Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

That Joke The words are famous and supposedly came out in a verbal duel between Lady Astor (Britain’s first active woman MP) and, from a different wing of the Conservative party, Winston Churchill. Lady Astor: ‘If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee.’ Churchill: ‘Nancy, if I were your husband I […]

WW1 Romanian soldiers: consensus is Romanian officers terrible; Romanian rank and file tough and effective.

This report came out in 1809 in the wake of the famous Caithness mermaid letters. Last week, whilst a sloop belonging to Beverley, was at anchor in Hawk Roads, near Grimsby, a boy on board saw the appearance of a woman at some distance, whom he supposed by some accident had unfortunately fallen overboard a […]

Location Germany, mid Europe? Aim to create a small living man Ingredients horse manure, semen, a gourd, some human blood. Method (i) Hollow out the centre of the gourd and place ripe horse manure with the semen inside it. (ii) Seal the gourd up. (iii) After forty days, or after the semen begins to move […]

Introduction William Burke and William Hare were two ne’er-do-wells who, in 1828, discovered that murdering people in the Edinburgh slums and selling their corpses to doctors made for good money. They were finally arrested after an incredible sixteen men and women had been done away with. Burke was tried, found guilty and hung; his common […]

Roma children from Transnitra, WW2

Say it quietly, but there is a strong case to be made that, a score of years before Christ was born, a Buddhist monk came to Greece and  set himself on fire in a public display of piety. Sources c. 20 BC an Indian embassy made its way into the Mediterranean to pay tribute to […]

Russian artillery against Austrian-Hungarians in WW1

This is a French story about a beggar in London (though recorded in a London newspaper…) The beggar in question was, it seems, in the habit of sitting at one of our bridges, accompanied by a dog with a placard inscribed ‘Blind’ attached to his neck, and was fortunate enough to awaken the charitable sympathies […]

Introduction It was only a matter of time… In English ‘fairy’ has several different meanings. The primary one is, of course, a supernatural creature with or without wings. But somewhere down the list is a gay man. Where does this idea come from and when did it gain currency? Who Cares? It could be argued […]

1848 Sea Serpent. It has been pointed out to me that this is very phallic…

Cat meets fox: a royal navy mascot.

Here is a nice French story from a period when hypnotism was given far too much credit for being able to make people do things that they did not want to do. We are in 1894. A strange story is related of an extraordinary affair which is said to have occurred in one of the […]

This horror story dates to 1841. It comes to us by a long route. This text is taken from a British newspaper, which excerpted from an American newspaper, which translated from the Revue Britannique, which took its information from the Italian press. Is it true? Drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com Can it be traced back […]

Cutting sunshine: what is happening in the background? RR, 16 Mar 2018: Regarding the image in the background, it appears to be a musical “parade” of sorts with children wearing folded paper hats. One boy seems to be banging a cymbal as they march in a loose procession. A curious image with the young girl […]