Browsing: The Bizarre

A Brief History On August 24, 1349, the Black Death broke out in the Prussian town of Elbing in Northern Germany.  This horrifying illness became synonymous with death in the Middle Ages!  Beginning in the fifth century and ending with the death of Richard III in the fifteenth century, the Middle Ages in Europe are sometimes referred to as the Medieval period.  People in Medieval Europe had an average life expectancy of somewhere in the 30s-40s, far less than our own today.  This article presents 10 ways people died during this time period.  Some of the deaths were common; others rather unconventional. Digging Deeper 10.  Infection from a Dead Man’s Bite! A Viking earl by the name…

A Brief History On August 20, 1940, communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico by agents of Joseph Stalin.  The murder weapon was an ice axe, not something you usually see in Mexico City!  People have been killing other people since Cain slew his own brother Abel, and they have gotten quite creative at it in the meantime.  This article lists 10 of the more unusual murder weapons or techniques employed over the years, for example, back when the author of this article was a police officer, he investigated a murder in which a son killed his father by purposely dropping an air…

A Brief History On August 19, 1612, three women from Samlesbury in Lancashire, England were put on trial for witchcraft.  Just yesterday History and Headlines featured an article about another Lancashire witch trial.  In this article, we present to you the Samlesbury witch trials and also discuss a case of five witches who were executed on the same date in Salem, Massachusetts but in 1692. Digging Deeper Accused by a 14-year old girl of practicing witchcraft, three women in Samlesbury were brought to trial.  They were accused of cannibalism and of having murdered a child and were charged with “maleficium,” harm by means of…

A Brief History On August 18, 1612, the trials of the “Pendle Witches” began in England.  22 years later to the day, across the Channel in France, Urbain Grandier was convicted of sorcery and burned alive.  Apparently the 18th of August is not a good day to be a witch in Europe, at least not back in the 17th century. Digging Deeper The 12 accused witches of Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England were suspected of having used witchcraft to murder 10 people.  One of the accused died in prison,  and of the 11 who went to trial (two men and nine…

A Brief History On August 16, 1944, the Nazis flew the prototype of the Ju-287 for the first time.  Manufactured by the German aircraft company Junkers, it was a 4-engine, jet-powered bomber whose forward-swept wings made it radically different from any other airplane in existence at the time. Digging Deeper With a turbojet engine on each side of its nose, and another under each wing, the Ju-287 flew to speeds of almost 350 mph, which was fast but still not fast enough. Originally it was supposed to have been equipped with even more powerful jet engines, but developmental difficulties meant that Junkers had to go with what was available, the Jumo…