Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

[ElizabethBest]

Let's hear it please - I love a good wikipedia rabbit hole. I'll start - The Willard Suitcases. Over 400 suitcases of possessions were found in an attic at the Willard Insane Asylum belong to patients who had died whilst inpatients so never left. The New York State Museum started a project to document the cases and their contents, and you can learn all about it and see the cases on their website.

The best thing I found was programming myself to look for my hands in my dream or touch my head.
One reason for that is that if you specifically have decided to do something once you're dreaming, and you do, you're likely to remember. Decide to do one of these things every night before you go to sleep, then once your brain makes the link you can recognise that you are dreaming and take control of it.
Hope that makes sense, it’s hard to explain but it sounds like you are predisposed to be able to do it and hopefully you can build this up!

SlightlyJaded · Today 14:38

Also WW2 - when ordinary people were suddenly in the position of being spies/code-breakers and the like.

At my gran's funeral, the priest made quite a bit of her work at Bletchley Park, which was news to us, but apparently true. I've no idea what she did there, but she was a linguist. After the war, she was a court translator in (as was) Malaya.

Fascinating @SinnerBoy

My godmother did similar - and even in her mid 80s, she refused to talk about it and took her oath of secrecy very seriously.

I think that my gran was also bound by some sort of paperwork, too. The priest had been a drinking buddy of hers for 40 years, as well as confessor.

No, although I am a member of the Royal College there... I've never made it up there to speak!

Folks took the Official Secrets Act seriously in those days. Watched a TV show about people working at Bletchley Park, apparently there was a reunion in the 80s or 90s and a man who'd worked there told his wife he was going to a cricket match because he'd never told her what he did in the war. At the event, he met a familiar face - his wife had also worked there ... and never mentioned it to him.

In the 80s, we used to see an East European woman, who travelled widely. Found out what she did about ten years ago, when she was on TV explaining her work behind the Iron Curtain for the CIA.

Listened to fab forensic dentist speak
there at a course once, fascinating.

Another, "I'm not a monster" fan here.

I watched a fascinating thing on YouTube about 'agent Garbo'.

A Spanish couple in WWII volunteered to spy for Britain, they were told 'no' so they set up a domestic spy ring to be double agents.

They moved to Portugal and contacted the Germans, saying they were in Britain and pro Nazi.

The husband (Juan Pujol García) used train time tables, British newspapers and radio to create fictitious 'intelligence', he told the Germans he had a contact who was flight crew flying between London and Lisbon to account for the Portuguese post mark / stamps.

The British took notice when the German's tried to find a fleet of ships Garbo had made up.

So he became a double agent and moved to Britain, he also 'ran' about 30 other agents, all fictitious.

He even had an agent become ill, die, have an obituary in the paper and then a pension paid to the non existent widow.

I would definitely buy this book and I'm sure many others would too.

Do it OP, DO IT!!!

@calimali

I'm working on a programme about historical female monarchs from around the world at the moment and the company I work for are making another history series with women at the forefront.

We're really trying to push the female agenda in factual and I'm so pleased to be a part of it. I'm learning loads too!

Thanks for this thread OP, it's going to keep me busy for weeks.

Fabulous.

I tried to watch a David Starkey documentary about Henry VIII's wives, but it all centred around Henry VIII. I want to know how the wives lived and were brought up before meeting him, and their reasons for marriage.

@sashh have you seen the musical Six about the 6 wives? Really clever way of telling their stories.

@Needmorelego Not yet, I have heard some of the songs though and I agree a fabulous idea.

Brilliant thread this so 'tis. One thing leads to another, Atlas obscura by a pp led me to reading about the 1949 Aquila Flying boat service from Southampton to Madeira. Very interesting,
Please do that book@ElizabethBest and thank you!

Read Dale Spender Women of Ideas book which has many amazing women featured in it that I have never read about anywhere else.

I’ve been interested in the Six Wives of Henry VIII since I was a kid but not so much him @sashh

My favourites are Catherine of Aragon and the much misunderstood Anne of Cleves. I found Suzanna Lipscomb’s podcast “Not Just The Tudors” which has some great episodes on all the wives.

Also, a podcast called “Noble Blood” covers loads of historical figures and devotes a whole episode to each of the six wives individually. Definitely worth a listen.

Sadly I think QI has cornered the market on the “quite interesting” miscellanies. If there are any
publishers on here though, I’m happy to give it a go….

Another little absolutely fascinating rabbit hole - the Donner Party. Properly jaw dropping! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party

The Donner Party is a fascinating tale. I came across it a couple of years ago and read the wiki page again a little while ago to remind myself of what happened. The whole thing sounds utterly nightmarish.

Yes@ElizabethBest The Donner Party was a fascinating occurrence... We've driven by the actual site and there is a monument to them .. it shows how high the snow was....that area is getting an abundance of snow right now just like then😲

Needmorelego · Today 08:22

have you seen the musical Six about the 6 wives? Really clever way of telling their stories.

There's a band called Blyth Power and they had an album called "Out From Under The King." There's a song called Katherine's Will, about Catherine Parr and how she won by outliving him.

Go to 8 minutes 25 and you can see the lyrics, not sure when the actual song starts!

Track 5, it starts at about 16:30.

I love the books by Philippa Gregory, she has written several based on the Tudors. She really gets inside the head of her lead character and explains what she imagines they must have been thinking and why they did the things they did. I feel like I almost knew them.

@ElizabethBest Please do the book, maybe you could self publish? LJ Ross seems like an amazing lady, she might help and she has now sold 7 million + books by self publishing.

I could call it the Mumsnet Miscellany