Latest posts – Historic Sidenotes
By BarbaraCategories: Renaissance, Curated Finds for YouBy BarbaraCategories: Renaissance, Curated Finds for You
By RasmusCategories: 20th Century Chaos
Hi, I'm Barbara! 👋
Hey, welcome! This blog makes important history easy to read and fun to explore. If the past ever felt confusing or boring — you’re not alone. Here, it’s all cool stories in plain English, one strange tale at a time. Because history should be fun and make sense.
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Quick take She danced past checkpoints, biked across enemy territory, and turned ragtag partisans into a force the Nazis learned to fear. Nancy Wake—aka “The White Mouse”—is what happens when charisma meets [...]
Quick take In 1943, British intelligence pulled off one of history’s boldest hoaxes: planting fake invasion plans on a dead man, setting him adrift off Spain, and convincing the Nazis that the [...]
Quick take In 1943, a team of Polish partisans stopped and looted a Nazi supply train in broad daylight — making off with weapons, ammunition, and funds for the resistance. It wasn’t [...]
Quick take In occupied Netherlands, bicycles became more than transport — they were weapons of stealth. From teenage girls with bread baskets to veterans disguised as postal workers, Dutch resistance couriers carried [...]
Picture the Middle Ages and you probably smell them first. But the “no one bathed” cliché collapses fast when you look at bathhouse records, monastic rules about washing, city laws on cesspits, [...]
Let’s face it: most of us aren’t going to casually reenact the fall of the Roman Empire in our backyard. But crack open the right book? You’re there. You’re marching with Caesar, [...]
The ultimate index of history’s most bizarre, misunderstood, and occasionally ridiculous people, events, and concepts — one gloriously chaotic entry at a time. A Anna of Saxony’s Meltdown (1567) The wife of [...]
We often think of 18th-century Europe as an age of powdered elegance: towering wigs, jewel-toned silks, lace collars as wide as dinner plates. But beneath the glamor was something more sinister. Many [...]
In 18th-century Europe, salons buzzed with whispers of hidden brotherhoods, forbidden rituals, and all-powerful networks pulling the strings behind monarchies and revolutions alike. From the Freemasons to the Illuminati, secret societies became [...]
Marie Antoinette has lived many lives. To some, she’s the ultimate fashion icon, a queen of cake and couture. To others, she’s the clueless symbol of aristocratic excess — the doomed face [...]
Medieval cuisine gets a bad rap — often imagined as bland gruel or suspicious meat pies. But in truth, people in the Middle Ages enjoyed surprisingly rich and diverse meals, especially if [...]
If you've ever complained about a public restroom, just be glad you weren’t living in 13th-century Europe. The Middle Ages were full of mystery, superstition... and raw sewage. While castles, towns, and [...]
The Middle Ages weren’t all sword fights and epic quests. Behind the moats and tapestries were thousands of people doing some of the strangest jobs history has to offer. From scraping out [...]
The Middle Ages were not for the faint of heart. From surprise plagues to suspect bread, survival meant navigating disease, famine, superstition, and the occasional drunken knight with a grudge. But believe [...]
The Surprisingly Real World of Medieval Magic and Petty Revenge Forget sleek spellbooks and wand duels. In the Middle Ages, cursing your enemies was often as low-tech as a carved wax [...]
Debunking the Great Medieval Dirt Myth Let’s clear the (musty, unwashed) air: people in the Middle Ages were not the filthy, mud-caked goblins pop culture loves to depict. Contrary to popular belief, [...]
Today is the annual bonfire tradition of "Sankt Hans" in Denmark—a night where we pile up wood, douse it in gasoline, and set fire to a homemade doll meant to look like [...]
Who needs enemies when your own army storms your town? In March 2009, the Danish military launched a surprise exercise involving troops, helicopters, and simulated combat. The goal? Test readiness. The problem? [...]
Yes, this really happened. And yes, the emus won. In the annals of history’s most delightfully absurd conflicts, few tales flap quite as hard as the Great Emu War of 1932. Australia—armed [...]
Spoiler: it went exactly as terribly as you’re imagining In the 1960s, the CIA faced a serious problem: how to eavesdrop on Soviet conversations without being noticed. Their solution? Strap surveillance gear [...]
Most soldiers in World War II carried rifles. Jack Churchill? He brought a longbow, a Scottish broadsword, and bagpipes. And he used them. This is the true story of Lt. Colonel John [...]
This wasn’t a Monty Python sketch. It was the Cadaver Synod, one of the weirdest, most macabre, and most petty events in papal history. If you thought modern politics were [...]
Author’s Note: When I first became aware that a pig actually got dressed in human clothes and sentenced to death in the 14th century, I was both a [...]
France's most iconic landmark nearly got a one-way ticket to Montreal It’s 1967. The Beatles are everywhere. The Cold War is chilling. And in Montreal, Canada, engineers and planners are scrambling to [...]
Spoiler: They weren’t wood, but they were still pretty horrifying If you went to school in the U.S., chances are you were told a few things about George Washington: he chopped down [...]
Napoleon Bonaparte, military genius, Emperor of the French, conqueror of Europe. A man who went toe-to-toe with coalitions of superpowers and won. But in the summer of 1807, he met his match [...]
Eva Braun: The Woman Who Chose a Life with Hitler Eva Braun - The Woman Behind the Monster (Kind Of) - is one of the most shadowy—and strangely sanitized—figures in 20th-century history. [...]
Yes, The Bat Bombs Project Was a Real Thing It sounds like something cooked up in a Looney Tunes war lab, but this bizarre tale is 100% real and documented. During World [...]
Introduction: More Than Just Men in Uniform When we picture Nazi Germany, the cast is overwhelmingly male — uniforms, mustaches, medals. But behind the official propaganda and power structures was a quieter [...]
Welcome to the Psychological Front World War II wasn’t just a fight over territory — it was a battle for minds. With entire populations to mobilize and enemies to demoralize, propaganda became [...]