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  • A Poxy Invasion of Europe: 1340s May 23, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    A Poxy Invasion of Europe: 1340s

    So here’s the thing. A month ago StrangeHistory put up a post asking what would have happened had Europeans arrived in the New World in the fifteenth and sixteenth century without viruses being involved. The question was would Europeans have managed to conquer American real estate? There were lots of interesting answers from readers: all […]

    Daily History Picture: French Special Forces May 22, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : History Roundups
    Daily History Picture: French Special Forces

    French SAS forces in the Western Desert, WW2.

    Credulity and Animal Lore in Italy May 22, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Modern
    Credulity and Animal Lore in Italy

    Beach has recently been enjoying serpent folklore. This study has led him to question, as often happens to inadequate human beings when new information comes along, ‘facts’ that has been fed him in his time living in Italy: almost a decade now. Here are six involving reptiles and their relatives. Some of these Beach discounted […]

    Daily History Picture: Medieval Mind May 21, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Medieval Mind

    The Gothic brain mapped

    Two Monmouth Moments May 21, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Two Monmouth Moments

    The Duke of Monmouth was the illegitimate son of Charles II and a bit of a ‘tosser’ to use the northern vernacular: he looks, in the portrait above, like an underwear model trying to be ‘hot’, or a nineteen year old who has just made it into a boy band. There is no question that he was […]

    The Greene County Wild Man May 20, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Greene County Wild Man

    When we think wild men most readers will think sasquatch and yeti: when people in the nineteenth century (and before) thought wild men they thought lunatics or hermits who had gone to live in the wood and who had lost touch with humanity. Perhaps in mythic terms there is not that much difference? However, this […]

    Daily History Picture: McCartney and Jagger May 20, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: McCartney and Jagger

      Nice meets nasty in a train cab.

    The Durham Serpent May 19, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Durham Serpent

    Here is a weird little story that allegedly appears in St Nicholas’ Parochial Register, Durham for 1568. Mdm. that a certain Italian brought into the cittie of Durham, the 11th day of June, in the yeare above sayd, a very great strange and monstrous serpent, in length sixteen feet, in quantitie and dimentions greater than a […]

    Daily History Picture: Murder in the Caribbean May 19, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Murder in the Caribbean

    Picture based on De la Casas the first anti-colonial text.

    The Mysterious Erich von Richthofen May 18, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    The Mysterious Erich von Richthofen

    The King and Country debate has been described previously on this blog. It was a talk at Oxford Students’ Union 9 Feb 1933, which saw 275 to 153 students vote for the motion ‘that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country’. This surprisingly pacifist stance from a major British institution attracted […]

    Daily History Picture: Married Couple and Baby May 18, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Married Couple and Baby

    Married couple lie back and the aupair rocks the cradle.

    Daily History Picture: Young Marilyn Monroe May 17, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Young Marilyn Monroe

    24 years old, on war work in 1944: four years from breakthrough.  

    Roman Gutter Burials and a Non-Existent Line of Pliny May 17, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Medieval
    Roman Gutter Burials and a Non-Existent Line of Pliny

    In Roman times dead babies and fetuses were not cremated as adults: references in Pliny and in Juvenal confirm this, as do archaeological findings. However, a fifth/sixth century Christian writers named Fulgentius (possibly a North African) has been read to mean that these not fully human humans were buried in suggrundaria: Priori tempore suggrundaria antiqui dicebant sepulchra […]

    Daily History Picture: Hellish Castles May 16, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Hellish Castles

    Demons in control of the fort, medieval equivalent of the patients taking over the asylum.

    Downey’s Death: Killed by Imagination May 16, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Downey's Death: Killed by Imagination

    Beach stumbled across this story a couple of weeks ago and thought he’d put it up for the practical jokes tag. There was much interest in the nineteenth century about how the psychological impression of death could cause death. Somewhere Beach has read a French version of this (can anyone help: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT […]