Tipu's Tiger
Europe To The East

A Tiger Takes on Imperialism: Tipu Sultan vs Great Britain

Tipu’s possessions, as well as anything associated with him, frequently had tiger stripes and tigers worked into the decoration. His throne? Jeweled gold tiger head finials. His coinage? Stamped with stripes. Swords and guns? Covered with tiger heads and stripes. Army mortars? Small bronze crouching tigers. Even the men who fired Tipu’s lethal rockets wore tunics woven with stripes.

Grainne Irish Pirate
Europe

Marauding and Misbehaving: Gráinne Mhaol, Pirate Queen

When the English stripped Richard of the family lands he was set to inherit, Gráinne could have either A) started a rebellion or B) negotiated with the Crown. Surprisingly, Gráinne chose plan B. She parlayed with English representative Lord Deputy Henry Sidney in 1576, going so far as to offer him three galleys and two hundred fighting men. He didn’t take her up on the offer, but he did sail with her to inspect her coastal defenses of Galway. Gráinne made sure to bill him for her troubles. Sidney walked away with the impression that “This was a notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland.”

Green children
Europe

Up From Below: The Mysterious Green Children of Woolpit

In the early Middle Ages Woolpit was amid the most agriculturally and densely populated part of rural England. It wasn’t impossible that strangers might pass through, and in those days many villages were self-contained with their own customs, clothes, and dialects. You could enter a place a few miles away and have trouble understanding the locals.

The Last Kingdom
Did That Really Happen? Europe

The Last Kingdom: Notable Figures In Real Life Pt. 2

When author Bernard Cornwell discovered that among his distant ancestors was an ealdorman named Uhtred who held Bebbanburg, he decided he wanted to weave that into his story. The Uhtred who lived held court in the early 10th century, over 100 years after The Last Kingdom’s events, and nothing much is known about him. Our fictional hero’s remarkable upbringing and adventures are just that — fiction. But we like to think the real Uhtred had his fair share of escapades, too.