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For this post, I am going to wander into the world of crime in the late eighteenth century, and the grisly fate that befell many who committed the heinous crime of highway robbery. (Full disclosure: I’m not an historian of crime, gibbets or highwaymen…perhaps the case I’m about to discuss is very well known. But he’s … Continue reading The Troublesome Gibbet of John Haines, the ‘Wounded Highwayman’ of Hounslow.
11 months ago

More from Dr Alun Withey

To Tip or Not To Tip: A Victorian Traveller’s Perspective

Like it or not, tipping is a big part of hospitality and the service industry. Debates about how much/whether to tip rumble on, but they are not new. Even in the 18th and 19th centuries, travellers were complaining about the amount of unwanted or unexpected extras they had to pay for.

3 weeks ago 31 votes
News Just In: Dr W Joins TikTok – @dralun7

Yes, it’s true – I’ve finally joined the 21st century and decided to try something new. I am still only setting things up, so please be patient with the extremely cheesy and clunky vids as I try to work out what I’m doing! I’ve only got a couple of videos up at the moment too, … Continue reading News Just In: Dr W Joins TikTok – @dralun7

a month ago 48 votes
Victorian Swappers! Adverts for exchange in the 19th century.

Victorians were inveterate 'swappers' (NB: this might not be what you think!). Newspapers and journals were full of ads for objects sought and to be exchanged. These offer a fascinating insight into what was considered desirable, the value of objects, and the processes of exchange.

3 months ago 29 votes
Should I Stay or Should I go?: Encouraging travel in the early modern period.

Travel today is often portrayed as a healthy activity, good for body, mind…and what’s left of the spirit!  A good holiday is generally viewed as a tonic, and holiday company advertisements extol the virtues of ‘getting away’, encountering new places, people and cultures and (if you want to ‘live life to the full’) experiences. As one travel … Continue reading Should I Stay or Should I go?: Encouraging travel in the early modern period.

7 months ago 50 votes

More in history

Summary of changes for January 2025

Hey everyone! This is the list of all the changes we've done to our projects during the month of January. Summary Of Changes 100r.co, added a new page: tote. Added Week 8 and Week 9 of the Victoria to Sitka logbook. Tote, released the project on itch.io. Grimgrains, added a new recipe: chocolate turtles. Left, added an option to collapse the nav bar on the left. Orca, added community links. Devine spent time improving the html5 Uxn emulator, and thanks to their hard work it is now possible to play Niju, Donsol, and Oquonie directly in the browser on itch.io, the same goes for projects like Noodle and Tote. It's been a long time coming, but Oquonie is now playable on Playdate. Rek spent the last week converting the 2-bit assets for Oquonie to 1-bit, because some of the characters and tiles were too difficult to read, now all of the assets work perfectly on monochromatic screens. As an amazing plus, Devine got the music and sounds working perfectly, just like in the original iOS version. From January 19-25th, we both participated in Goblin Week, an event in which you make goblins every day for a week(whatever that means to you). See the goblin series made by Rek(viewable here in higher rez also) and the one made by Devine(Mastodon). Pino has earned two new replacement solar panels this month! We have not installed them yet, it is still too cold outside in Victoria (we are expecting snow this week). We share photos often in our monthly updates, and so Devine spent time building our very own custom photo feed named Days. It is possible to follow the feed with RSS. Book Club: This month we are reading How do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino and Middlemarch by George Eliot. Continue Reading

20 hours ago 2 votes
The Seven Deadly Sins Under Death’s Dominion by James Ensor, 1904

“…the eternal black night, death under the colourless earth” – James Ensor on his dread of death     Belgian painter and printmaker James Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) etched his Seven Deadly Sins in 1904. To hammer home the message of human foolishness, malice and the farce we construct around ourselves, … Continue reading "The Seven Deadly Sins Under Death’s Dominion by James Ensor, 1904" The post The Seven Deadly Sins Under Death’s Dominion by James Ensor, 1904 appeared first on Flashbak.

16 hours ago 2 votes
My Weekly Reader and Gemini (1965,1966)

As I got through boxes I found a couple of My Weekly Readers that I had not shared before. My Weekly Reader posts seem to be popular for their nostalgia effect and because as ephemera no one saved them from their youth. These particular ones are about the Gemini missions. At the time in elementary school many children saw these as their "space news" since the adult papers were not written at a basic level. So even if these are short articles they bring back a time when America was headed for the moon. Don't you wish you had lived in this neighborhood? Pretty fun to see someone's answers to the quiz. How did you do?

yesterday 4 votes