History lovers, I need your help!

[Keroin]

I'm working on a new novel manuscript and it will involve time travel.

What I'm researching now is:

a) Quirky historical events. The stranger, the better.

b) Historical events that the general population misunderstands. (Eg. Marie Antionette probably didn't say "Let them eat cake."). Events or personalities, about which historians or scholars would know a different version.

If you've got suggestions for either of those I would LOVE to hear them!

No restrictions on date or location--anywhen or anywhere. If you can provide links to source material or books, that would be an extra super bonus, but I can also follow breadcrumbs on my own.

I'll be crediting anyone who helps out with this. I understand if you would like to be left out and remain anonymous but if you would like to be credited you can pm me with your name.

Thanks!

 

[ecstaticsub]

I know the perfect person who can help you! I'll get back to you.

 

[Keroin]

I know the perfect person who can help you! I'll get back to you.

Awesome! Thanks, ES.

 

[Sweetdaisymae]

You might like the Macabre Ightam Mote in Kent UK, where a serving girl was bricked into the wall (alive) the story has changed over time and it has also been reported to be a noble woman. At the time of my visit, we were told that the girl had fallen pregnant by the lord and refused to keep quiet. Today's internet rumours state it to be that of Lady Dorothy, who was credited with foiling the gunpowder plot.
As time has passed, the owners have tried to bury the story by saying it was all rumours.
As the house itself is a popular tourist destination any dark stuff has been deliberately hidden.
I remember it as being the creepiest atmosphere I have ever witnessed!

 

[midwestyankee]

You might like the Macabre Ightam Mote in Kent UK, where a serving girl was bricked into the wall (alive) the story has changed over time and it has also been reported to be a noble woman. At the time of my visit, we were told that the girl had fallen pregnant by the lord and refused to keep quiet. Today's internet rumours state it to be that of Lady Dorothy, who was credited with foiling the gunpowder plot.
As time has passed, the owners have tried to bury the story by saying it was all rumours.
As the house itself is a popular tourist destination any dark stuff has been deliberately hidden.
I remember it as being the creepiest atmosphere I have ever witnessed!

I seem to recall that there was an historical story/rumor that inspired Edgar Allen Poe to write the short story "The Cask of Amontillado," in which one man gets another drunk and then bricks him into an enclosed space in a deep basement. I wonder if this story was the inspiration.

 

[midwestyankee]

A few quirky or little-known moments in history:

The trek of John A. Poor by horse and sled from southern Maine to Montreal in the dead of winter in 1845 to present plans for a Montreal-to-the-Sea railroad he hoped would be routed to Portland, Maine. The trip involved digging through snow drifts as high as 20 feet.

The invention of chewing gum by John Bacon Curtis.

Or the occasion of the spiritual vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe that eventually led to the American Civil War.

 

[oggbashan]

Ignoramus

Christmas in Canterbury at the time of Cromwell's Commonwealth:

Celebrating Christmas was banned during Cromwell's time because the event included drinking, dancing, playing music in the streets and 'lascivious behaviour between the sexes'.

The citizens of Canterbury continued to celebrate Christmas in their usual way, and several citizens were arrested as a result. There were numerous witnesses to their actions and they didn't deny it until they were sent for trial.

Only then did they find out that if they were guilty the only possible sentence was death.

The prosecution's case was compelling but the jury refused to give a verdict. They knew that a guilty verdict meant that the defendants would be executed. The judge dismissed the jury and ordered a fresh trial. The new jury, also citizens of Canterbury, refused to give a guilty verdict. When the judge insisted, they gave a verdict of the Latin word "ignoramus" - we do not know (whether the defendants are guilty of not).

The judge sent the defendants and the jury to jail in Canterbury Castle and refused to release the jury until they gave the 'correct' verdict of guilty. The jury, despite being in jail, refused to cooperate. Eventually other citizens of Canterbury stormed the jail, releasing the jury and the defendants.

The Puritan government in Westminster was angry. They sent a detachment of the army to Canterbury to arrest the defendants and the jury members all of whom had apparently disappeared. Their 'disappearance' wasn't total. Many of them were seen carrying on their normal business in Canterbury.

When the army detachment arrived they were faced with passive resistance. The citizens of Canterbury would not deliver the defendants or the jury members. The army demolished a large part of Canterbury's medieval and Roman walls so that the citizens could not keep the army out.

The defendants and jurors were never found, despite being in plain sight.

The City Council of Canterbury was fined a massive amount for refusing to cooperate with Cromwell's government, but never revealed the whereabouts of the defendants nor the missing jurors.

"Ignoramus" is a significant legal precedent in the right of a jury to decide independently of a judge's direction, no matter how forceful that direction might be. That jury's defiance is enshrined in UK and US law.

 

[oggbashan]

Sentry

In the 1950s a new commander was appointed to oversee the army based at Dover Castle in Kent.

One of his first actions was to review the posting of sentries around the castle. With no immediate threat from anyone he thought it was a worthwhile exercise to see how many sentries were actually needed to protect the garrison.

He found that one sentry was posted 24 hours a day overlooking the English Channel. He was equipped with a telescope and a bell.

Why? The succession of sentries and their NCOs didn't know so the commander asked for one of his staff to investigate why this sentry was posted with a telescope and a bell.

It took several weeks of digging through the castle's records to find the answer:


The sentry had been posted to warn of the approach of Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion fleet at the start of the 19th Century. If the sentry spotted the sails, or lights, of the invasion fleet, he was to ring his bell to summon the Officer of the Guard who would rouse the garrison to repel the invading French troops. But Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo, nearly 150 years earlier.

Soldiers had been standing on the wall of Dover Castle for 150 years to warn of a non-existent threat.

That sentry post was abolished.

 

[oggbashan]

Invicta - Unconquered Kent

In 1066 when William, Duke of Normandy, successfully invaded England and defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, one of the reasons for his victory was that King Harold hadn't waited for the Fyrd, the citizen armies of the various countries, to reach him.

One detachment of the Fyrd was the Men of Kent. As William was making his way towards London, the Kentish Fyrd barred his way. They refused to let his army pass unless William accepted that Kent should retain its ancient rights and customs.

Although the Fyrd was not a professional fighting force, William didn't want any more casualties in his small forces. He agreed that Kent should retain its ancient rights and customs - one of which was gavelkind, a system of inheritance that meant landholdings were retained in one piece after the owner's death instead of being split between sons.

Ever since then, Kent's motto has been Invicta - Unconquered, because Kent claims it wasn't defeated by William the Conqueror.

Their retention of gavelkind and other rights meant that the County of Kent remained prosperous throughout the Middle Ages while other counties suffered higher taxation.

 

[oggbashan]

The Last Armed Rising in the UK

Sir William Courtnay and the Battle of Bossenden Wood - the last armed rising in the UK - in 1838.

 

[Sweetdaisymae]

In the 1950s a new commander was appointed to oversee the army based at Dover Castle in Kent.

One of his first actions was to review the posting of sentries around the castle. With no immediate threat from anyone he thought it was a worthwhile exercise to see how many sentries were actually needed to protect the garrison.

He found that one sentry was posted 24 hours a day overlooking the English Channel. He was equipped with a telescope and a bell.

Why? The succession of sentries and their NCOs didn't know so the commander asked for one of his staff to investigate why this sentry was posted with a telescope and a bell.

It took several weeks of digging through the castle's records to find the answer:


The sentry had been posted to warn of the approach of Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion fleet at the start of the 19th Century. If the sentry spotted the sails, or lights, of the invasion fleet, he was to ring his bell to summon the Officer of the Guard who would rouse the garrison to repel the invading French troops. But Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo, nearly 150 years earlier.

Soldiers had been standing on the wall of Dover Castle for 150 years to warn of a non-existent threat.

That sentry post was abolished.

My Dad was stationed at Dover castle in the 50's, he said the place had a reputation for being haunted and there were certain areas that armed sentries would not go alone. His unit were based at the Tower of London and they never had any weird experiences there, even with its history of executions.

 

[oggbashan]

Eureka Stockade

The Eureka Stockade battle is one of Australia's significant events:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade

The Memorial is unusual in that it commemorates those who died fighting for 'liberty' and those who died fighting for 'duty'.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Eureka_Stockade.jpg/220px-Eureka_Stockade.jpg

 

[Keroin]

OH! This is all fantastic.

Thanks everyone. Comments to follow.

Also, if you want to pass this request along via a non-kinky source, here's a link to the same request on my totally SFW blog.

http://the-coconut-chronicles.com/2013/11/07/calling-all-history-nerds/

 

[KoPilot]

Listen to every episode of the 'Originz' podcast.

Nope, not listening to it right now, not me..

 

[oggbashan]

The Great Siege of Gibraltar, etc

The British took Gibraltar in 1704, a side action from the War of the Spanish Succession.

Since then there had been several attempts by the Spanish to retake Gibraltar, the most prolonged being "The Great Siege".

The siege had been continuing for some time when an inventor persuaded the Spanish/French besiegers that he had the ultimate weapon that would end the siege. He had designed invulnerable, fireproof and unsinkable floating gun batteries that could be brought close to the town of Gibraltar and would overwhelm the defenders.

His invulnerable, fireproof and unsinkable batteries were built. They had very thick wooden walls facing Gibraltar, pierced for heavy cannon. Between the wood outer and inner skins were layers of cork, constantly being soaked by seawater pumped from the other side of the battery.

The Spanish towed the batteries close to the defences of Gibraltar. The garrison prepared to repel them with the traditional method - red hot cannonballs - which the batteries were designed to counter.

At first, they worked. The first red hot cannon balls were extinguished by the seawater soaking the cork. But some of the cannonballs entered through the gun ports, killing those pumping the sea water. More hot cannonballs stuck in the cork, too many for the water to put out. Worse, some of the defenders' fire shot away the mooring cables and the batteries began to turn with the wind, exposing their vulnerable unprotected other side. Within 48 hours all the invulnerable, fireproof and unsinkable batteries were either wrecked, burnt out, sunk or captured. The siege went on for another few years.

The British also had failures:

1. Instead of using scarce iron or bronze, they cut mortars into the rock that makes up Gibraltar. The mortars faced the siege lines. A bright idea, but Gibraltar is made of limestone, not granite. After a few shots from each mortar they had cracked.

2. They installed their ship-smasher - a massive cannon with a three feet diameter bore. They couldn't cast cannonballs that size so they used stone balls. On the day it was to be tested they filled it with a half-charge, wadding, the stone cannonball, more wadding, and applied the flame to the touch hole. Nothing happened. They had to send a ship's boy down the barrel to put a rope around the cannonball so it could be hauled out, then send him in again to remove the gunpowder.

They found that the touch hole hadn't been bored right through, so they tried to drill it out - and broke the metal so badly that their ship-smasher was useless. If it had been fired it would have been more dangerous to those discharging it than the enemy.

3. In the mid 19th Century, Gibraltar's defences were updated. They installed a massive muzzle loading artillery piece that was so large that it could only be elevated and traversed by steam power. But there was a problem. If they started raising steam from the moment the enemy fleet was sighted, they would have sufficient steam pressure within THREE hours. That was just enough time when the approaching fleet was comprised of slow windpowered sailing ships, but far too long when the French built steam-powered ships.

 

[oggbashan]

The Shortest War in History

The Anglo-Zanzibar War that lasted about 40-45 minutes on 27 August 1896 is the shortest war ever:

Two sources:

Wikipedia

Military History

 

[graceanne]

Anne Boleyn didn't have six fingers on one hand. She wasn't catholic and it's a lie that the catholic church spread about her to make people think she was a witch.

http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/q-a/did-anne-boleyn-really-have-six-fingers/

 

[desertslave]

I seem to recall that there was an historical story/rumor that inspired Edgar Allen Poe to write the short story "The Cask of Amontillado," in which one man gets another drunk and then bricks him into an enclosed space in a deep basement. I wonder if this story was the inspiration.

It also inspired a very real-seeming novel by Anya Seton titled Green Darkness.

Oh, and A Treasury of Royal Scandals has some good tidbits in it.

 

[IrisAlthea]

Pope Joan - a long lived legend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan

Queen Mathilde of Denmark and her Dr Streuensee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Matilda_of_Great_Britain

The liberal archduke who became emperor of Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I_of_Mexico

The Mayerling incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerling_Incident
The hunting loge still exists

Interesting lives
Crazy husband and a death by uncertain cause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Louise_d'Orléans_(1662–1689)

Queen of "the court of love"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine

 

[oggbashan]

The War of Jenkin's Ear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins'_Ear between Britain and Spain was not called that until over 100 years later.

As usual, it was a trade dispute. Whether Jenkins actually lost his ear and if so, how, is irrelevant.

***

During the Napoleonic Wars the British commissioned a rock off the Island of Martinique as a ship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Rock

The British Royal Navy still regards "HMS Diamond Rock" as being in commission. Therefore, Royal navy ships are required, when passing, to show due respect, personnel on the upper deck to stand at attention and face the Rock whilst the bridge salutes.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4133/5071253563_487e94c6e2_z.jpg

 

[oggbashan]

Who killed Rasputin?

The official version is Here

But...

Who fired the final bullet? And was Britain involved?

The bullet recovered from Rasputin's body was too large to have been fired by the apparent murderers. It was from a British .455 Webley revolver. The only such revolver known to have been in the area at the time belonged to a staff member of the British Embassy who was later known to have been a spy.

Rasputin favoured the Germans and his influence was anti-British.

Did the British government or one of its agents finish the job when the assassins were so incompetent?

 

[oggbashan]

Madame de Brinvilliers

Madame de Brinvilliers was a French murderess who was tortured before being beheaded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_de_Brinvilliers

The poison she used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_Tofana

was notorious.

Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Leather Funnel is one of many based on her crimes.

 

[oggbashan]

Women and children first - The Birkenhead Drill

The idea of saving women and children first was made heroic by the loss of HMS Birkenhead off South Africa in 1852.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)

 

[oggbashan]

The Last French Invasion - foiled by Welshwomen!

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/The-Last-Invasion-of-Britain/

The French invasion force upon landing appear to have run out of enthusiasm for the 'cunning plan', perhaps a result of those years of prison rations, they seem to have been more interested in the rich food and wine the locals had recently removed from a grounded Portuguese ship. After a looting spree, many of the invaders were too drunk to fight and within two days, the invasion had collapsed, and Tate's force surrendered to a local militia force led by Lord Cawdor on February 25th 1797.

Strange that the surrender agreement drawn up by Tate's officers referred to the British coming at them "with troops of the line to the number of several thousand." No such troops were anywhere near Fishguard, however, hundreds, perhaps thousands of local Welsh women dressed in their traditional scarlet tunics and tall black felt hats had come to witness any fighting between the French and the local men of the militia. Is it possible that at a distance, and after a glass or two, those women could have been mistaken for British army Redcoats?

Gemima Fawr

During their two days on British soil the French soldiers must have shaken in their boots at mention of name of "Jemima Fawr" (Jemima the Great). The 47-year-old Jemima Nicholas was the wife of a Fishguard cobbler. When she heard of the invasion, she marched out to Llanwnda, pitchfork in hand and rounded up 12 Frenchmen. She ‘persuaded’ them to accompany her back into town, where she locked them inside St Mary’s Church and promptly left to look for some more. - Men of Harlech meet your match!


http://www.historic-uk.com/assets/Images/jemimafawrtombstone.jpg?1359733713

 

[oggbashan]

Admiral Byng - shot for political reasons

Byng's execution was satirized by Voltaire in his novel Candide. In Portsmouth, Candide witnesses the execution of an officer by firing squad; and is told that "in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others" (Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng