History Lecture Ideas

Topics for the Lecture and Slice of Life series.
Discussion about historical events, people, items, etc. that can add to the flavor to any historical game setting.
Discussion and sharing of links and resources.
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Dr. Gerard » Mon Jul 07, 2014 11:31 am

Hah! A saucy pun.
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Koakai » Mon Jul 07, 2014 3:23 pm

Reading fark today, and a headline had me thinking Migo brain canisters.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... mains.html

3500 copper cylinders at a mental institution. Containing the cremated remains of those that died there.
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Koakai » Tue Jul 08, 2014 2:08 pm

Oh I never shared this did I.

Roentgenizdat Or Bone Music.

During the Cold war when the Soviet Union was at its height, censorship of all forms was undertaken. One way around that for music was the copying of records. However since Vinyl was not easy to get, they came across a cheap and easy way to make illicit copies. Old x-ray film was tossed out by hospitals, and was easy to scavenge. Using modified phonographs and smuggled records they would trim the xray film and cut grooves into it. The product - bone music. These sheets were prone to breaking, and the quality was variable. But for a populace hungry for things from the west, it worked.

Of course, the people that were in charge of censorship cracked down, and some records had snippets of the song, and then vicious tirades against the listener.

What if something else got onto this.
Songs from the stars perhaps.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas ... _russ.html
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Dr. Gerard » Thu Jul 10, 2014 4:06 am

Ohhhhh...good one!

I would love to know a few of the albums that were on there. Remember all the crazy backmasking stories? I wonder if Alice Cooper was ever etched into an X-Ray...
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Graham » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:35 am

Found a website that is just brimming with possible History Lecture candidates, it's a travel guide to unusual and obscure architecture:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/

A some of examples follow:

1. The Reading (PA), Pagoda

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-reading-pagoda

2. The Ruins (Sculpture Park)

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-ruins

3. The Tower of Eben-Ezer, Belgium

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tower-eben-ezer

4. Bradford College (Allegedly inspriation for the Miskatonic...), Haverhill, Mass.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bradford-college
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Graham » Sat Aug 02, 2014 12:09 pm

The May 11-28 eruption of Kilauea is the only explosive eruption of the volcano in the 20th Century and ironically the smallest of such events in the history of the volcano. This dramatic event would make for an interesting lecture.

1. Volcano Watch: Prelude to an explosion
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/arc ... 04_01.html

2. Volcano Watch: A look back at powerful Halemaumau eruptions of 1924
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/arc ... 05_21.html

3. The 1924 explosions of Kilauea
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/history/1924May18/

4. Earthquakes and Explosions: Shocking events, Kapoho and Halema‘uma‘u in 1924
http://www.nps.gov/havo/photosmultimedi ... r_dark.htm

5. Runt of the Litter: The 1924 Explosive Eruption of Kilauea
http://www.nps.gov/havo/photosmultimedi ... r_dark.htm
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Graham » Wed Aug 06, 2014 4:01 pm

From the Atlas Obscura, a building in Germany that deserves a history lecture. The Junkerhaus, built by an eccentric architect/artist, it is in the builders own opinion, the equivalent of one of Wagner's operas.

1. Junkerhaus on Atlas Obscura

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/karl-junker-house


2. Outsider Environments Blog: Junkerhaus

http://outsider-environments.blogspot.c ... house.html


3. Junkerhaus Museum

http://www.junkerhaus.de/en/startpage.html


4. Video on the house on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en1EYYJOnnE
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Dr. Gerard » Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:40 am

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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Koakai » Tue Aug 19, 2014 5:22 pm

Ah our famous floating feet. Most of the ones that have been found have been linked to suicides or deaths on the water where the bodies were never recovered. The feet being in shoes that want to float eventually become detached as rot happens and wind up floating to the surface and to shore.

Of course, I had my own theories when they were first found. (Now that is a nice healthy heart and kidney. Yoink! *tosses the rest in the river*).

Of course, the fraser river that feeds out to where the majority of the body parts have been found is fed by any number of rivers and loops through a good chunk of the interior of the province. Who knows just what might be disposing of things in such a convenient place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pickton killed over 20 women, and his favorite hunting grounds of skid row had over 60 disappearances of at risk women. (I could have applied to work on the team of archaeologists recovering bone fragments from the soil at the farm but I suck at human osteology).

Then there is the highway of tears. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Tears_murders where a stretch of road up here is called. A number of disappearances and deaths in a 'kinda linked' to the area. A number of victims also linked to the area are not considered part of this, simply because they were either not hitchhiking or engaged in at risk activities.
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Re: History Lecture Ideas

Post by Koakai » Mon Sep 22, 2014 4:20 pm

A case of art reflecting life...

You have heard tales of such strange things where jeweled daggers and bodies were involved in the past. In something that seems to have come from those same pulp tales I stumbled across a tale of three bodies and a jeweled dagger being found during renovation of a historic building in Mississippi in the 1930's.

http://www.ghostinmysuitcase.com/places/kings/

The King's Tavern, in Natchez.

Amazing what you find when you start reading a story about the oldest bars/pubs in each state.

The wikipedia page lacks the splendor of that tale, but includes some talk of sadistic murderers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_Tavern
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