Odd Page History https://oddpagehistory.com/ A small, one-person archive of strange folklore, lost stories, and the odd pages of history. archive@oddpagehistory.com (Eleanor Thorne) archive@oddpagehistory.com (Eleanor Thorne) Thirty-Eight People, Skulls Touched With Red: The Chimú Tomb That Looters Never Reached https://oddpagehistory.com/stories/chimu-tomb-cinnabar-red/ An untouched Chimú funerary platform at Chan Chan, at least 38 people, and skulls touched with red pigment — what an intact burial can tell us that a looted one cannot. Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Before the Pumpkin: The Victorian Halloween of Turnips, Witch Marks and Fairies https://oddpagehistory.com/folklore/victorian-halloween-turnip-lanterns/ Before the pumpkin took over, Halloween light came from a hollowed root vegetable — and the season was guarded by marks, stories, and fairies. Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Before Dracula: The Actual Vampire the 18th Century Was Afraid Of https://oddpagehistory.com/folklore/vampire-origins-history/ The real history of the vampire, before Bram Stoker: Serbian revenant trials of the 1720s, the Mercy Brown case of 1892, and the physiology that explained most of it. Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Why the Victorians Went Ghost Mad — A Short History of Victorian Spiritualism https://oddpagehistory.com/folklore/victorian-ghost-stories/ The Victorian ghost story mania: the Fox Sisters of 1848, the Society for Psychical Research, mourning culture, and why respectable people took spiritualism seriously. Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT A Brief, Annotated History of the Werewolf https://oddpagehistory.com/folklore/werewolf-myths-through-history/ Werewolves were, for about four centuries, taken seriously by European courts. Four hundred people were tried as lycanthropes. The records reveal more about human history than they do about wolves. Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Six Historical Mysteries Archivists Still Argue About https://oddpagehistory.com/stories/unsolved-historical-mysteries/ Six unsolved historical mysteries: the Voynich Manuscript, the Amber Room, the Antikythera Mechanism, DB Cooper, Roanoke Colony, and the Tamam Shud case. Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Ten Greatest Failures in History https://oddpagehistory.com/lists/greatest-failures-in-history/ Magnificent failures, ranked by magnitude of ambition multiplied by completeness of disaster. From Xerxes whipping the sea to Operation Barbarossa, and the pattern that connects them all. Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Last Words They Meant, and the Ones They Were Given https://oddpagehistory.com/stories/famous-last-words-collection/ Eight famous deathbed lines, sorted into what was actually said, what was cleaned up later, and what was invented — with notes on how to tell the difference. Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Seven Historical Deaths Too Strange to Invent https://oddpagehistory.com/fun/bizarre-historical-deaths/ Seven documented historical deaths that sound invented: Aeschylus and the turtle, Attila the Hun's wedding night, Isadora Duncan's scarf, Franz Reichelt's parachute jump. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT A Cabinet of Supernatural Legends, Filed by Region https://oddpagehistory.com/fun/supernatural-legends-collection/ Seven legends from seven parts of the world — hidden folk, snow women, doubles, foul-smelling giants — and what each one says about the landscape it came from. Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT