On 17 October 1814 beer vats belonging to the Meux and Company Brewery ruptured at the Horseshoe Brewery, inundating the neighboring streets with a tidal wave more than 15 feet high of more than 323,000 gallons (1,470,000 liters) of alcohol. The aptly named London Beer Flood sounds funny at first, but it was an industrial… Read more Poverty, Beer, and an Act of God
I’ve been reading Sharon Bennett Connolly’s blog, History … the Interesting Bits!, for a while now and always enjoyed her posts. Thus, when she published her debut history book, Heroines of the Medieval World, I bought it, and boy howdy am I glad I did. These are the stories of women, famous, infamous and unknown,… Read more Heroines of the Medieval World by Sharon Bennett Connolly
Alys of France was born on 4 October 1160 and her life is an object lesson on how being a princess cannot save you from predation. Alys was only eight years old when her father, King Louis VII of France, sent her to England as the betrothed of King Henry II’s son Richard, who was… Read more No Wonderland for Alys
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, was born on 19 September 1778, the eldest son of Henry Brougham and Eleanora Syme Brougham, a famous and influential lawyer in Edinburgh. Young Henry grew up in a Georgian townhouse at no. 21 St Andrew Square, and followed in his father’s legal footsteps. Brougham graduated from… Read more Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
The future King Francis I of France was born on 12 September 1494, the eldest and only son of of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. The infant was a paternal great-great-grandson of King Charles V of France, but no one thought that with so many male heirs to the throne of France… Read more Happy Birthday to King Francis I of France, Who Probably Never Had Sex With Mary Boleyn
First, let me just say I love the name Mungo. I’ve loved it forever. I first loved it when I found the name St Mungo in a book of Scottish folk tales and saints that I read in high school. I loved it when it popped up in the Harry Potter series as St Mungo’s… Read more Mungo Park, I presume?
Queen Elizabeth I was born on 7 September 1533 in Greenwich Palace, the first and only living child of Henry VIII of England and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Her mother would be murdered and Elizabeth herself declared illegitimate just 2.5 years later, in May 1536, but she would survive the reigns of her father,… Read more The Birth of Gloriana
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the future Marquis de La Fayette and hero of the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830, was born on 6 September 1757 in south central France. Lafayette’s family were among the most illustrious soldiers in French history, and he was… Read more America’s Lafayette
In October of 2004, National Geographic published an article by Joel K. Bourne, Jr. entitled Gone With The Water that warned what would happen should a hurricane hit New Orleans. The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the… Read more A Perfect Storm: The Submerged Cities at the Nexus of Climate Change, Political Ideology, and Coastal Development
William Wilberforce, the spearhead and focal point of the English abolitionists, as well as one of my favorite historical personages, was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, on 24 August 1759. He was the only son of Robert Wilberforce, whose family had become wealthy thanks to maritime trade with Baltic countries,… Read more William Wilberforce, a Truly Great Man