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.

Sorry haven't read the full thread but definitely will later. I love all this fascinating stuff. One I've always found a bit mind blowing is the lifecycle of the European Eel and its epic journey to the Norfolk Broads from the Sargasso Sea. Also the distances that some tiny migratory birds cover.

I get lost here for hours

www.abbeyroad.com/crossing

Old air raid shelters. As a child I lived in a house with one in the back garden called an Anderson. But not them, no the big public ones. In a local park is a really large one, hidden with a lump of earth and some grass. Ever time I walk on it I'm amazed how large it actually is. You can feel the concrete under your feet when you walk over it, and the grass gives away its half circle shape, it's a different colour, and finally when it snows, the first bit to melt is over the old shelter. I dream of one day it being opened up for us to look inside.

Until then, YouTube and a Google of "my area" air raid shelters keeps me going.

😀Poor JKR!
Do you believe that about the several writers theory? I want to believe it was one man, Shakespeare, that went to a grammar school and was just touched with genius. Wouldn't it be wonderful to find a diary or a cache of letters that was indisputably in his hand! The author of the plays is such a mystery.

@ElizabethBest Brilliant idea for a thread-thank you!
@Everyonesinvited Totally agree with you about Nick Cave's Red Hand Files.

One rabbit hole I went down was reading about the Scientologists. Some was a bit crazy, but other things were really disturbing, especially how children are treated on the cruise ship Freewinds. Kids are chosen to work on it according to reports by adults who have left Scientology and made to do awful dirty jobs and work very long hours.
I was left wondering why the leaders were not in jail.

Oh wow - those suitcases sound fascinating. Following this thread with interest.

I found one in lockdown in the woods behind my house. There'd always been a weird mound but I never knew why. Then a fence blew down and no one repaired it so it was possible to get to it and someone had prized the door off. Really weird to go in after all this time.

So pretty

Placemarking

@DumpedinKilburn it really isn’t a mystery re Shakespeare's plays so I think you're OK to feel safe in your belief - but it's perfectly well documented that some of the plays were co-written with others. That still doesn’t take away from his sole authorship of the great works of the canon.

Have you read James Shapiro's excellent book 'Contested Will'? He explains it all, very brilliantly. He also gives a jaw-dropping and often hilarious run-down of the various alternative theories which are, to put it politely, based on some very fundamental misconceptions.

Ooh yes. When my son was doing a project in primary school we found fascinating videos on YouTube about the scale and size of planets, stars, galaxies compared to earth etc. it is mind blowing and hard to comprehend some of the distances/sizes. Really interesting.

YES!

And Bryan Sykes book "7 Daughters of Eve". Absolutely brilliant!

The family that can't sleep - a genetic illness that at some point in a persons life switches off the ability to sleep. People affected die within 6 months.

edition.cnn.com/2017/09/19/health/fatal-insomnia-family-curse-somethings-killing-me/index.html

@notafruit ooh that website looks good.
I actually found myself and my daughter on street view - we are stood at the bus stop !

What a brilliant thread. Some great procrastinating opportunities (a change from arguing the toss on MN).

@Trez1510 I LOVE Brad mondo!

Thanks for this-I've ordered it.
Why do you think there are so few records about him?

I read a book called Silver Street-can't recall the full or exact title- that described his time at this address and how litigious he was. I admit I don't like to think of him as being like that! To me he will always be the Chandos portrait rather the Pork Butcher resemblance in the church at Stratford.

I have spent hours reading these. I also love 'voices from the old Bailey ' on BBC sounds. The presenter correctly states that we'd have no record of the existence of many of the accused if it weren't for them appearing in court.

I'm no legal expert but the old Bailey records suggest that if a woman gave birth alone and the baby died then she was presumed to have killed it and sentenced to hang. Is this right, and if so is it the only time the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence rather than the other way around? Does anyone know?

@calimali ME TOO!! Also in looking at the incidences of insanity and genetic conditions amongst European royalty and tracing that back.

I love tiktok accounts who film going into an abandoned buildings! I watched one once and they found an elderly woman in one of the beds in the room, I’m pretty sure they were able to contact her family or possibly the council to get her the help she needed.

President John Tyler (b. 1790) the tenth president of the United States has a grandson who is alive today - Harrison Tyler aged 94.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ruffin_Tyler

John Tyler (b. 1790 – d. 1862) - who was president from1841 until 1845 - had a second wife Julia who was a lot younger than him (b 1820 – d 1889).

Their son Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. was born in 1853 when his father the former president was 63 years old.

He too (like father like son!) had a second wife who was a lot younger. He married Sue Ruffin in 1921 and she was 35 years younger than him.

The president's grandson was born in 1928 when his own father was 75 years old.

Sadly Harrison Ruffin Tyler is in a nursing home and has dementia so he doesn't remember anything of the past but it is fascinating to me that such a vast span of history can actually be so short - covered by just 3 lives.

More about him here:

www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/11/29/president-john-tyler-grandson-harrison/

@PurpleWisteria1 With an identical twin, it can't happen. I mean, the cells can be absorbed, but identical twins share DNA, so you wouldn't get chimerism as it's two copies of the same DNA.

Dumpedinkilburn I like you ,would prefer to think of him as the sole author of his works .I always find these sort of theories interesting even when I disagree .Ifyswim.There is an interesting article online "Was Shakespeare the real author of his plays" which explores this.Apparently his parents and children were all illiterate .Strange for such a worthy author .Also Francis Bacon was the "real"guy.Being well read and of high office .Fascinating read whatever your thoughts. JKR article I cant seem to find .Her ex though has tried to muscle in on her success.Bloody parasite!

I’m fascinated by where we live and how it has evolved over time.
We have for the last few years had archaeologists digging up our garden.
So far they found a turkey, it turned out it was buried quite ceremoniously, so a pet. Aparently that was not unusual..
Plus various coins 13th, 14,15th century coins and a Tudor period spur,
Lots of the unusual flint materials aswell.

They also found what they think may be the original floor or external surface of the house.

It has been amazing and more to come.
We have been researching who lived here, what they were like, etc.
It would be lovely to find some treasure though, might help with the renovations😀

Only got this far in the thread, so I don't know if anyone else has said this, but I remember seeing a beautiful bit of news footage at the time of the referendum. It's somewhere in Wales, where (the voiceover has just said) the EU put in a couple of expensive facilities for the locals costing a million or more each, e.g. community centre & sports facility - something like that, for everyone, for free.

It's a vox pop with two locals who say they're for Brexit because the EU's done nothing for them. The interviewer points out one of the facilities RIGHT BEHIND THEM. Oh, that? That doesn't count.😂

Good luck getting the UK government to fund anything like that.