"...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 11, 2016

Weekend Link Dump



This week's Link Dump is thrilled to be sponsored by the Hey Diddle Diddle Brigade!






What the hell was the Kniveton Stone?

What the hell are these ancient handprints?

Where the hell is Owen Parfitt?  (Also here.)

Baby Peggy, last of the silent film stars.

A multi-part tale of a very strange seance.

Just another heartwarming Victorian family story.

Bustles for your calves.  Yeah, it's the Victorians again.

The sad tale of New York's first supermodel.

On the dangers of married men visiting brothels.

On the dangers of gambling heavily in the 18th century.

On the dangers of dreaming death.

On the dangers of angering Lucy.

Why Chinese Emperors were better off choosing monogamy.

An 1800-year-old letter from a homesick Roman soldier.

A first-person account of what it was like to be imprisoned in the Bastille.

The first photographs of New York City street scenes.

I'd love to see more of this.  But then, I'm a vegan myself. Your mileage may vary, and probably does.

So I'm guessing Chinese television has just become extinct.

Remember Eliza Fenning?  It seems her execution helped save another young woman's life.

The discovery of a Walt Whitman letter.

The corpse collectors.

How one spider became a celebrity.

How to safely commit perjury.

An interesting 2009 look at Nancy Reagan.

Take your girlie to the movies!

Fearing female jurors.

A 1st century tavern.

A Victorian computer.

A French balloon duel.

A dead man walking.

Lightning bolts as medical cures.

Mark Twain's ghost writes a novel, causes no end of legal complications.

The link between Portuguese Jews, floating coffins, and Edgar Allan Poe.

A guide to Victorian perfume.

Analyzing the iceberg that struck the Titanic.

Beads that link Bronze Age Scandinavia with King Tut's Egypt.

Or maybe Henry VIII was just a narcissistic bastard of weak character who let ultimate power go to his head.

Superhuman monks.

Nobody can make up their damn minds if Pluto is a planet or not.

The first photographs of Moscow.

The man who might have been a fairy.  No, literally.

Charles Dickens really could be a jerk.

So could Dick Turpin, of course.

A wedding dress with a remarkable history.

Why Georgian ladies often slept with mice.

How Georgian ladies and gentlemen washed away all the evils of mankind.

Prehistoric dentistry.

18th century laptops.

Judith Defour really couldn't handle her gin.

Cursed pigs and witchy rabbits.

Sex tips from 1861.

A fascinating "lost city."

How cats revealed a forgery.

This week in Russian Weird:  How about some alien emeralds?

And, finally, a peek at one anonymous life of quiet desperation.  Join the club, girlfriend.  It's just part of the curse of being human.

That wraps it up.  See you Monday, when I'll be looking at the mysterious death of a beautiful young woman.  In the meantime, here's some Ludwig:


3 comments:

  1. One good link deserves another . . .

    That parting phrase, "quiet desperation," always reminds me of the lyrics to that Pink Floyd song. And that got me started thinking of Pink Floyd covers:

    https://archive.org/details/sci2002-12-31.mbho603.fixed.shnf

    Track 24-25

    Fiddles: Yes
    Kittens: Alas, no.

    (I expect this shows my age, and my low taste in music :)

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  2. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/worcester-art-museums-new-exhibit-all-cats-all-time-180958388/

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  3. Interesting to note in the first link to the Owen Parfitt disappearance that this was the second time that Owen had disappeared during his life.

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