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  • Mermaid Monday: Chocolate-Colour Backstroke Mermaid February 26, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: Chocolate-Colour Backstroke Mermaid

    This little report was printed in the Daily Telegraph in November 1886. The article in question gives a series of classic mermaid sightings, but starts with one that the journalist had personally heard of and that had purely local interest. The problem is: where are we? A boatman lately told me that about two years […]

    Daily History Picture: Soviet Nuclear Advice February 26, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Soviet Nuclear Advice

    Soviet nuclear advice: duck before the mushroom cloud. 28 Feb 2018, Nathaniel S: ‘For years I had a puzzling memory that during the first grade (1962 – 63, age 6) in my hometown near Seattle, we kids were taught “a new kind of fire drill”. The familiar type of fire drill involved forming a line […]

    Radio Mistakes, Moscow 1941 February 25, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Radio Mistakes, Moscow 1941

    This is a very weird little episode that Beach can’t get out of his head. First, though, some background. From about 13 to 20 October 1941 Moscow lived under the threat of invasion. The German army was practically at the suburbs of the city and the populace thought that they were living on borrowed time. […]

    Victorian Urban Legend: The Nail Ghost February 24, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legend: The Nail Ghost

    This is a very enjoyable ghost story: it is classed as an urban legend because this blogger has come across it before but cannot remember where. Can anyone help: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com The text comes from The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham (the good Lord’s autobiography, published in 1871: flor. 1778-1868). […]

    Daily History Picture: Border Bells February 23, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Border Bells

    1903, border between Switzerland and Italy. Look for the bells…

    Daily History Picture: Wolf Attacks, France February 22, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Wolf Attacks, France

    Wolf attacks in France 1400-1918

    Daily History Picture: Tape Worm Advert February 21, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Tape Worm Advert

    This seems is supposedly a genuine advert but one that was a joke?!? Love ‘no danger’! Leif writes in, 28 Feb 2018: We’re going to cry ‘fake’ to a third image reproduced on your site. The advert is certainly humorous, but created after 1949 in a retro style. Any chance that the advert is serious […]

    Daily History Picture: Lost Lands February 20, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Lost Lands

    Brilliant picture of French classroom, notice Alsace and Lorraine black on the map of France: WW1 coming.

    Ghost Riot and Fakery, 1897 February 20, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Ghost Riot and Fakery, 1897

    An 1897 ghost story, with a small ghost riot, exceptional for this extraordinary illustration from the Illustrated Police News. Regrettably the story was not more widely reported. Can anyone give more? drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com PLUMSTEAD, near Woolwich, has for the past week been the scene of a ghostly visitation, in which the ‘spirit’ […]

    Daily History Picture: Three Tatler Girls February 19, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Three Tatler Girls

    Three 1920s girls from Tatler Magazine (British upper class)

    Japanese Mermaid in India February 19, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Japanese Mermaid in India

    This mermaid account is perhaps most interesting for the insight it gives into the mermaid trade in the east. We are in Delhi (Anon 1870). I was quite astonished to hear from some of my friends that a real mermaid exposed in the chouk of this city, could be seen on paying a single piece. […]

    Doom! Doom! Doom! February 18, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Doom! Doom! Doom!

    This is one of those WIBT (wish I’d been there) moments, described by Lloyd George some two decades after the event. First some background. 4 August 1914 Britain had given an ultimatum to Germany stating that Germany would have to remove its troops from Belgium forthwith. If Germany continued to violate Belgian neutratlity then Britain […]

    A Fairy Foot? February 17, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    A Fairy Foot?

    In 1871 a man in a cattle market in Ipswich (England) watched a dealer remove, from his pocket, various objects and was shocked to see a small skeletal foot there. On being asked what the object was: the cattle dealer responded that it was a ‘fairy foot’ and that it was a ‘sovereign protection against […]

    Daily History Picture: Titania! February 16, 2018

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

    1939 British Titania from Midsummer Night’s Dream

    Who Coined ‘World War’? February 16, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
    Who Coined 'World War'?

    ‘World war’ is a magnificent phrase. It alliterates, it promises a vast scale, and it doesn’t get lost in tiresome Latinate polysyllables. But where does the expression come from? The Longer Oxford Dictionary gives its earliest reference in English to 1848 and the People’s Journal.* Actually the phrase seems to have been used earlier in […]