It’s an anniversary of sorts. It’s 200 years since the end of a war with a dull name and seven more years since the death that may have started it. The death was that of British Royal Navy sailor Jenkin Ratford. He was hanged from the yard arm. The circumstances of Ratford’s capture precipitated popular… Continue reading How to get attention; name your war after body parts
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The night the Pope stole a baby
Child abduction is a terrible heart wrenching crime, pure and simple. You let the child out of sight for a second and your baby never comes back. At least one thing’s for sure. At home — right there in front of your eyes — they are safe.Well, that’s what Mr and Mrs Mortara thought, until… Continue reading The night the Pope stole a baby
“Useful present for a soldier”
Napoleon called the British a nation of shopkeepers. As the first Christmas of the 1914-18 war neared, those shopkeepers of Britain were concerned the country might be distracted from being a nation of customers. To remedy it for that year and throughout the war, much marketing effort was put into keeping the home tills ringing.… Continue reading “Useful present for a soldier”
Hunting for the bad, bad Benders
Not much is certain about the murderous Bender family except to say they were acknowledged to be America’s first serial killers — at least the first discovered. Were they a family? Probably not. Was Bender their real name? Almost certainly not. Even the number that they killed is uncertain. It was known to be around… Continue reading Hunting for the bad, bad Benders
“War is no sport”
Inevitably there will be many more words written over Christmas about that unofficial truce during the first year of the First World War, when, to the dismay of their senior officers, British and German soldiers left their trenches swapped cigarettes and played football on Christmas Eve. It has entered the pantheon of sentimental mythology and… Continue reading “War is no sport”
“I’ve got nobody to hug. I’m such an ugly bug”
(Preface note to New Yorkers: Prepare to be disappointed. This is not about your favorite psychedelic rockaboogie band from Brooklyn, also called The Ugly Club. Though to those that have not heard them: Google them, they’re good.) The prayer “God grant me the serenity to accept what cannot be changed” is a statement of the… Continue reading “I’ve got nobody to hug. I’m such an ugly bug”
Not from Cyprus, not so frail
How we call things at any moment in history is an interesting topic. Times change and words are re-chosen to fit the mood of the age. I thought I’d heard every euphemism there was to hear about prostitutes. ‘Ladies of the evening’, ‘women of easy virtue’ and so on were common 19th century code words.… Continue reading Not from Cyprus, not so frail
Dancing in the Dark
Those lines from that song keep echoing in my mind, “I’m sick of sitting ’round here trying to write this book.” Though I have been a tad otherwise engaged trying to finish retelling the stories of two audacious global financial frauds from the early 1870s — a book which now has the title An Infinite… Continue reading Dancing in the Dark