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  • The Index Biography #20, Prize a Good Book July 31, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Index Biography #20, Prize a Good Book

    ***Gary V got this, apparently the prostitutes gave it away… Spool down for the answer*** The Index Biography is a new form of biography pioneered by this blog and introduced in a previous post. The writer must find a biography of a famous individual from history, they must turn to the index and write down eight […]

    Daily History Picture: Prayer in Victory July 31, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Prayer in Victory

    Picture of the month.  

    The Earliest Telephone Call from the Dead July 30, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Earliest Telephone Call from the Dead

    The telephone call from the dead apparently dates back to 1964 and an episode of The Twlight Zone entitled: Night Call. It transpires that the freaky calls that a woman is getting are from the grave of her dead fiancé. Beach, however, recently ran across an earlier example that he wanted to share with readers. It […]

    Daily History Picture: POW Comes Home July 30, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: POW Comes Home

      Lorrie Stirm Kitching [the girl running to greet her father, who had been released in 1973 after fives years in a Hanoi prison] ‘We have this very nice picture of a very happy moment, but every time I look at it, I remember the families that weren’t reunited, and the ones that aren’t being reunited […]

    Life in the Shadow of the Mob: Jewish Norwich July 29, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    Life in the Shadow of the Mob: Jewish Norwich

    The recent post on the bodies in the well from Norwich took Beach through several books on medieval Jewish communities in England and the dominant impression on reading these accounts was the danger of being Jewish in that period. Let’s return to Norwich which included one of Britain’s bigger Jewish communities after London: one estimate has […]

    Daily History Picture: Portable TV July 29, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Portable TV

    Yes, really. You could take it on the bus, on the plane…

    In Search of Nineteenth-Century Urban Legends July 28, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    In Search of Nineteenth-Century Urban Legends

    Urban legends are short stories typically about death, sex or crime, which are told as if they are true. They spread by word of mouth, the newspaper and any other means of communication to hand. The classic modern examples of the urban legends include the vanishing hitchhiker (a minority of urban legends have a supernatural […]

    Daily History Picture: Photo Shoot July 28, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Photo Shoot

    Late 1970s?

    William Allen White’s Brush With the Elm Fairies July 27, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
    William Allen White's Brush With the Elm Fairies

    In 1972 Fate Magazine published a fascinating article by Glenn Clairmonte (1972) examining a fairy encounter of William Allen White. For those who have never heard the name WAW (obit 1944) was a self proclaimed champion of Middle America against Conservatism. His politics don’t concern us here rather what is interesting is the fact that […]

    Daily History Picture: Medieval Study July 27, 2015

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

    Aristotle reads in his study.

    Daily History Picture: Paris Prisoners July 26, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Paris Prisoners

      Some Germans paraded by Allies and Resistance in Paris. Did they survive?

    Don’t Blame Germany July 26, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Contemporary, Modern
    Don't Blame Germany

    Germany has never been a very popular country. But it is fair to say that Germany is perhaps more unpopular in 2015 than at any time since the bush fire memories of the Second World War started to die down in the mid 1950s. In several countries Germany is loathed: top of the list here […]

    The King of the Non-Existent Mary Ann Islands July 25, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The King of the Non-Existent Mary Ann Islands

    Strangehistory has enjoyed micronations on several occasions. However, here is a particularly early and exciting example from late nineteenth-century France.  A young pupil at the Ecole Normale of Grenoble, named Antoine Lanfrey, received by post in the course of the year a packet of papers, bearing the seal of a Royal Chancery constituting him King […]

    The Tower Monster #10: Cobblers July 24, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Tower Monster #10: Cobblers

    This wrap-up post looks at some of the modern accounts of the cylinder/bear ghost and particularly their inaccuracies. This is not done in a condescending way or with spite: this blogger makes factual mistake after factual mistake as his readers constantly remind him. It is, instead, to show again how we, with paranormal sources, where […]

    Daily History Picture: Pacific War July 23, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Pacific War

    Aftermath of a landing