Clik here to view.
John Okey: Killer of the King
By Charles Spencer (Guest Contributor) As a writer of history you never know when work you’ve completed previously will come back to help you. Charles I Three years ago I was on a website that I’m...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Juana of Castile’s Baggage
By Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt (Former Regular Contributor) Imagine being known to history as Juana “la Loca” or Juana “the crazy one.” That is heavy baggage to carry forward from the sixteenth century into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prognosticating the Past
By Nancy Goldstone (Guest Contributor) Nostradamus, the celebrated sixteenth century prophet, has a reputation that any modern day pollster, hedge fund manager, or bookie would envy. His mysterious...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Childbirth as a Spectator Sport
By Catherine Delors (Guest Contributor) At Versailles, not only the Queen, but princesses of the royal blood were required to give birth in public. Why? To prevent any substitution of the infant in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Museum Mysteries: When the Artifact You Have is Not the Artifact You Thought
By Michelle Marcella (Guest Contributor) Boston’s Province House. Courtesy the Boston Public Library. When the Massachusetts General Hospital was chartered by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1811,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Royal Sparkly Things (Or Hairballs)
By Carlyn Beccia (Guest Contributor) Wearing this beautiful stone could be a real conversation starter. Not just because it was once worth a small fortune, but because you would basically be wearing a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Trapping the Tiger of Mysore
By Pamela Toler (Regular Contributor) Portrait of Tipu Sultan, artist unknown In 1799, the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War came to an end when Major-General David Baird (1757-1829) led the final British...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bibliophilia: the Extraordinary Library of Catherine the Great
By Susan Jaques (Guest Contributor) As an unhappily married grand duchess, the future Catherine the Great put her “eighteen years of boredom and seclusion” to good use. A voracious reader, Catherine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Throne Fit for a Courtesan
By Catherine Hewitt (Guest Contributor) Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was one of 19th-century Paris’s most ambitious and successful courtesans. Her thick red hair, pale complexion and enormous blue...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Isabella of Spain–Warrior Queen
By Pamela D. Toler (Regular Contributor) Isabella of Spain (1451-1504)* is best known to American school children–and consequently to American adults–as the woman who funded Christopher Columbus’s...
View Article
