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Into the Cave of Chile’s Witches
A photo sometimes said to depict members of Chiloé’s murderous society of warlocks—founded, so they claimed, in 1786 and destroyed by the great trial of 1880-81. There is a place in South America that...
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The Secret Plot to Rescue Napoleon by Submarine
Tom Johnson, the famous smuggler, adventurer, and inventor of submarines, sketched in 1834 for the publication of Scenes and Stories by a Clergyman in Debt. Tom Johnson was one of those extraordinary...
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The Vengeance of Ivarr the Boneless
Vikings as portrayed in a 19th-century source: fearsome warriors and sea raiders. Ninth-century Scandinavia has had good press in recent years. As late as the 1950s, when Kirk Douglas filmed his...
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Edinburgh’s Mysterious Miniature Coffins
The “fairy coffins” discovered on Arthur’s Seat, a hill above Edinburgh, in 1836. Were they magical symbols, sailors’ memorials—or somehow linked to the city’s infamous mass murderers, Burke and Hare?...
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Curses! Archduke Franz Ferdinand and His Astounding Death Car
A contemporary painting depicting—rather sensationally—the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. The events surrounding their deaths have attracted abundant rumor and legend, none...
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The Trial That Gave Vodou A Bad Name
An engraving–probably made from a contemporary artist’s sketch–shows the eight Haitian “voodoo” devotees found guilty in February 1864 of the murder and cannibalism of a 12-year-old child. From...
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The Octogenarian Who Took on the Shoguns
Shakushain, the leader of Ainu resistance to Japan, is shown in this modern memorial on Hokkaido. Thanks to a postwar revival of Ainu nationalism, celebrations of indigenous culture are held each year...
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Islam’s Medieval Underworld
An Arab city of the early medieval period. Urban centers in the Middle East were of a size and wealth all but unknown in the Christian west during this period, encouraging the development of a large...
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How Friedrich Engels’ Radical Lover Helped Him Father Socialism
Portrait of a young revolutionary: Friedrich Engels at age 21, in 1842, the year he moved to Manchester–and the year before he met Mary Burns. Friedrich Engels’ life appears replete with...
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The Commoner Who Salvaged a King’s Ransom
George Fabian Lawrence, better known as “Stoney Jack,” parlayed his friendships with London navvies into a stunning series of archaeological discoveries between 1895 and 1939. It was only a small shop...
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