Book News

by tracybarrett March 20, 2013
Book News

by Tracy Barrett (W&M Contributor) I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined HarlequinTeen with a deal for two books, the first slated for release in July, 2014, and the second a year or so later. Random facts I’ve learned about HarlequinTeen: they don’t publish only romance they’re a very new imprint of Harlequin Harlequin is [...]

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Suleyman the Magnificent Builds a Mosque

by PamelaToler March 18, 2013
Suleyman the Magnificent Builds a Mosque

by Pamela Toler Commissioning a mosque was both an act of piety and a political statement in the Ottoman empire. Surrounded by building complexes that provided social services ranging from a public fountain to a caravanserai, mosques anchored new neighborhoods in old cities. Who commissioned what was carefully linked to social status. Small officials commissioned [...]

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Latin Horse Names

by CarolineLawrence March 15, 2013
Latin Horse Names

by Caroline Lawrence In book XI of Virgil’s Aeneid a horse named Aethon weeps over his fallen master, the young Trojan warrior Pallas. (Aeneid XI 89-90) The Romans loved their horses and we find their names on inscriptions, epigrams, souvenir beakers and even lead curse tablets. When I was researching my 12th Roman Mystery, The Charioteer [...]

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London’s Lost Dogs

by Lucy Inglis March 14, 2013
London's Lost Dogs

  Between 1700 and 1800, there are almost 500 advertisements for lost dogs in the central London news-sheets.  The abduction of cosseted dogs seems to have been a rather lucrative trade, judging by some of the rewards offered.  It suits many modern historians to talk of cock-fighting and the riotous Cambridge students who tortured cats, [...]

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A historical novelist’s search for the secrets behind Shakespeare’s Sonnets

by stephaniecowell March 11, 2013
A historical novelist’s search for the secrets behind Shakespeare’s Sonnets

by Stephanie Cowell It is fortunate we have these miraculous sonnets at all, as only thirteen copies remain of their original publication in 1609. The writing of them, the subject of them and the unexpected bisexuality of them (incomprehensible to some) remain much disputed more than four hundred years after that date.  Here is something [...]

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Julia Pastrana, ‘bearded lady’

by Helen King March 10, 2013
Julia Pastrana, 'bearded lady'

  by Helen King Lucy Inglis recently posted on the ‘Hottentot Venus’. Last month, there was a big day for the ‘bearded lady’: Julia Pastrana’s body was repatriated to her native Mexico and buried, her coffin covered with white roses. Julia, ‘the world’s ugliest woman’, suffered from excessive hair growth on her face. She was [...]

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The Black Stork: A physician’s cinematic argument for eugenics

by JackEl-Hai March 8, 2013
The Black Stork: A physician’s cinematic argument for eugenics

by Jack El-Hai, Wonders & Marvels contributor One of the most infamous movies of the silent era, which made a case for allowing disabled infants to die, sparked a national debate between 1917 and the late 1920s before sinking into obscurity. Along the way, The Black Stork rocketed a physician to fame and symbolized America’s [...]

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Flying Snakes in Ancient Egypt?

by AdrienneMayor March 6, 2013
Flying Snakes in Ancient Egypt?

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders and Marvels contributor) Egyptian tales of flying snakes captured the curiosity of the Greek historian Herodotus (ca 460 BC). These winged drakontes were said to live under frankincense (Boswellia) trees in the Arabian Desert. To gather the incense, the Arabians burned styrax (resin of the Liquidambar tree) because the smoke drove [...]

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Ruby Stars

by Eric Laursen March 2, 2013
Ruby Stars

By Eric Laursen (W&M Contributor) In 1935 the tsarist eagles that once perched atop the five towers of the Moscow Kremlin were replaced with massive revolving silver stars cut out of metal, with the design of a hammer and sickle made from semi-precious stones mined in the Urals (around 7000 stones were used in total).  [...]

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An Old Doctor, a Convent Apothecary, and an Eighteenth-Century Medical Dispute

by Lisa Smith March 2, 2013
An Old Doctor, a Convent Apothecary, and an Eighteenth-Century Medical Dispute

By Lisa Smith, W&M Contributor In December 1718, Dr. Tolozé, who styled himself an ‘Ancien Medecin’ (Old Doctor), wrote to physician Étienne-François Geoffroy.[1] Tolozé wanted Geoffroy to settle a dispute between him and the nuns of St. Eutrope near Chartres. Geoffroy, he believed, was well-placed to help, being the doctor of a Mme Cossins who [...]

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Dancing Girl

by Julia Gregson March 2, 2013
Dancing Girl

I discovered this dancing girl today while I was researching the history of Indian midwives. She has absolutely nothing to do with Indian midwives, but blind alleys are part of the pleasures of research, and isn’t she gorgeous? She is 4,500 years old and was found, in 1926, in the red rubble of Mohenjo- daro, [...]

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The Zodiac Ciphers: Messages from a Murderer

by Crypto Guest February 23, 2013
The Zodiac Ciphers: Messages from a Murderer

by Neil Sareen (Vanderbilt University) The 1960s of the Bay Area of California are often remembered as a time of love and social expansion, but there remains a terrible and unexplained stain on the otherwise illustrious history.  A lone and extremely elusive killer wandered the Bay Area streets at night.  Known as the Zodiac killer, [...]

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Secrets Abroad: A History of the Japanese Purple Machine

by Crypto Guest February 22, 2013
Secrets Abroad: A History of the Japanese Purple Machine

by Alberto Perez (Vanderbilt University) When one thinks about cryptography or encryption in World War II, the first thing that comes to mind is the Enigma Machine used by the Germans, whose code was broken by the Allies and used as a secret tactical advantage over the Nazis. What many people don’t know is that [...]

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Rasterschlüssel 44: The Stencil on Steroids

by Crypto Guest February 21, 2013
Rasterschlüssel 44: The Stencil on Steroids

by Justin Yeh (Vanderbilt University) An Allied cryptanalyst intercepts the message, “JDNTOENVIPDJ,” during World War II and attempts to decrypt it. He assumes it was encrypted using the German Enigma machine and performs the standard cryptanalysis, resulting in the message “PQNXLATIDNW.” He is completely baffled…the Allies had already broken the Enigma, so why was this [...]

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Getting My Books Into Readers’ Hands

by tracybarrett February 20, 2013
Getting My Books Into Readers' Hands

by Tracy Barrett (W&M Contributor) Historical fiction has devoted—sometimes rabid—fans. In the case of historical fiction for young readers, that fan base is still devoted, but it tends to be pretty small. Most kids are interested in reading about their contemporaries—whether human or zombie, or whatever the beast du jour is—rather than about the past, [...]

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