When the English Witnessed Battles in the Sky
Some claimed the battles were so fierce they could smell the gunpowder.
When Victorian Scientists Caught Ballomania
In a moment when scientists were working to fashion a credible identity for themselves, they had to decide how much showmanship was too much.
The First True Ornithologist
Though he was once dismissed as a dilettante, naturalist Francis Willughby was in fact part of the vanguard of observation-based modern science.
Mary Shelley’s Obsession with the Cemetery
The author of Frankenstein always saw love and death as connected. She visited the cemetery to commune with her dead mother. And with her lover.
Reconsidering Appeasement
After 1938's Munich Agreement, "appeasement" became a dirty word in international relations. But scholars argue that appeasement can be a useful tool.
Why Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Was Found in a Saint’s Coffin
The St. Cuthbert Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book. Some time around 698, it was slipped into the coffin of a saint.
Punishing Forgery with Death
In early nineteenth-century England, forging currency was considered to be such a subversive threat that it was punished with the death penalty.
Ectoplasm and the Last British Woman Tried for Witchcraft
Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan was photographed emitting ectoplasm, supposedly proof of her ability to contact the dead.
The Bizarre Victorian Diaries of Cullwick and Munby
Arthur Munby was an upper-class man of letters who "collected" working class women, including his servant Hannah Cullwick, whom he married in 1873.
“Telling the Bees”
In nineteenth-century New England, it was held to be essential to whisper to beehives of a loved one’s death.