Curious History: Momento Mori - A Reminder of Death, 1500s

      One side of this carved ivory head shows a human face crawling with worms; the other side shows a skull crawling with toads after the worms have eaten away at the flesh. Not much is known about this model, but it is thought that it is a memento mori – literally a reminder of death and the shortness of life. The skull was the symbol of death from the 1500s onwards. Previously death was represented as a skeleton accompanied by a living victim.

Curious History: The Changeling

That’s not my baby!
  A “Changeling” was a creature from European folklore that took the form of an infant.  According to legends, a demon, troll, or elf would swap a normal infant with a Changeling, leaving the parents to discover a strange, emotionless, or disturbed hollow creature in place of their child. 
  While today there are many scientific explanations to such phenomena (autism, mental retardation, exposure to toxins, etc.) at the time their were no rational explanations for such occurrences.  To Medieval parents Changelings were very real.  Most tragically the method of retrieving a child was to expose the Changeling, usually through horrific form of abuse such as exposure to hot objects, leaving the Changeling in a pile of manure at night, or near drowning.  It was thought that by exposing the Changeling to such danger, the fairies would return the real child, not wanting their spawn to be harmed.  Religious reformer Martin Luther believed in a more drastic approach, advocated infanticide when shown a Changeling in 1532;
  “I, Dr. Martin Luther, saw and touched a changeling. It was twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact that it had all of its senses, one could have thought that it was a real child. It did nothing but eat; in fact, it ate enough for any four peasants or threshers. It ate, shit, and pissed, and whenever someone touched it, it cried. When bad things happened in the house, it laughed and was happy; but when things went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I said to the Princes of Anhalt: “If I were the prince or the ruler here, I would throw this child into the water–into the Molda that flows by Dessau . I would dare commit homicidium on him!”  (Weimar: Böhlau, 1912-1921)
  Belief in Changelings would continue beyond the Middle Ages, even lasting in some rural communities into the 19th century.

Curious History: The Deadly Affects of Makeup

  For thousands of years women slowly poisoned themselves by wearing face makeup called Venetian Ceruse. Venetian Ceruse was a 16th century cosmetic used as a skin whitener. It was in great demand and considered the best available at that time. Ceruse had the effect of making a woman’s skin look ghastly white. The women who wore it usually kept adding more to the old layer rather than washing it off. But the pigment of white lead was extremely poisonous. It rotted teeth and turned skin color to horrible shades. It made hair fall out and caused eyes to swell. Usage of Venetian Ceruse over an extended period of time could cause death.

   The most notable user of Venetian Ceruse was Queen Elizabeth I of England seen above. It is believed that the Queen’s constant use of ceruse, which created her trade-mark look of snow white skin, led to her extreme hair loss. She wore a large variety of wigs during her reign. There were many rumors that Queen Elizabeth I was bald by the age of 30 due to her extremely high hair line, but there is no historical proof to verify this fact.

Curious History: Baseball in the 1300s?

This illustration was found in the margins of a calendar in a 14th-century Flemish Book of Hours. Various historians of sport have identified this as a version of “stool ball” or “stump ball”, which was baseball played with only one base.