Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

This story comes out of Kirby’s Wonderful Museum, vol IV, p. 359. Kirby claimed to have extracted it from a 1618 publication, The Abridgement of the English Chronicle. We are back to stupid sport bets. In this moneth [but which year?], John Lepton of Kepwick, in the county of Yorke, Esquire, a gentleman of an […]

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, […]

Pheidippides is a bit player in history. A fifth-century Greek who allegedly ran the original marathon. First, though some background to help situate one of the fastest men in the ancient world. In 490, perhaps in early September, Athens found itself in trouble. The Persian Emperor, Darius, resented the fact that Athens had helped the Ionian city states […]

The Other Dream Team is the best history documentary Beach has watched since starting this blog four years ago. As it doesn’t seem to have the fame that it deserves here’s a shout out: even the almost ahistorical Mrs B. was moved. Some background. Lithuania is a small Baltic State of three million that has […]