Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Genuine? 15 Nov 2015: Nathaniel writes According to this site, it’s “ Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-19948″ . So I’d say yes, it’s genuine!

A few days ago Beach started the hunt for cat hating in the Middle Ages. Here is a second text from Etienne de Bourbonne (aka Stephen of Bourbon) who has sometimes appeared here before. Etienne was a Dominican inquisitor and so is something of an expert, let’s say. Auvergne is in central France. Similarly something of […]

Eisenhower greets the troops: before DDay? 15 Nov 2015: Anon email ‘Gen Dwight D Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. “Full victory – nothing else” to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe. Photo by Moore. SC194399. Possibly […]

The longest war between states in modern history? Well, Wikipedia has a page and there are several freelance attempts to elevate this or that conflict to the most protracted, but what about the Greek-Albanian war of 1940-1987? Albania, in 1940, was an Italian satrapy and in October of that year when the Italians decided to […]

Austrian Summer Festival, late 1930s

There is the old folk belief that blood calls out for justice. If Beach murders his father-in-law (random example) and then successfully provides an alibi he will soon be undone. The local magistrates will call Beach forward and demand that he lay his hand on dead dad and then poor, much provoked Beach will be […]

c. 1903

The black cat has been visited before on this blog: particularly the question of luck and cats. In three special posts we want to visit the question of why black cats came to be so hated in many parts of Europe. Here is one of the most interesting early texts, which comes from Walter Map, […]

Dear Reader, thanks for all the emails and communications. The most exciting event of this month has been the discovery of a hidden room in the Beachcombing residence: apparently three partisans hid there in the war. We know where it is, we have worked out how big it is, but we still have not broken […]

The book I’m most looking forward to this month: A Garden of Marvels, marvels in early medieval China!

***James wins it, scroll down for answer*** The Index Biography is a new form of biography 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 […]

What Napoleon wore on his last day of freedom

In Hamlet a priest says of the dead Ophelia as she is being brought to her burial (5,1): She should in ground unsanctified have lodged Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers, Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her: But what is this about ‘shards, flints and pebbles’? The Auden Shakespeare has no […]

Mother and children shelter from gunfire

***Dedicated to Chris with question marks*** There is a modern idea that fairies are the spirit of vegetation, the spirits of the land. Human beings, meanwhile, are their polluting, urbanizing neighbours. The two represent, respectively, the forces of life and entropy and are on a permanent collision course. Traditional views of European fairies were rather […]