Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Margaret Aston, Broken Idols of the English Reformation. Expensive but by all accounts amazing: I’m looking forward to reading this more than any other book this month.

Samuel Wesley was an Anglican churchman who had been given in the late seventeenth century, through royal favour, a living at Epworth in Lincolnshire. He was married to Susanna with whom he had nineteen children: including perhaps the two most important figures in early Methodism, Charles and John Wesley. At the time of the haunting […]

Celinscak, Distance from the Belsen Heap (note apparently cheaper in the UK?) A detailed description of the liberation of Bergen Belsen, by British and Dominion soldiers.

Mother thanks Adenauer for the return of her son (released POW) from the Soviet Union.

‘The Wesley ghost’ is one of the best attested instances of a poltergeist haunting prior to the twentieth century. There were apparently twelve people living in the Parsonage House (pictured), Epworth (Lincolnshire) at the time of the disturbances, disturbances that centred on the period December 1716 to January 1717: three servants, the Wesley parents and […]

Genuine? 15 Nov 2015: Nathaniel writes According to this site, it’s “ Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-19948″ . So I’d say yes, it’s genuine!

A few days ago Beach started the hunt for cat hating in the Middle Ages. Here is a second text from Etienne de Bourbonne (aka Stephen of Bourbon) who has sometimes appeared here before. Etienne was a Dominican inquisitor and so is something of an expert, let’s say. Auvergne is in central France. Similarly something of […]

Eisenhower greets the troops: before DDay? 15 Nov 2015: Anon email ‘Gen Dwight D Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. “Full victory – nothing else” to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe. Photo by Moore. SC194399. Possibly […]

The longest war between states in modern history? Well, Wikipedia has a page and there are several freelance attempts to elevate this or that conflict to the most protracted, but what about the Greek-Albanian war of 1940-1987? Albania, in 1940, was an Italian satrapy and in October of that year when the Italians decided to […]

Austrian Summer Festival, late 1930s

There is the old folk belief that blood calls out for justice. If Beach murders his father-in-law (random example) and then successfully provides an alibi he will soon be undone. The local magistrates will call Beach forward and demand that he lay his hand on dead dad and then poor, much provoked Beach will be […]

c. 1903

The black cat has been visited before on this blog: particularly the question of luck and cats. In three special posts we want to visit the question of why black cats came to be so hated in many parts of Europe. Here is one of the most interesting early texts, which comes from Walter Map, […]

Dear Reader, thanks for all the emails and communications. The most exciting event of this month has been the discovery of a hidden room in the Beachcombing residence: apparently three partisans hid there in the war. We know where it is, we have worked out how big it is, but we still have not broken […]