Category: Weird History

23 February 2022

“What Drew Her Into Oblivion?”: The Disappearance of Silent Film Actress Marie Empress

Mary Ann Louisa Taylor, known by her stage name Marie Empress, was born on 26 March 1884 in Birmingham, England. Marie had a busy career as an actress, singer, dancer, and successful male impersonator, and garnered a reputation as a comedienne in Britain. She specialised in playing femme fatale, or vamp characters which led to confusion about her real persona...

Categories Weird History

8 February 2022

No, John Dee Didn’t Actually Translate the Necronomicon

Polarising American author HP Lovecraft (1890-1937) wrote some deeply unsavoury things during his lifetime. But his contributions to the realm of speculative fiction are so immense that it’s impossible to ignore his continued influence on the genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction.

Categories Weird History

28 January 2022

‘Castle Sinister’: The Terrible 1932 British Horror Film Lost in Time

Castle Sinister, released in 1932, was a 50 minute (4410 foot long) black and white British horror film produced by Delta Pictures that’s now classified as ‘lost media’. The film is so obscure that there is no remaining footage, stills, teasers, or posters and most of the actors don’t have any photos available online. It’s unfortunately common for early films...

Categories Weird History

17 January 2022

‘Ghostwatch’: When the BBC Terrified the Nation with a (Fake) Haunted House Documentary

On Halloween night in 1992, the BBC aired what would become one of the most controversial programmes in the broadcaster’s history. Ghostwatch, presented as a live broadcast, followed the Early family and the horrors they experienced living in what was pitched as one of the most haunted houses in the country. And luckily for the BBC an array of paranormal...

Categories Weird History

29 December 2021

The Wacky World of Victorian Christmas Cards

In 1843, English inventor Sir Henry Cole created the first commercially produced Christmas card. It was tame and festive, showing a family gathered around for Christmas dinner above an inscription wishing the recipient a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. By the 1870s Christmas cards were being sent by nearly everyone thanks to the emergence of the affordable halfpenny stamp...

Categories Weird History

20 November 2021

The Mysterious Dog Suicides on Overtoun Bridge, West Dunbartonshire

Overtoun Bridge, located in Scotland’s West Dunbartonshire, has a peculiar and frightening reputation: since the 1950s the bridge has allegedly been plagued by an ongoing trend of canine ‘suicides’. Reports of the number of dogs that have jumped or fallen over the edge of Overtoun Bridge could be as high as 300. In at least 50 cases, the dogs have...

Categories Paranormal Encounters/Weird History

11 November 2021

‘Anthrax Island’: Britain’s Secret WWII Testing Ground for Biological Warfare

Scotland’s Gruinard Island, better known as ‘Anthrax Island’, is a frightening example of the catastrophic repercussions of biological warfare. From 1942 to 1943, the British tested the affects of anthrax on the small, unassuming island off the coast of Gruinard Bay… and paid the price for the next 48 years. What is Anthrax? Classified as an infectious disease, anthrax has...

Categories Weird History

8 September 2021

The Bizarre Exploits of Helen Duncan: Ectoplasm Producing Medium and Britain’s ‘Last Witch’

Helen Duncan, ‘the last witch’ of Britain, was born in the small town of Callander, Scotland in 1897 to Archibald McFarlane and Isabella Rattray. As a child, Helen (born Victoria Helen) was said to cause distress at school by tormenting her classmates with frightening prophesies. And from a young age Helen believed she was clairvoyant and could see the spirits...

Categories Weird History

30 August 2021

The Unsolvable Shugborough Inscription, the Priory of Sion, and the Holy Grail

Almost two decades ago, Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code won over millions of readers with an entertaining pseudo-historical adventure to find the Holy Grail. And with a new interest in historical conspiracy theories and secret societies, a spotlight was put on the Shugborough Inscription at Shugborough Hall, a sequence of ten letters that form one of the...

Categories Weird History

28 July 2021

John Dee and Edward Kelley: Visual Depictions of the Renaissance Occultists at Work

The stories of John Dee and Edward Kelley, notorious Renaissance occultists, are a peculiar mix of history and folklore that continue to influence artists and writers hundreds of years after their deaths. The small sample of artistic representations of Dee and Kelley below explore the lasting romantic impression they left of black magic, alchemy, and spiritualism during the English Renaissance....

Categories Weird History