In the Dark Archive
Case File No. 50
The Raft of the Méduse
Strips of human flesh hung drying from the rigging. Thirteen days later, fifteen men were left of a hundred and forty-seven.
Off Mauritania, Mauritania · July 1816 · 8 min read
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Two and a half miles along the Thames and up into the City, past eight places where people were put to death — most of them still standing, none of them marked as much as they deserve.
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The latest on the public site — free, and always will be
- Beechworth Asylum: The Real History of Mayday Hills
For 128 years the asylum on the hill took in Victoria's unwanted. Most of the ones who died there were buried in graves nobody marked.
Beechworth, Australia · October 24, 1867
- The Tulip Staircase Ghost: What the 1966 Photograph Really Shows
The experts who examined the famous Greenwich ghost photograph agreed on something the legend never mentions: there must have been someone on the stairs.
Greenwich, United Kingdom · June 19, 1966
- The Woman from Lemb: The Truth About the Goddess of Death
Four aristocratic families are said to have been wiped out by a cursed Cypriot statue. The statue is real. The families are not.
Lemba, Cyprus · Excavated 1976
- The Diplomat Hanged As A Traitor And Honoured As A Saint
The man who exposed Congo's atrocities was hanged for treason, then given a hero's state funeral decades later.
Pentonville Prison, London, United Kingdom · 1916
- The King's Favourite Who Bet Against Richelieu
A dazzling young courtier gambled his head against Cardinal Richelieu, and lost it in a public square.
Place des Terreaux, Lyon, France · 1642
- The Most Haunted House In London
For a whole Victorian generation, one Mayfair townhouse carried a reputation no other address in London could match.
Berkeley Square, London, United Kingdom · 1879