Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

This story came out in the Pall Mall Gazette, in early January 1885. It has that sharp cordite smell of urban legend and is, truly, as the journalist says, ‘an amusing story’. Massive kudos to anyone who can send in other nineteenth or twentieth century examples: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com An amusing story reaches us […]

Beach is happy to announce that just two days ago Gibson Square released Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies (a topic close to the heart of many readers of this blog). The book is choc full of fairy experts and includes three chapters on European emigrant fairies in the New World. The authors are: Magical […]

Dear Reader, November a pleasant month after the hell of October (ever forget): lots of writing and proofreading. Thanks for all good wishes. There follow the most interesting words sent in to StrangeHistory. Thanks to all contributors and linkers… Beach Big Brother Urban Legends: Filip G with some great East bloch examples… Cruiser Tank: NH gives […]

Delightful fragment from an illuminated manuscript

***Invisible gets it – scroll down for answer*** The Index Biography is a quiz 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 up previously […]

US Nazi rally at Madison Square Gardens, 1939.

US vs Israel soccer match

The three great totalitarian states that dominated Europe in the 1930s were the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Did these have their own urban legends? Of course. But what were they? Beach wants only to open one obvious form of totalitarian urban legend: what he will provisionally call ‘the big brother story’. Now, […]

German helmet made into a shovel… Hard times.

This brief account was published in the press in 1827 (Anon). Within these last two or three days there have been several mermaids seen on the rocks at Trenance, in the parish of Mawgan. I will state the particulars at length, as I have been enabled to collect them, and which are from undoubted authority, […]

Ghost photograph fakes always have a certain interest, not least because they are usually so clumsily done. However, these, which appeared in the Tatler, 9 Oct 1907, were a cut above. There follow screen captures of the five photographs. The editor has written in ‘The making of ghosts has ever been a favourite pastime of […]

Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate [1960] This blogger has been very reluctant to write posts on historical fiction for the simple fact that he cannot stand most representatives of the genre. But Life and Fate was started reluctantly during the recent flu wars, and has been great bedtime and pre-siesta reading ever since. Written in […]

Still worrying about this one!

Sorry.