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  • Daily History Picture: Scramble! September 15, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Scramble!

    Battle of Britain pilots run for their planes.

    Margaret Murray in Her Own Words September 15, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
    Margaret Murray in Her Own Words

    Margaret Murray (obit 1963) was a brilliantly creative and ill disciplined scholar who not satisfied with the mysteries of the pyramids (she was an Egyptologist) decided to sort out European witchcraft in two books: The Witch Cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches (1931). Modern scholars universally reject her methods, while […]

    Daily History Picture: Greek Troops Go Forward September 14, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Greek Troops Go Forward

    Greek troops head towards the Italian invasion

    Snake Friend/Enemy in Egypt September 14, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Snake Friend/Enemy in Egypt

    There are many stories of snakes from world folklore becoming parts of human households and being fed by grateful family members. In some parts of the globe, in the early modern Baltic for instance, this practice seems to have had cultic associations. In most of the world there are folk stories about snakes saved by […]

    Daily History Picture: The Great Basil D’Oliveira September 13, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: The Great Basil D'Oliveira

    Basil plays in township in South Africa

    The Mermaid Con September 13, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    The Mermaid Con

    Before starting out his research on swindles and confidence tricksters, Beach would never have imagined that there could be a mermaid con. This one came from the Gold Coast in Africa and was reported by the head of British administration there in 1923. Not Eve Pos, 6 Oct 1923, 3 A rogue will tell a […]

    New History Books: Operation Ajax September 12, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : New History Books
    New History Books: Operation Ajax

    De Seve and Irwen, Operation Ajax: The Story of the CIA Coup that Remade the Middle East (Verso August 18, 2015). ‘The year is 1953. As the value of oil skyrockets, global power brokers begin to take interest in the political regimes of the Middle East. British agents have controlled Iranian oil exports for a generation, […]

    Immortal Meals #26: The Professors and the Cave Bone Broth September 12, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern, Prehistoric
    Immortal Meals #26: The Professors and the Cave Bone Broth

    The immortal meals series has included prehistoric food and it has included an unlikely Victorian dinner in a dinosaur but this reference, thanks to Chris from Haunted Ohio Books is on a whole different level. Some of the bones of extinct animals found beneath the stalagmite floor of caves in England and elsewhere, presumably of […]

    Rape and Animals September 12, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Rape and Animals

    A recent post described the bizarre legal proceedings that led to New Haven men being accused of bestiality and one being hung. These cases provoke many thoughts but not least was the fate of the accused animals. When George Spencer was brought to the gallows the pig with which he had supposedly had sex with (and […]

    Daily History Picture: Bataan Death March September 11, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Bataan Death March

    All to real Japanese abuse of prisoners.

    Ten Best Second World Statistics September 11, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Ten Best Second World Statistics

    What are the most telling WW2 statistics? Here are ten that stand out for Beach. Send any others in: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com or correct at will. 1) The population of the first world Allied nations was approximately half a billion, the population of the first world Axis powers was approximately one hundred and fifty […]

    Daily History Picture: Stalin Pun September 10, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Stalin Pun

    Sorry

    Unlucky Minister and Fishing Boats September 10, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Unlucky Minister and Fishing Boats

      Priests and monks have long considered to be unlucky in European folklore. If you met a priest in 1400 walking down a Derbyshire or Pyrenean road you would straight away do something to ward off bad luck: touch wood, your testicles etc etc. Priests and monks understandably got quite testy at being treated as albatrosses, […]

    Daily History Picture: Elephant Jump September 9, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Elephant Jump

    The elephant survived… Quite why anyone would put an elephant on a mono-rail I’m not sure but this picture captures the moment it jumps. 19 Sep 2015: Gary V writes in. There is a wikipedia page! ‘On 21 July 1950 the circus director Franz Althoff had Tuffi, then 4 years old, take the Schwebebahn in […]

    Fantasy Britain by OS Maps September 9, 2015

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Fantasy Britain by OS Maps

    OK this is weird little game. Beach has spent many hours in the last two months looking at nineteenth-century OS maps, that is maps produced by the Ordnance Survey, the government body that is responsible for charting Britain, and back in the day, Ireland. The maps are beautiful, they lack the gaudy colours of today […]