Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Tiny British soldiers checks a giant German prisoner for weapons

***David B gets it, scroll down for answer**** The Index Biography is a quiz pioneered by this blog and introduced in a previous post. The creator must find a biography of a famous individual from history, they must turn to the index and write down eight peripheral facts about the individual’s life. We offered up previously […]

1940 or 1941, even the elevators and stairs…

When we experience unusual phenomenon then, of course, our filters are almost as important as the phenomenon itself. Take a series of sheep killing cases that recently made quite an impression on Beach. The narrative breaks down into three sections: Mystery, Mystery Solved, Perception. Each of these in three parts: a, b and c. The […]

Tim Moore, The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold Stories of riding behind and around the Iron Curtain.

In December 1910 a Dr. Stillman, head of the laboratory at the Stevens Institute of Technology, New York, decided to offer some lucky guests a synthetic meal: ‘On the side table were test tubes, bunsen burners, retorts, bottles of various reagents, and so forth.’ Do we glimpse here the beginning of molecular gastronomy? The menu […]

Daniel Beer, The House of the Dead Chilly Siberia before the Soviets.

Location: Magic spells for determining future husbands and wives are to be found throughout Britain. But spells usually involve church porches. This spell with a prayer book is only to be found in the English west country. Aim: To see your future spouse. Ingredients: table, fire, food, drink, prayer book, attractive partner. Method: West Country Spell […]

The magnificent buddhas of Bamiyan

Imagine that you are born in the industrial heartlands of England to a working class family in the mid nineteenth-century. Aged six you are already sent out to earn a crust: let’s say you have to drive a donkey for a cruel master. You never get an education worth the name and still by your […]

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Selling coats Danish style: Copenhagen 1936

Sewer stories… Several years ago a little German Jew, named Schwartz, believing that in the sewers of New York might be found many articles of value which had been lost, entered them, and for three days wandered through the labyrinth. He was very successful, picking up some 27,000 dols. worth of jewellery, spoons, forks, &c.; […]

British exhibition in the 1950s. A fairy shows children how electrical appliances will transform the home…

This was an advertising style for a while. It would be interesting to do a post… 23 Feb 2017: EC I don’t have proof but that picture just screams “modern fake”. I mean, the woman is nude under her apron – THAT wasn’t an advertising style back then! And both that address and that organisation […]