This is a significant date for fans of horror, the Gothic, and the macabre. Both Vlad Dracula (AKA Vlad the Dragon and Vlad the Impaler), the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster, were born on 30 August. Vlad Dracula was born 30 August 1400 and… Read more Happy Birthday Dracula and Frankenstein!
I think we all know the old saw about how for the want of a nail a kingdom was lost. Well, it became a proverb because it is true. It is the little things on which history often pivots. Lewis of Caerleon is one of those small things on which the arc of history depended. Lewis… Read more Lewis of Caerleon
The longest-lived of Henry VIII’s sons, Henry Fitzroy, was born on 15 June 1519. Unfortunately for the king, this son was born on the wrong side of the blanket. Bessie Blount, a minor nobleman’d daughter, had given Henry what his queen, Katherina of Aragon, had tried to give him so many times in the past — a… Read more Henry Fitzroy Is Born
My darling middle daughter, my Beltane Baby, turned 12 years old today. Buttercup is a magnificent person, if I do say so myself. She is funny, with a lightening fast wit and the ability to quick-draw a pun that amazes me. She is also smart, interested in everything from the theories of quantum physics to… Read more Buttercup is 12
On 10 April 1815 the Indonesian volcano Tambora (literally) blew its top in the only confirmed VEI-7 eruption since the Lake Taupo’s eruption circa AD 180. The volcano’s initial blast could be heard as far away as Sumatra, which was more than 1200 miles distant from ground zero. Approximately 11,000 people were killed by the… Read more Mt. Tambora Makes an Earth-Shattering Kaboom
St Catherine of Siena was born on 25 March 1347, along with a twin sister named Giovanna, and was the 23rd or 24th of her 40 year old mother’s 25 offspring. With all due respect to Saint Catherine of Siena, the super-fertility of her mother, Lapa Piagenti, is as amazing to me as any of… Read more Medieval Fertility Rates
First, it should be noted that the title to this blog post should be sung like the chorus of the Pet Shop Boy’s 1984 song “West End Girls” because I am old and my mental playlist is mostly 80s hits. If you are older than 40, you too now have “West End Girls” playing in… Read more Cymru Stones and Wessex Girls
One of the most used methods of fat shaming and justification for fat hate is tell fat people you are only mocking and/or insulting them for their health. You’re not participating in the sociocultural punishment of fat because you’ve been culturally conditioned to view fat as a physical manifestation of sloth, gluttony, and lack of… Read more How Dare Fat People Be Healthy
On the morning of 2 February 1461, as two armies prepared to fight the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in the Wars of the Roses, three “suns” appeared in the sky. The extra suns were obviously the astronomical phenomena known as a sun dogs, caused by light refraction off particulate ice crystals in the air. However,… Read more When Sun Dogs Changed England
Harri Tudur, heir to the (7th) Earldom of Richmond, was born to the frighteningly young Margaret Beaufort on 28 January 1457. Through his paternal grandfather, Owain Tudur, the baby was a descendant of of Llywelyn the Great, and through his paternal grandmother, Catherine of Valois, a great-grandson of King Charles VI of France. Those lineages,… Read more Henry VII: Better King Than Kingly