Photo Credits: Wayne Hsieh                        Lalaurie mansion is a house that was built in 1800s and it is famous as one of the most haunted houses in New Orleans. This house and its bloody past will surely remind you of how cruel slavery was back in the day. The house is situated in 1140, Royal street and the owner was Delphine LaLaurie. She was born on 19th March 1787 and she was born to a family of five. Her parents moved to the US from Ireland in 1730s and settled down in New Orleans. When she was four years old the Haitian revolution erupted (1791) and several slaveholders including her uncle was killed by the slaves. That incident lead slaveholders to take extreme measures to discipline their slaves. In 1800 when she was just 13 years old she married a Spanish royal officer and in 1804 he was called to the Spanish court. On the way to Madrid with his now pregnant wife Delphine, he passed away in Havana suddenly. Afte...

                             Zodiac killer is one of the most famous, yet so far unidentified serial killers in history. It came back to life in recently when one of his ciphers were cracked. Let me tell you what we know about this mystery man. 

                                During the WW1 aerial bombarding was not precise because planes were not equipped with radar. In fact pilots had to solely depend on their sight. When they see what they believed to be the target they deployed bombs. Using this opportunity of human error Parisians at the time thought of saving their town. They built a fake Paris so that the pilots will bomb it instead of the actual one. It even had a faux Arc di Tromphe and Goud du Nord among the landmarks.

 " Mary had a little lamb  Its fleece as white as snow  And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go " The famous nursery rhyme was published in 1830 in "Poems for our children" by Sarah Hale. Did you know that Mary actually had a lamb? Mary Elizabeth Sawyer from Sterling, a 9 years old girl in 1815, discovered a sick lamb abandoned by his mother. After pleading with her father, she managed to keep the lamb as a pet and miraculously the lamb survived. He became a member of the family and often tagged along with Mary and her brother when they were going to Redstone school. Mary secretly petted him under the desk covering the lamb with a blanket. Oneday unfortunately Mary was called to the front and lamb jumped out of his hiding place.Children were delighted and had a good time with this pet lamb that day. Few days later John Roulstone, a student in the same school hands over a poem to Mary about her lamb.

PC: Wikimedia Commons An impressive mustache was a must for a man in the 19th century and often mustache wax was used to keep it stiff. But drinking hot liquid such as tea, was difficult with the mustache because the steam from the drink would melt the wax and also caused stains. In 1860 an English potter Harvey Adams found a brilliant solution, a cup with a semicircular ledge which has a half moon shaped opening. Soon the cups started selling in large quantities. This masculine tableware was soon spread to Europe and then the American continent. These cups were manufactured in different quantities and materials such as silver, porcelain etc.  PC: CharmaineZoe's Marvelous Melange However in early 20th century mustache began to go out of fashion so did the mustache cups. Today we can only witness these Victorian pieces of male elegance only in museums and private collections.

Wars of roses were a series of civil wars between the house of Lancaster and the house of York for the throne of England. The last significant battle of roses was in the Bosworth field in August 1485 causing the Richard IIIs death and the victory of Henry Tudor who later crowned as the Henry VII and King Richard was buried in the Greyfriars church. Later in his reign England abandoned Catholicism and disbanded monasteries and as a result Greyfriars was demolished. King Richard's grave was lost and people believed his remains were thrown into river Soar.  

By early 19th century sugar was readily available in Europe and relatively affordable which lead to a high consumption. It was causing high levels of tooth decay and demand for dentures was rising alongside the demand for sugar. Replacements were made using ivory but they did not look natural nor long lasting. So dentists started making dentures with real human teeth set to an ivory base. Poor started selling their teeth and grave robbers started digging graves to find more and more teeth to cope with the rising demand. However supply was finite while demand was skyrocketing. 

Boho highlands in Fermanagh country, Ireland was a land once occupied by druids and it is an archaeologically rich area as well. According to a local belief people in the area has used the soil from the graveyard of the Sacred Heart church for generations to cure their illnesses. A small amount of soil was wrapped in a cloth and kept under pillow. Once the illness is cured they were required to return the soil back to where it was. Traditional ancient folk remedies are usually ignored by researchers and medical professionals but Dr. Gerry Quinn of Swansea University Medical School thought of testing the soil and the results they got was surprising.

The legendary Mongol emperor, Genghis khan was born in 1162 near the Lake Baikal. At the age of 9 his father was poisoned by another clan and one of the rival families (Taychiut family) took the power of the Borjigin clan.It is said that this family abandoned the widow and her children which lead them to extreme poverty. Oneday Temujin (Genghis Khan) was captured by Taychiut but he escaped and gathered supporters. Once he became the head of his clan he then stratergically unified Mongolia and extended his empire across Asia to Adriatic sea.

When Princess Susana Caroline Matilda of Mecklenburg Strelitz the sister of queen Charlotte of England,  visited New Bern and Wilmington she was an honored guest of lavish dinners and balls of the wealthy houses in Virginia. She claimed that she was exiled due to a scandal in the Royal family and people welcomed this royal princess warmly; some were thrilled to meet a royal while some were expecting for favors once her position is reestablished. Little did they knew that they were being scammed.

PC: Kevin Hutchinson A mummy always reminds of thousands of years old pharaohs and pyramids but many civilizations including Incan, Australian Aboriginal, Aztec, African etc have practiced several types of mummification processes to preserve bodies. Guanajuato mummies are world famous for its terrifying looks. It actually is a collection of hundreds of mummies which were mummified naturally during late 19th century. In 1850s a worldwide cholera outbreak caused thousands of deaths and soon  underground cemeteries in Guanjato were running out of space to accommodate bodies. So the authorities had to build walled crypts above ground and in this warm arid environment bodies started a natural mummification process. 

As a person who lived in Colombo 03 and a student of the University of Colombo, I often came across Alfred House Gardens, Alfred House Road, Alfred House Avenue, Alfred Place signboards and wondered what is this Alfred House. And I always forgot to search until I started reading "Colombo" by Mohan Raj Madawala. As you all know I'm a bookworm and once I get my hands on a book I stop everything and start reading it. So while I was reading suddenly Alfred House popped up. I was like.. wait. Is this the same Alfred House we are talking about? So I immediately googled Alfred House... and boy there it is. So I was reading a book about Alfred House while I was in a land once belonged to Alfred House? (I read it while in the place I used to stay at Colombo 03) It felt so crazy to think about it at that moment. About 150 years ago it was the Alfred House garden. I started imagining flowers, fountains, gardeners working in the garden etc.. And all of a sudden I wanted to know ...