The Theatre Royal mob of 1749 — On the 16th of January in the year 1749. There’s an advertisement that has graced the pages of the General Advertiser, a London newspaper, promising the most incredible magical performance anyone has ever seen at the Royal Theatre. It promises that this conjuror would perform feats, such as being able…

Why on earth do British lawyers wear those wigs? — Growing up as a kid, I was always very skeptical about this and I had assumed that it was just a television thing. This may be unfamiliar to a lot of people but it’s definitely familiar if you live in a Commonwealth country. The UK is the most well known…

You've probably had a staple filled with mincemeat, did it meet your expectations? Or were you disappointed to realize it wasn't completely filled with meat? — Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits, spices, and often beef suet, usually used as a pie or pastry filling. But we aren’t talking about the actual dish which would be usually served in a pie crust of some kind, we are in fact talking about an…

The thing I love about revivals is that once you have one, it’s always just a continual version of the revival — Fashion is a complex multi-layered means of aesthetic expression but it’s also a means of social identification. If you think the fashion rules about when to wear white shoes and such are strange and complicated, this story will knock your hats off. Fashion trends get revivals every now and then…

Hot-headed people fighting for air — We have made advancements in hot air balloon technology but it used to be the absolute height of exploration technology. Back in the early 19th century, the air, and the sky was a total mystery in the same way that the deepest depths of the ocean were for a long…

Have you ever been asked politely to leave? — I think we’ve all found ourselves, at one point or another, in a situation where we were asked to leave, sometimes politely and sometimes not politely. There are also some jobs where no matter what you do, you’re not going to please everyone, like the job of being the president…

From street teetotaler to world-class businessman. How did he do it? — There had to have been a time when even just the phrase, ‘see the world’, was an enticing tagline for a brand new industry. A whole new world of leisure travel, because, depending on what era you’re discussing, travel was not a luxurious thing at all. It was really only…

What’s the deal with people smashing bottles of champagne on ships? — Christenings can happen for many reasons, but this article is specifically about the practice of christening a ship. We all have this image in our heads, right? A boat or a ship has been built, it’s complete, it’s ready to slide into the briny blue. And right before it does…

Were you ever a fan of the old-school Wild West heroes? — When I was growing up, I was always more impressed by fictional stories of people with extraordinary supernatural powers, or strange, fantastical situations. But once upon a time, the United States was obsessed with stories of heroes in the largely fictionalized Wild West. This article is a little bit of…