On 10 April 1815 the Indonesian volcano Tambora (literally) blew its top in the only confirmed VEI-7 eruption since the Lake Taupo’s eruption circa AD 180. The volcano’s initial blast could be heard as far away as Sumatra, which was more than 1200 miles distant from ground zero. Approximately 11,000 people were killed by the… Read more Mt. Tambora Makes an Earth-Shattering Kaboom
The future King Louis VXII was born on 27 March 1785, the second son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette, and named Louis-Charles. When his older brother, Louis Joseph, died of tuberculosis on 4 June 1789 when he was only seven years old, the four year old Louis Charles became the… Read more The Tragic Death of King Louis XVII and the Effect on Jane Austen’s Work
(I have a guest post up in the form of a video chat over on Just Jane 1813! Be sure to stop by!) On 27 February 1812 the famous poet Lord Byron gave his first speech in a debate of the House of Lords, and it was a doozy. It caused all sorts of social… Read more Mad, Bad, and Devoted to Human Rights
Robert (Rabbie) Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in the village of in Alloway, near Ayr, not far from the River Doon (Brig o’ Doon), which would later feature in his epic poem “Tam O’Shanter“. The poets birthplace is now commemorated as Burns Cottage Museum, but no one had any inkling that the newborn Rabbie would grow up to… Read more Scotia’s Bard
Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France was born 19 December 1778, the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the only member of her immediate family to survive the bloodbath of the French Revolution. She was a well-loved child, adored by both her doting parents. Marie Antoinette reportedly cooed to her newborn baby, whom everyone… Read more Marie Therese of France
One of the best things about the Yuletide in Britain is the opportunity to take your children to see a Christmas panto. We don’t have them in America, because attending a panto became a “Christmas Tradition” in Britain in the Regency era, when all things British were being spurned by Americans with jingoistic fever. Frankly,… Read more A Christmas Panto
William Cowper, one of the Georgian era’s most loved poets, was born on 26 November 1731 (Old Style date was 15 November), in Hertfordshire, the son of a vicar. Although his fame has declined over the decades, his name and works remain familiar for any fan of Jane Austen. Another vicar’s child like Cowper, Austen… Read more William Cowper, Beloved of Jane Austen
Horatio Nelson, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, was born on 29 September 1758, the sixth child of Reverend Edmund Nelson and his wife Catherine Suckling in a rectory in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. Horatio, called Horace by his family, was the fifth son born to Edmund and Catherine, but two of his elder brothers tragically… Read more Horatio Nelson, Hornblower Prototype and Hero of Trafalgar
For millennia, Western medicine was in thrall to the humoral theory of ancient Greece. It wasn’t until the scientific revolution of the Victorian era that germs were understood to cause illness, but even then medical ideas about a woman’s body had more in common with those espoused by Helenic doctors than modern ones. Germs there… Read more Green Sickness and the Cultural Construction of Women’s Health
King William IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as the King of Hanover, was born the third son of King George III and Queen Charlotte just before dawn on 21 August 1765 at Buckingham House. He only came to the throne due to the deaths of his second oldest brother,… Read more The Last Georgian King