon

    God, help any German prisoners…

    Green Children of Woolpit 5: Parallels January 26, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    Green Children of Woolpit 5: Parallels

    Beach must start with apologies. He promised four posts on the green children but he was not able to contain himself. Here, then, is a fifth dreamt up in the outer rings of fever in the last couple of days (flu now been ravaging for a week). Beach set himself a simple question: to what […]

    Daily History Picture: Eating Fish January 25, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : History Roundups
    Daily History Picture: Eating Fish

    I have no idea but disturbing…

    Green Children of Woolpit 4: Why Bean Stalks? January 25, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    Green Children of Woolpit 4: Why Bean Stalks?

    The fourth and final post on the green children of Woolpit and this time the mystery of the beans. First, William: ‘Cum ergo inedia iam paene deficerent, nec tamen aliquid ciborum, qui offerebantur, attenderent, forte ex agro contigit fabas inferri, quas illico arripientes, legumen ipsum in thyrsis quaesierunt, et nihil in concavitate thyrsorum invenientes amare […]

    Green Children of Woolpit 3: Why Green Skin? January 24, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    Green Children of Woolpit 3: Why Green Skin?

    Of the green children of Woolpit William of Newburgh writes: Ex his fossis tempore messis, et occupatis circa frugum collectionem per agros messoribus, emerserunt duo pueri, masculus et femina, toto corpore virides, et coloris insoliti, ex incognita materia veste operti. John Clark translates this, in his recent brilliant essay, as: ‘Out of these ditches, at […]

    Daily History Picture: Execution January 23, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : History Roundups
    Daily History Picture: Execution

    Spanish patriots murdered by Napoleon’s men: Goya 3 May 1808. 31 Jan 2015: Chris S writes in with this ‘Allegedly, the guy holding up his hands in this painting is the inspiration for the “peace sign”. Of course this comes from Wikipedia, so caveat lector.