• Khutulun – The Wrestling Princess

    The family of Genghis Khan was fearsome.  His sons and grandsons ruled large swaths of Asia, but his fearsome genes didn’t stop with just the men.  Enter Khutulun.  Her name meant “shining moon” or “moonlight”, but she was not all sweetness and light. Born about 1260 to Kaidu Khan, who ruled the Chagatai Khaganate, which stretched from western Mongolia to the Amu Dayra river in the west and from central Siberia in the north to India in the south.  Kaidu preferred the old ways of a nomadic life along the Steppes, so Khutulun could ride and shoot with the best of them.  She was given a traditional Mongol education alongside…

  • Deluge Myths

    High water, gully washer, toad strangler, God willing and the creek don’t rise. These are all terms for a universal weather phenomenon- floods. Even in ancient times, floods were a key part of life. The Nile floods were so important to ancient Egypt they had a god for it- Hapi. In that same vein, there are similar stories about a great flood in most known mythologies. There are enough similarities that researchers believe that these stories could come from a single root. The field of geomythology is the intersection between mythology and geology, and scientists have begun drawing parallels to the multiple “deluge myths”. The most commonly known story is…

  • The Highest Paid Athlete of All Time

    Gaius Appuleius Diocles No I’m not talking about Tom Brady, Lionel Messi or Serena Williams I’m talking about Gaius Appuleius Diocles. Never heard of him? Well no one else really has either. So let’s get to know the wealthiest athlete of all time. Diocles was born to a middle-class family in 104 AD Lusitania (now Portugal) and started racing as a teen. The area was known for stud farms which bred the best racehorses. He raced for 24 years, which is a long time for a charioteer and he represented three of the four most famous chariot racing stables in Rome at the time, which were known by their racing…

  • Christmas massacre in North Carolina

    It was Christmas Day, 1929 in Germanton, Stokes County, North Carolina and a father of seven was out with his eldest son, shooting rabbits near their home just outside of town in Walnut Cove. At some point during the hunt, Arthur Lawson, then aged sixteen ran out of ammunition for his rifle. He asked his father if he could spare some, but Charles replied that he too was getting low, and gave his son some money, asking that he go into town and buy more for further shooting planned for that afternoon. Arthur set off for the walk into town from near their home at 2890 Brook Cove Road. There…

  • Théroigne de Méricourt

    Théroigne de Méricourt

    Born Anne-Josèphe Terwagne in Marcourt, Rendeux in the province of Luxembourg, Belgium, Théroigne de Méricourt was far from royalty. She was born in 1767 to peasant parents, the middle child of three. Her mother died when she was five years old and Anne-Josèphe was passed back and forth between a couple of aunts and her father and his new wife. None of these homes were particularly kind to her, through a series of misadventures including being hired as a governess and then ditched at a tavern, young Anne-Josèphe found herself in the employ of a woman named Madame Colbert. Madame Colbert hired Anne-Josèphe to be the governess of her children,…