The 9th of November is a significant date in German history for several reasons. In 1848 it was the official end of the March Revolution, which laid the groundwork for the former Holy Roman Empire to become the German Empire in 1871. It…

The urge to reinvent yourself is often a strong one. The idea of a “mid-life crisis” is more of a cliché than an actuality, but people do often find themselves stopping to take stock and re-assessing themselves. Sometimes we all take a look…

No organisation quite captures the air of genteel decay that pervaded English society in the Georgian era quite like the Hellfire Club. The 18th and early 19th century was a hard time for England. A succession of wastrel princes became…

Nowadays, most people aren’t afraid of monsters. We know that our neighbours are not secretly werewolves, that the dead will not rise as vampires to steal our lives away, that witches will not cast malicious curses to blight our lives. And…

Slavery is one of the most abhorrent human practices. In order to enslave another human being, you must be prepared to deny them their individuality. This basic attitude of ignoring the reality of another person’s experience lies at the…

It’s an odd crowd, in the Olympia Theatre tonight. A lot younger than the usual theatre crowd - in fact, the majority seem to be teenagers, dotted with geeky-looking types, the alternative crowd, and the occasional bemused parent. In other…

Duels occupied a strange position in 18th century Britain. They were not legal, nor were they illegal. Killing another person was naturally a crime, but one that carried a lesser penalty than cold-blooded murder. Those who killed their…

Mark Twain once wrote “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” Few things illustrate that quite like the life and career of Julie"La Maupin"  d’Aubigny, the 18th century…

Few outside of Romania and Bulgaria would have heard of their folk hero Vlad Tepes if it had not been for an Irish writer named Abraham Stoker. Bram (as he is more commonly known) was inspired by the tale, and it led to him researching…

Life on the frontier has always had a romantic air. Where civilisation ends, and wilderness begins, then there is room for tales of people we can relate to; having adventures we can only dream of. Still, every frontier comes to an end, and…