Murder over the World’s First Supermodel at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden is one of New York’s most well known landmarks. It is arguably one of the most famous arenas in the world. Unfortunately, it is also one of the least appealing, but it was not always so. For there have been four incarnations of Madison Square Garden, located throughout the city since 1879.…

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The Lost Art of Victorian Human Hair Shrines

Meander through enough Sunday flea markets, and you’re bound to come across a Victorian grief shrine every now and again. They’re quite hypnotising objects, with their lacquered wood frames and bulbous glass encasing tiny flower-baskets, spindly trees, and elaborate landscapes. Take a closer peak, and you’ll realise you’re looking at a shrine made of someone’s…

Curiosity du Jour: The Talking Victorian Bouquet

The Victorians loved their secrets. They hid them in the details but wore them on their sleeve with the help of a few small but elaborate accessories. The nosegay, also known as a posy or a “tussie mussie”, was one of the more discrete lady gadgets of yore that had multiple uses… For one, if…

There might be a Secret Painting Hiding in that Old Book of Yours

Books can be magical things, but some as it turns out, may be more magical than others. They might look like ordinary old books, but they’re hiding a curious little secret in plain sight. A fore-edge painting is a scene painted on the edges of the pages of a book; invisible when closed. The technique…

Curiosity du Jour: Inside Out Handbags of Yore

Empty a woman’s handbag inside out and you’ve got the right idea about the chatelaine. Before purses were a woman’s primary accessory, this curious contraption that fell into the annals of fashion obscurity over time, once commonly served to carry her daily armour. Designed very much like a tool belt worn at the waist, the chatelaine…

Another Reason to Check Your Attic: Priest Holes

Once upon a time in ye olde England, it was illegal to be Catholic. In case you need a quick refresher: King Henry VIII needed a male heir to the. He blamed Catherine of Aragon (his brother’s widow and the first of his six wives) for not bearing him a son. On these grounds, he…

That Time the Paris Mosque Helped Jews Escape the Nazis by Giving Them Muslim IDs

Here’s one they left out of the history textbooks. A recent French film, Free Men, brought to light the remarkable true history of how Muslims gave sanctuary to French Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris during Second World War. An untold “Oscar Schindler” story, the film is inspired by actual events and in this case, our ‘Schindler’ is Si…

Vacationing at the Edge of a Giant Hole in the Earth

You might have seen photographs around on the web of this giant hole that’s so big it can be seen from space (and very likely takes you straight to the devil’s basement). But have you ever wondered what actually exists around a godforsaken place like this? What’s daily life like? And can you find a decent…

The Palatial Ruins of the First Western Black Monarchy

Once known as the ‘Versailles of the Caribbean’, its hollow ruins are one of the few lasting remnants of a forgotten royal court – the first Black monarchy established in the Western world that rose from the ashes of the Haitian Revolution. The brief reign of the first and only King of Haiti is both…

Meet the Most Feared Women in History

From daughters to soldiers, from wives to weaponized, they remain the only documented frontline female troops in modern warfare history. A sub-saharan band of female terminators who left their European colonisers shaking in their boots, foreign observers named them the Dahomey Amazons while they called themselves N’Nonmiton, which means “our mothers”. Protecting their king on…