• The Ghost Girls

    From its discovery in 1898, radium was considered a wonder of science.  It glowed with an unearthly beauty.  It delighted its discoverers, Marie Sklodowska Curie and her husband Pierre, who called it “My beautiful radium”.  It was used in spas and clinics as a cure for everything from cancer to constipation.   It was used in makeup, jewelry and paints.   At the height of World War I, it was used to make the hands and dials of wristwatches glow in the dark.  Girls all over the country flocked to make these watches as they paid up to three times what they could have been paid at any other wartime factory.…

  • Eclipses- Historical Harbingers

    If you’ve been anywhere near the news, you would have seen that a solar eclipse happened in the continental United States yesterday.  I have to admit it was a pretty amazing experience as I was lucky enough to be in the path of totality.  As the sky went dark and the crickets started chirping, I thought about what it must have been like for those in the past.  They didn’t have the benefit of NASA and other scientists telling us that this was normal, the Sun would come back and to wear protective glasses.  How did people through the ages deal with eclipses? One of the first references we have…

  • Typhoid Mary

    There were many ways to die in the overcrowded disease ridden cities of the late 19th century and early 20th century.  Typhoid was one the most terrifying ones simply because of the speed it could spread through a household.   It’s initial symptoms could be anything- fever and some abdominal cramping.  Then the fever got higher and blood clots formed under the skin.  The patient becomes delirious and the brain and the intestines hemorrhage.  The death rate was recorded anywhere from one in ten to three in ten.  It was frightening.  Doctors were building on the advances in the young science of epidemiology led by pioneers like Dr. John Snow.  (For…

  • The Current Wars

    AC/DC-  It’s not just a band.  It was the culmination of the struggle between two geniuses.  In the late 19th century, electricity was the hot new technology.  Thomas Edison had begun work with this field and in the 1870’s invented the first practical light bulb.  Arc lamps were used in cities on larger scales, but were not suitable for a business or a home.  Edison’s light bulb filled that niche.  To power all these new electric light bulbs, Edison created the investor-owned Edison Illuminating Company.  One problem.  These all used direct current or DC, which had a major drawback of a very short transmission range.  Customers had to be less…

  • Eva Ekeblad

    I don’t know about you, but sometimes I could use a nice cold drink.  We’ve talked about the origins of beer (Please see this post:  http://www.historynaked.com/nin-kasi-lady-fills-mouth-beer/), but sometimes something a bit stronger is necessary.  So we move on to vodka.  In fairness, the lady who is the subject of this post did not only pave the way for vodka but many other things.  However, as I sip a Moscow Mule, vodka seems the most important. Eva Ekeblad was born July 10, 1724 to statesman Count Magnus Julius De La Gardie and his wife Hedvig Catharina Lilja.  Interestingly, her brother was married to Catherine Charlotte De La Gardie, who also a…