"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Friday, March 9, 2018

Weekend Link Dump



This week's Link Dump is sponsored by another of our celebrity cats!

And Buster Keaton.



Why the hell did ancient people drill holes in their heads?

What the hell is an island?

Who the hell made the Portolan Charts?

Watch out for those owls!

Watch out for those phantom hitchhikers!

A court case involving ghosts and bleeding corpses.

Watch out for those cursed vases!

The woman who thought she was married to Napoleon.

Shorter version:  water is weird.

A princess' generous ghost.

The diary of a 17th century vicar.

So maybe it's true that elephants never forget.

The donkey who starred in St. Patrick's Day parades.

Recent cases where airplanes encountered UFOs.

That time San Francisco rioted over a beer-drinking actress.

A quack's peculiar disappearance...and equally peculiar reappearance.

The captain whose sea was the desert.

The heroic voyage of Mary Patten.

A dinner with the Alexander Hamiltons and the Bonapartes.

Letters from ancient women.

When you have three brothers nicknamed "Newgate," "Cripplegate," and "Hellgate," you know you're dealing with a fun family.

A brief history of hair transplants.

A magnetic anomaly in Africa.

Blood and the Shroud of Turin.

A Chinese poltergeist.

The odd case of the Black Pig of Kiltrustan.

The (relatively) forgotten Garfield assassination.

The mystery of the appendix.

Folklore and psychotherapy.

Etiquette rules from 19th century France.

A forgotten aviation pioneer.

When father is very unlike son.

The world's oldest tattoos.

How wild animals self-medicate.

The once-renowned Wyld's Globe.

A woman who was framed for witchcraft.

Because I know you've been dying to ask me what London weather was like in the late seventeenth century.

The Coker Hill haunting.

Why it was a bad idea to invite Horace Walpole to a cricket match.

This week in Russian Weird looks at Siberian "wild people."  And what really became of this Soviet spy?

Captain Halpin meets a ghost.

Is this the world's oldest writing?

The serial killer of elephants.

That's it for this week!  We meet again on Monday, when I'll look at a doctor's mysterious murder.  In the meantime, here's some classic Irish music.



2 comments:

  1. I've never heard of the portolan charts. I wouldn't rule out ancient civilisations having the technology to make them. After all, the world's regions go through stages of advancement and regression. The Dark Ages were nothing like what came before or would come after. But I dislike it when a researcher rules something out with nothing to put in its place. It's like complaining of a situation with no viable solution of your own to offer.

    But I do like Buster Keaton.

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  2. That story of Dr Bates is very unusual and confusing - why would someone with a high standing in their field suddenly start promoting quack medicine?

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