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…
On 10 August 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as an associate justice of the US Supreme Court. She was the first Jewish female and second female justice to serve on SCOTUS. The American Bar Association gave her their highest rating, saying she was “well qualified” for the role. In this blog we set out a transcript of the…
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…
Mary Blandy was in a tizz. At 2pm on Wednesday 14 August, her father, Francis Blandy died. The doctors suspected Arsenic, and she was the main suspect. Confined and guarded in her room, Mary paced up and down. Would they believe she had stupidly thought she was giving her father a love potion? Or would the world think she had…
On the 6th of August 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first women to swim the English Channel. It was the 20-year-old’s second attempt at the 21-mile swim from Dover in England to Cape Griz-Nez, France. Ederle’s Introduction to Swimming and her Early Career Ederle’s father taught her to swim at their summer cottage in Highlands, New Jersey. By age 12…
