jump to navigation
  • Daily History Picture: The Dead Rise! June 15, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: The Dead Rise!

    Love the bodies emerging from the waves, how many shipwrecks?

    Dead Rats, Stoned Teachers and Sergeant Monday June 14, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Dead Rats, Stoned Teachers and Sergeant Monday

    Sergeant Monday was a festival in the north-western English town of Kendal for the installation of a new mayor. Basically this was a Saturnalia for the children of the town: and by ancient convention any students in school would be ‘battered out’ by older boys, who would intimidate teachers into silence. Hundreds of kids would then […]

    Daily History Picture: Calabrian Pipers June 14, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Calabrian Pipers

    Not sure why but found this charming…

    How Long Did Our Ancestors Live? June 13, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Contemporary, Medieval, Modern, Prehistoric
    How Long Did Our Ancestors Live?

    Life expectancy is a tricky thing. Every demographer knows that, in the modern world, the difference between a national life expectancy of 40 in country A and 70 in country B is predominantly about how many children die in their early years of life. If you look at life expectancy for fifteen year olds then […]

    Daily History Picture: Kangaroo vs Man June 13, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Kangaroo vs Man

    I hope the kangaroo won

    New History Books: Stalin’s Last Days June 12, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : New History Books
    New History Books: Stalin's Last Days

    Joshua Rubenstein, The Last Days of Stalin, another promising summer book…

    Wolfe and the Seargent June 12, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Wolfe and the Seargent

    This little snippet comes from 1827 and Hone’s Table Book. It describes, of course, the death of that great British hero, James Wolfe, just outside Quebec, in 1759, one of the most famous moments of the march of Empire. But it adds a detail that most Wolfe’s biographers have ignored… It is related of this […]

    New History Books: Labor of Love June 11, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : New History Books
    New History Books: Labor of Love

    One of the books I’m looking forward to, Moira Weigel, Labor of Love on the invention and persistence (against all the odds) of dating.

    Victorian Urban Legends: A Sexual Misunderstanding June 11, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legends: A Sexual Misunderstanding

    Beach has long searched for erotic or sexually-charged Victorian urban legends in vain. It is not, of course, that the Victorians didn’t tell them. The problem is that the Victorians seem to have been averse to putting them into print. Only the wrong bed sometimes emerges. But what about this: ‘the kiss-me misunderstanding’? As the […]

    More Men in the Moon June 10, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    More Men in the Moon

    Franz von Gruithuisen (obit 1854) is a bizarrist’s hero. Here is a brief summary of his published work on the inhabitants of the moon in 1824. A few years ago, professor Gruithausen, of Munich, wrote an essay to show that there are many plain indications of inhabitants in the moon. In answer to certain questions, […]

    Daily History Picture: Bird Museum June 10, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Bird Museum

    Regency natural history museum.

    Daily History Picture: Devil Warning for Kids June 9, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Devil Warning for Kids

    Pass on to the misbehavers.

    The Origins of Excalibur and Late Medieval Funerals June 9, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Medieval, Prehistoric
    The Origins of Excalibur and Late Medieval Funerals

    It is perhaps the single most famous image from the Arthurian canon: the sword being returned to the water, into the grasp of the Lady of the Lake. Beach includes here the scene from the 1981 film Excalibur, which caused his seven year old daughter to audibly gasp when she watched it this morning. Scholars have […]

    Daily History Picture: Drunk Nun June 8, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Drunk Nun

    Civil war on the horizon when you start to get photos like this…

    All the Fun of the Fair June 8, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    All the Fun of the Fair

    This is an early nineteenth-century list (1826) of the things that folk got up to in a fair at Hungerford. It sounds so much better than those fairs that appear on the edges of American films, or the dreadful ‘carnivals’ that Beach was dragged to as a child. The writer comes back, time and time, […]