Contrary to popular belief, Henry VIII wasn’t a tyrannical monster who chopped off heads willy-nilly … until 1535. Prior to that year, Henry was reluctant to use the axe when other solutions were possible and the worst thing he had done was separate Katherina of Aragon from their daughter, Mary. Even that wasn’t just being… Read more The Bloodbath Begins: Henry VIII Turns to the Axe
Lice. AKA cooties. My daughters brought home the wee vermin this week in their hair, necessating a thorough saturation of their hair with a mixture of olive oil and a generous portion of tea tree oil. The olive oil smothers cooties and makes it easier to fine-comb them out, and the tea tree oil kills… Read more A Lousy Time Was Had By All
Starting on 8 June 1783 and continuing on until until 7 February 1784, hell on earth came to Iceland. The Lakagígar (Craters of Laki), a a 25 km (15.5 mi) long volcanic fissure with 130 craters opened up on the side of Laki mountain, and over 8 months it spewed 14 km3 (3.4 cu mi)… Read more Síðueldur and Móðuharðindin – Hell Came to Iceland in 1783
Happy May Day Birthday to my darling middle daughter, Buttercup! I had heard all my life that “May babies were good babies” (they weren’t fussy and were healthy) and that babies born on Beltane were a particular blessing for their parents … and particularly blessed individuals. This belief may have come to America with the… Read more Beltane Babies Are Best!
Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547, but the time needed to have his body lavishly embalmed and his funeral procession planned meant that the king was not actually buried in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor until almost three weeks later. On 14 February the king’s funeral procession began its journey from Whitehall, where the… Read more Bluff King Hal is Laid to Rest
People tend to associate steam-powered machinery and railroads with the Victorian era (hence the science-fiction subgenre Steampunk), but the it was the Regency that actually gave birth to the new steam engines. One of the first successful steamboat launchings happened in Glasgow, Scotland on 4 January 1803. The ship’s name was the Charlotte Dundas, and… Read more Full Steam Ahead!
When a the Jordan Lead Codices hit the news in March of 2011 there was a flurry of hyperbole, hysteria, and then dismissal. First it was claimed that the codices dated from the “1st century AD … and that they might predate the writings of St. Paul and that “leading academics” believed they might be… Read more The Jordan Lead Codices
On the night of 18 November 1404 into the morning of the 19th the oceanic tide combined with a storm surge from the North Sea pushed huge amounts of water up the coastal rivers, overwhelmed the dike system of Flanders, Zeeland and Holland (part of modern day Belgium and the Netherlands) and causing massive flooding… Read more The St. Elizabeth Floods
Happy Halloween! We are now only a couple of weeks away from the US Presidential Election, which the whole world is watching with genuine terror lest Donald Trump become POTUS and get access to the nuclear codes. Since little is more horrifying than monsters and politicians, today is an excellent day to discuss the zeitgeist… Read more Monstrous Politics
Whenever anyone makes the argument that “science” is some sort of untainted, unbiased, monolith of “truth” I want to raise my eyebrow like Spock and say, “Fascinating.” Why? Because while data can be factual, anything interpreted or analyzed by humans is subject to errors or distortions or outright lies … including science. For example, the… Read more Sweet Poison