Old Tom Parr

In Westminster Abbey, there lies the body of Old Tom Parr in an incredible place of honor resting in the hall of nobles and princes. Of these he was none; he was an oddity. He lived to be 152 years old.

That is right this old man told you to shut your mouth.

Born: 1483
Died: November 1635

No one is really sure how old he really was at his death but he prescribes 
"keep your head cool by temperance and your feet warm by exercise. Rise early, go soon to bed, and if you want to grow fat [prosperous] keep your eyes open and your mouth shut."1

1.Westminster Abbey: Thomas Parr 

; http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/thomas-parr

2. Darwin Country: Parr, Thomas (1483-1635) 'Old Parr'; http://www.darwincountry.org/explore/001716.html

You Should Know These Facts About P.T. Barnum

If you don't know who P.T. Barnum is, I'll tell you. He was an moderate hoaxer and showman, meaning that he didn't always display hoaxes but frequently he would.  Like his first fascinating object of exhibition to curious viewers was the 'nurse of George Washington.' She was an African American woman named Joyce

Phineas Taylor Barnum. 

Heth, whom he said was actually over 160 years old.  He would make money displaying Joyce in tours (that way he would make more money; classic businessman's move) from 1835-6. In 1836 Joyce died at her true age...70 years old.

Today hoaxes are frequently defrauded because contemporary people know that they shouldn't always trust everything they hear, which is a hard subject to write about without sounding paranoid, some doubt is just healthy. Anyways, people were more gullible in the 1800's, and Barnum knew how to use that to his advantage.

After a brief failure after Joyce died, he purchased a museum in New York and became the Father of Sideshow, commonly called the 'freaks' of the day.

Now that you know who he is, let me tell you all the interesting things about him.

1.  He is widely thought to have coined 'There's a Sucker Born Every Minute," even though it is likely he never said it.
2. He is the maker of the Feejee Mermaid Hoax, which at the time was advertised as a beautiful mermaid when actually it was a dead monkey and fish sown together (that's gross and unhealthy)

How you might imagine mermaids

What this mermaid looked like

3. He also exhibited a dwarf as General Tom Thumb.

The General Insurance Guy in Real Life
actually no it's Tom Thumb

Sources:
Phineas Taylor Barnum on the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannia: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Barnum,_Phineas_Taylor
The Hoaxes of P.T. Barnum: http://hoaxes.org/archive/display/category/p.t._barnum

Thomas Chatterton: Poet and a Fraud

I may be inconsistent in posting but you can be sure that I will post on Saturdays, just to let you guys know.
I am like half asleep now but let's do a post! (talking partly to myself and partly to you)

Unusual Death: Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton was a poet whose gifts are largely unnoticed, he would sit and write and read all day when a child. He was a child of the eighteenth century and also was a fraud.

A representation of his death by Henry Wallis.

Poetry gives poets the opportunity to paint the world in their own image, though Tom chose to write in the guise of another.  He said that the were by Thomas Rowley who was a fifteenth century poet and monk. Yet even though he was proclaimed a fraud, the brilliancy of his poetry is unanimous. A modernized snippet from exclassics.com of a poem of his:

"[Look in his gloomed face, his sprightly there scan;How woe-be-gone, how withered, forewarned, dead!Haste to the church graves, accursed man!Haste to the coffin, the only bedroom bed.Cale, as the clay which will grow on thy head,Is Charity and Love among high elves;Knights and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.]"

You must notice how beautiful flowing his poetry is, but when you read it closely you can see a little of the depression he suffered. He had stopped eating, depression had overcome him. When he was offered food, he said he was not hungry, in truth he had not eaten in three days.  He returned to his attic where he had once written marvelous poems, now he was poor in money and in happiness. He carried with him a bottle...of arsenic. He drank it then tore his literary remains. He was only seventeen.



Yet you might not know that he is a Romantic poetry icon, a poem by John Keats was dedicated to him, and he is the subject of novels.


Sources:

1911 Encyclopedia Britannia: Thomas Chatterton: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Chatterton,_Thomas

Special Collection Department: Forging a Collection: Thomas Chatterton and the Rowley Forgeries: http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/forgery/rowley.htm

Portrait Lives: Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia

It's Portrait Lives Wednesday!
Every Wednesday features a Portrait Lives, which is a weekly post showing the age progression in specific historical figures through contemporary portraits of them. Way more fun than it sounds.

Her family:
In order from left to right: Olga, Maria, Czar Nicholas II,
Alix or Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexi, and Tatiana 

Anastasia along with her family was executed during the 1918 Revolution in Russia. She was part of the royal family, the youngest and fourth daughter of the Czar Nicholas II. Her brother was born about 4-5 years after her and he was killed when 13 years old.
For years after her execution, there were rumors that Anastasia was supposedly still alive. People even claimed that they were in fact the supposed Duchess, the most famous was Anna Anderson. Not until Anastasia's body was found did the rumors die down.
She was just a young woman aged 17 when she was killed violently. It is sad that her and her sisters and young brother had to die to surmount a revolution.

A Portrait Lives for Grand Duchess Anastasia:

1. about 1 year old

3. about 4

2. about 3 years old

4. about 5 years old with her siblings 

5. about 6 years old

6. about 8 years old with her brother

7. about 10

8. about 13 years old

9. about 14 years

10. about 14 years 

11. about 15 years

12. 15 years old, now in home arrest with her siblings. She is
the second most to the right with the dog.

13. aged about 16 years old 

14. about 17 still in captivity

15. forensic facial reconstruction at 17 years old

Maria and Anastasia making funny faces

Some Bonus Informal and Funny Photos:

her father letting her take a smoke

Anastasia with her brother, Alexi 

Check out

Sources:
Livadia.org
Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

The Fairy Hoax Believed by Arthur Canon Doyle

The hoax was made up by two children; Elsie and Frances who somehow managed to fool many people, generations in fact. In 1917, they took photos of themselves with fairies. Some people believed then that  the Supernatural existed including Elsie's mother. She had had attended a lecture on spiritualism and showed the photos to the people there. Quickly the photos were circulating the Spiritualist community and were shown as evidencing the Supernatural.

Elsie with two fairies

Another with a gnome

In 1981, one of the girls confessed that the fairies were not real that paper cutouts from a book, too bad.

I bet they had a good laugh that so many people believed them!



Check out more in

The Fairy Ring by Mary Losure

click the picture and believe in fairies, join the fairy ring.

Sources:
The Case of the Cottingley Fairies: http://www.randi.org/library/cottingley/
The Cottingley Fairies: http://hoaxes.org/photo_database/image/the_cottingley_fairies/