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“My little soldier”
The funeral of James Idle in the village of Hullavington, on August 29, 1914. Picture the British countryside and the chances are that you are picturing the unmatched beauty of the Cotswolds, in...
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The secret plot to rescue Napoleon by submarine
Tom Johnson, the famous smuggler, adventurer, and inventor of submarines, sketched in 1834 for the publication of Scenes and Stories by a Clergyman in Debt. Napoleon Bonaparte caused so much damage –...
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The blood eagle
Vikings as portrayed in a 19th-century source: fearsome warriors and sea raiders. Things not to do when you travel in time. No.238: don’t kill a Viking, then let yourself get captured by his vengeful...
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Stoney Jack and the Cheapside Hoard
Maverick archaeologist George Fabian Lawrence– better known as Stoney Jack, the navvies’ friend. Think Raiders of the Lost Ark. Only without Nazis. And in Wandsworth. It was only a small shop in an...
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The last secret of the H.L. Hunley
James R. McClintock, the inventor of the H.L. Hunley, shortly before journeying to Boston in February 1879–apparently to meet his end there. Image: Naval Historical Center. At a quarter to nine on the...
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Queen Victoria’s £5: the strange tale of Turkish aid to Ireland during the...
A destitute Irish family search a stubble field for healthy potatoes at the height of the Great Famine of 1845-51. At least a million people–one in eight of the population–starved to death during the...
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The longest prison sentences ever served: redux
Who served out the longest prison sentence known to history? My extensive investigation – begun in 2010 but now comprehensively updated – answers that question [it’s Charles Fossard, of Australia,...
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The Breton Bluebeard
“Widower Bluebeard and the Red Key” – a painting from Cassia Lupo’s wonderful series “Fables and myths.” Reproduced with permission and grateful thanks. For very nearly all its course, the Blavet is a...
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Friedrich Engels’ Irish muse
Portrait of a young revolutionary: Friedrich Engels at age 21, in 1842, the year he moved to Manchester–and the year before he met Mary Burns. Friedrich Engels lived a life replete with contradiction....
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The bodies in the bogs
Bog pool beneath Errigal Mountain, County Donegal, Ireland. Photo by Gareth McCormack, reproduced with permission – clicking the image takes you to Gareth’s site and more evocative landscape...
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