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Woodcut depicting a vagrant being punished in the streets of Tudor England. Source: Public domain

Unemployment Under Edward VI Was Punished with Branding and Slavery

In the annals of history, peculiar laws are often found, shedding light on the societal norms and governance of bygone eras. One such oddity is the Vagrancy Act of 1547, a draconian decree that sent...
Illustration based on osteobiography generated through analyses of remains excavated at cemetery of Cambridge hospital which offered what was, in essence, a medieval social benefit system Source: Mark Gridley / After the Plague

Cemetery Reveals Medieval Equivalent of Social Benefits System

Archaeologists from several universities in England teamed up to analyze the skeletal remains of more than 400 individuals who were buried in a medieval cemetery that belonged to St. John the...
The Beggars of Burgos by Gustave Dore (1875) (Public Domain)

How The Other 99 Percent Lived In The Ancient World

The Victorian essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle wrote, “ No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men .” Carlyle died half a century before women in...
The Afro-Bolivians And Their Monarchy In Bolivia: An Enigmatic Kingdom

The Afro-Bolivians And Their Monarchy In Bolivia: An Enigmatic Kingdom

Bolivia is a land full of wonders and little-known facts. The majestic nature of the mountainous Andes and the adjacent tropical forests, and the illustrious capital city of La Paz, nestled high...
Circular graves discovered in the southern part of the Umedahaka Japanese burial ground in Osaka’s Kita Ward.

Strange Historic Japanese Burial Ground Found In Downtown Osaka

In Japan , a graveyard has been unearthed in the heart of Osaka City . The Japanese burial ground is believed to have been an important historic graveyard that dates back several hundred years. The...
The coast of the 1847 Carricks shipwreck at Cap-Des-Rosiers beach in Quebec. Source: Amqui / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Child Remains From Tragic Irish Shipwreck Washed Up On Canadian Beach

The Canadian government has confirmed that a collection of human remains has been washed up on a beach, belonging to victims of a ship that sunk with a boatload of people fleeing the ravages of the...
An Angel leading a soul into heaven

Why the Christian Idea of Hell no Longer Persuades People to Care for the Poor

Although many of us now associate hell with Christianity, the idea of an afterlife existed much earlier. Greeks and Romans, for example, used the concept of Hades, an underworld where the dead lived...
Some Saxon Queens had killer reputations. (Public Domain);Deriv.

The Wicked Queen and Her Scandalous Daughter: How Murder & Mayhem Took a Saxon Princess from Palace to Poverty

While we might be gripped by the intrigues, the machinations, and the violence of the Lannisters and the Starks in the Game of Thrones television series and the Song of Ice and Fire series of novels...
Weighing of the heart scene from the Book of the Dead of Hunefer.

Death and Rebirth: Startling New Information Emerges About Ancient Egyptian Pot Burials

Ancient Egyptian funerary practices were not just about making mummies. Surprising new information reveals that pot burials were not just for poor children in ancient Egypt either. Instead, it seems...
Sculpture of child, deriv.

Swapping Babies: The Disturbing Faerie Changeling Phenomenon

The worldwide stories of faerie changelings come under a group of motifs recorded in the Aarne-Thompson folklore index as F321: ‘Faerie steals child from cradle and leaves faerie substitute.’ The...
The damp, dark, and chilling chambers and tunnels of the Edinburgh Vaults.

Body Snatchers and Tortured Spirits: The Dark History of the South Bridge Vaults of Edinburgh

Beneath the ancient fortified city of Edinburgh, Scotland lies the South Bridge Vaults—notorious underground tunnels and chambers which became the dwelling places of the impoverished and the...