I am sure many of you have heard the names and stories of Anastasia Romanov and Anna Anderson. Like many, I have found the story of the last days of Russian Romanov Imperial Family in 1918 fascinating – a tragic story of a gruesome family massacre. In the early 1920s, all the world knew with any certainty was that the…
One of the great unanswerable questions of World War I, was whether Margaretha Geertruida Zelle McLeod, otherwise known as Mata Hari, was a German spy? In this blog post, we look at the evidence in the British Secret Service files and contemporary newspaper accounts, to find out more about the mistory and myth surrounding Mata Hari. Mata Hari’s Early Life…
When researching Mary Blandy‘s story, I wondered how common arsenic poisoning was in the eighteenth century? Could there have been a simple explanation for her father’s death? First, I wanted to find out about its historic use. History of Arsenic Use For over 3,000 years practitioners of traditional Chinese Medicine have used arsenic to treat a multitude of illnesses including…
The greatest female sailors are casting off in their dinghies from the shores of Ekoshima in the Olympic Games. Over the last forty years, women’s sailing has hit new heights. Naomi James was the first woman to sail single-handed around the world via Cape Horn. Tracey Edwards captained the first all-female crew to circumnavigate the globe, while Ellen MacArthur broke…
