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  • Daily History Picture: Sinatra Selfie October 20, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Sinatra Selfie

    Young Sinatra in the bathroom

    Death by Carpet October 19, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    Death by Carpet

      Beach has been worrying for a while about  the death of the last Abbasid Caliph in February 1258. The man in question, al-Musta’sim-Billah Abu-Ahmad Abdullah bin al-Mustansir-Billah had had the misfortune, fifteen years into his reign, to be confronted with a massive Mongol invasion under Hulegu. Al-Musta’sim-Billah was not a particularly martial sort and […]

    Daily History Picture: Pompeii Joke October 19, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Pompeii Joke

    Sorry!

    Daily History Picture: Marine Animals October 18, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Marine Animals

    Arab manuscripts

    Daily History Picture: Hell! October 17, 2017

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

    15 Cent.

    Monday Mermaid: Singing Florida Mermaids October 16, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Monday Mermaid: Singing Florida Mermaids

    This was published in The Orchestra in 1870. It is a curious account of singing fish in the US… It is very tempting to connect these phenomenon and others like them to the mermaid tradition: in the same way as that the rhino is presumably somewhere behind the unicorn. ‘One day as I was returning […]

    Daily History Picture: Fairy Faith October 16, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Fairy Faith

    Early and very elegant use of the phrase. 1874.

    Little Fairy on the Prairie October 15, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Little Fairy on the Prairie

    Beach spends a lot of his time chasing fairies in eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century books. Because he doesn’t have an exceptional library to hand and because travel is so damn annoying he finds the best thing to do is buy books on the basis of emails from friends and readers; or ‘snippets’ on Google […]

    The Monster of Ryde October 14, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Monster of Ryde

    Some weeks ago Beach had some fun running through twentieth-century British monster stories. Here was one of his favourites. It has everything: a lion’s head, big tracks, a creepy cry and became part of a war-time propaganda campaign. We are at Ryde on the Isle of Wight off the coast of southern England: it is […]

    Daily History Picture: Fairy Perfume October 13, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Fairy Perfume

    Love to smell this.

    Flight with Wings in France 1858 October 12, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Flight with Wings in France 1858

    Another in our series of early flight stories. This one comes from France and appeared in the Bradford Observer in 1858. We are informed that a shepherd, residing in a village in the neighbourhood of Langres, who, a few years ago, made some attempt at flying, has just tried a fresh experiment, not alone and […]

    Daily History Picture: Facial Hair October 12, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Facial Hair

    Loved this.

    Daily History Picture: Head Cutting October 11, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Head Cutting

    Sorry…

    Daily History Picture: Familiar Spirits October 10, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Familiar Spirits

    Late 18C by (or in the book of) a man that saw them…

    Daily History Picture: Drinking October 9, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Drinking

    Love the eyes.