Daily History Picture: Illuminated Elephant December 29, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesPennsylvania Church Witch Tests a Member December 29, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Here is a cute witchcraft story from the wrong side of the Atlantic, where Salem is supposed to have put paid to any witch hunt shenanigans. What Beach loves about this account is that we are clearly dealing with very sincere people who are making it up as they go along on the basis of […]
Pan in Warwickshire?! December 29, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
In 1885 a neophyte priest William Herbert Seddon arrived at the parish of Painswick in Warwickshire. Seddon had a strong classical background, he appears for instance in that monument of Victorian learning, The Concordance to the Septuagint, as an important contributor. And he was interested to find, on his arrival, that until the early nineteenth […]
Daily History Picture: Cleaning Up After Waterloo December 28, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesSugar Hell December 28, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern
Nutritionists disagree on almost everything. However, if you go and visit several score one of the few points of consensus (along with ‘eat vegetables’) is that sugar is bad for us: in fact, there is far more agreement about sugar than about fat. Humanity’s dalliance with sugar dates back to the first time that a brave […]
New History Books: Katanga! December 27, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : New History BooksWhite Woman of Bell Island December 27, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Beach recently had the immense pleasure or reading John Widdowson’s If You Be Don’t Be Good, a collection (and analysis) of bogeys used by Newfoundland parents in the interwar and immediate postwar. JW’s purpose was to examine how parents controlled their children in Atlantic Canada, particularly through folklore. But he also picked up many fascinating, […]
New History Books: Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms December 26, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : New History Books
Another book that passed me by… The lost religions of the near east. Gerard Russell, Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms
Daily History Picture: Isolate Yourself! December 25, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesChristmas: Waking Up to Liberation December 25, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Happy Christmas to all readers. This was Strange History’s photo of the year. A teen (Jewish?) girl photographed by British or Dominion (Canadian?) troops at the liberation of Bergen Belsen’s hospital, 15 April 1945. Frighteningly thin, she has just survived the worst war in human experience, on one of the most dangerous acres of European soil. […]
Daily History Picture: Kennedy Trio December 24, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesSupernatural Truce on Christmas Eve December 24, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
This is a beautiful idea, but evidence for it is difficult to find. Essentially all supernatural beings agree not to haunt or terrify humans on Christmas eve. Can anyone supply any other evidence? drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com Beach has got it back to the 1880s. Enjoy the beautiful late Victorian writing… We remember now […]
Daily History Picture: Unicorn Raising December 23, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesMagician Almost Lynched in France December 23, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin is often said to be the father of modern conjuring. But like many pioneers his innovations brought him difficulties and even the threat of physical violence: The great magician of the Palais National possesses at St. Gervais, in the vicinity of Blois, a pleasant domain where he spent the last summer. There, […]