Day 80: Last Words On German Executioners

originally published March 20, 2012 Every so often, a seventeenth-century German guidance counselor would look a student over, consult his notes, and pull out the word ‘scharfrichter’ as his recommendation. For these confused teens, this was not good news. A scharfrichter, while clearly a vital cog in the twisted workings of the German government at […]

Day 69: Get Out Your Magic Sticks – The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn

originally published March 9, 2012 So you’re looking for a new religion to follow, but the old standbys seem so last Thursday, and you can’t afford a sci-fi religion that requires monetary input to achieve higher awareness (I’m looking at you, Scientology). You want some magic and mysticism, but without a dreary back-story of sacrifice […]

Day 64: “Hail Capua!” – An Excerpt From My New Musical About 9th Century Italy

originally published March 4, 2012 The scene: the Bridge of Teodemondo, over the Volturno River. The year: 859. The cast: Lando I, the Count of Capua; Lando II, his eldest son, general of the Capuan army; Peter, the youngest son of Lando I. They are waiting in a tower overlooking the bridge, where a battle […]

Day 58: The 1715 Jacobite Uprising, As Taught By An Awkward Substitute History Teacher Who Tries Too Hard

originally published February 27, 2012 Yo. My name is Mr. Leppswig, and I’ll be your substitute teacher today. Your teacher, Mrs. Griffle, asked me to lay it down for you all about the 1715 Jacobite Uprising in Great Britain. Will you pick it up? Alright, take out your notebooks. Last week you learned about the […]

Day 48: The George Cole Reality Show

originally published February 17, 2012 Today I’m writing reality-show style, since the genre of reality shows looks like it will never go away. Also, the shows have become so low-concept lately, it doesn’t seem that much of a stretch for me to vote off the lesser contestants until I can find the best George Cole […]

Day 42: Samuel Crompton Wrecked My Scrotum!

originally published February 11, 2012 If you had been lucky enough to have lived a hundred years ago, you might have been able to snag (there may a pun here, I’m not entirely sure) a job using a mule spinner. This was a large piece of machinery, invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779-ish, that spun […]

Day 39: Crap-Bucket Of History – President John Tyler

originally published February 8, 2012 Ask most people who John Tyler was – especially people in my corner of the non-American world, you’ll get a tiny minority who will know the answer. Congratulations, if you’re reading this article, you get to be part of that tiny minority. We meet on Thursdays; orange drink will not […]

Day 33: Milly Witkop Named Her Son ‘Fermin’, Yet She’s Actually Kind Of Cool

originally published February 2, 2012 To quote Wikipedia, that fair maiden who imbues me with a zesty yolk of seemingly meaningless information every day, Milly Witkop was “a Ukranian-born Jewish anarcho-syndicalist.” So why should we care? In her lifetime, Milly was not only the reigning queen of Wrong-Place-Wrong-Time, she was also a pretty sharp rebellious […]

Day 26: Wager’s Action Was A Gamble

originally published January 26, 2012 One of my favorite genres of kilograph prose in this little project is the war story. Some of the war stories I find are painfully dull (and there are only so many pooping-on-a-submarine jokes out there), but every once in a while I come across a story that can be […]

Day 21: Escapes From Alcatraz

originally published January 21, 2012 John Paul Scott. The man with three first names. His other claim to fame is his successful escape from Alcatraz Island. You didn’t see that, but when I typed ‘successful’, I used finger-quotes. Perhaps actual quotes would have been a better way to convey this. John made it to San […]