Gerald and Sara Murphywere wealthy, expatriate Americans who moved to the French Riviera in the early 20th century and who, with their generous hospitality and flair for parties, created a vibrant social circle, particularly in the 1920s, that included a great number of artists and writers of the Lost Generation.
These days a travelling menagerie is so far removed from the reality of our daily lives that it barely seems possible such a thing existed at all. But in the 18th and 19th centuries the only chance people who lived in villages and most towns ever had of seeing live wild animals was when a travelling menagerie visited their area. An event that invariably caused great excitement.
AtomAge magazine was a fetish magazine published in Britain by the clothes designer John Sutcliffe.
Liberum veto (Latin for "I freely forbid") was a parliamentary device in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It allowed any member of the Sejm to force an immediate end to the current session and nullify all legislation already passed at it by shouting Nie pozwalam!
The Tunguska Event was a powerful explosion that occurred over the so-called Southern swamp, a small morass not far from the Tunguska River in Russia. Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5-10 kilometres above the Earth's surface.
Moscow gold refers to the operation by which 510 tonnes of gold, corresponding to 72.6% of the total gold reserves of the Bank of Spain, were transferred from their original location in Madrid to the Soviet Union a few months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
Lord Cornbury was Governor of New York and New Jersey between 1701 and 1708, and is perhaps best known for the claims of him cross-dressing while in office.
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between European-American sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latinoyouths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored.
The Jules Rimet Trophy, awarded to the winner of the football World Cup, was stolen in 1966 prior to the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England. Brazil received the Jules Rimet Trophy in perpetuity in 1970. It was stolen again in 1983, and as of 2010 it has not been recovered.
The Sibiu Pharmacy Museum in Romania. It is housed in a 1569 Gothic townhouse where the oldest pharmacy in Romania operated for over 150 years.