Utterly interesting

If you have ever wandered through New York and looked up at the statues scattered across its grand buildings and plazas, there is a fair chance you have already seen Audrey Munson. You may not have realised it, because her name faded out of public memory decades ago, but her face is everywhere. It gazes down from fountains, arches, domes and state halls. At one time, before fame took a strange and painful turn, she was described as the most recognisable woman in America. People saw her far more often in stone than in the flesh. Today we might call her the original supermodel. She worked before the word existed, before the fashion world had any real structure, and before Hollywood fully understood what glamour could be. Audrey Munson lived at a time when artists elevated their muses to near mythic status. What makes her story so compelling is not just her beauty or her fame, but the sheer contrast between the life she lived in public and the life she endured in private. Her rise was remarkable. Her fall was devastating. Yet her legacy is one of the most quietly enduring in American culture. Her photographs and films have faded, but the statues remain. This is her life in all its complexity. Munson with Buzzer the cat in 1915 A Childhood That Gave No Hint of What Was Coming Audrey was born on June 8, 1891, in Rochester, New York. Her family background was fairly ordinary. Her father Edgar worked as a streetcar conductor and dabbled in real estate. Her mother Katherine came from an Irish immigrant family and was the more stable parent as Audrey grew up. When the marriage collapsed, Katherine took her daughter to Providence, Rhode Island, and later to New York City. They lived modestly and moved often, as many single mothers did in that era. Nothing in Audrey’s early life suggested artistic fame. There were no dramatic accounts of childhood talent or precocious beauty. Instead, there was simply a hard working mother and a young girl looking for a way into the world. At seventeen she joined the chorus line on Broadway. She appeared in shows like The Boy and the Girl, The Girl and the Wizard, Girlies and La Belle Parée. She was competent, energetic and hopeful. But she was also one girl in a very large crowd. Her life changed one afternoon while she and her mother were window shopping on Fifth Avenue. It was as simple as someone seeing her at the right moment. Photographer Felix Benedict Herzog approached her and asked her to pose for him. It was the kind of chance encounter that alters a life completely. Audrey said yes. Audrey Munson nude in a studio 1910s Becoming an Artist’s Muse Her work with Herzog introduced her to a web of artists who were shaping American public sculpture. She modelled initially for muralist William de Leftwich Dodge, who wrote her a letter of introduction to sculptor Isidore Konti. Konti was the first to ask her to pose nude, something she accepted with a mix of fear, professionalism and curiosity. From that point forward, she was in constant demand. She posed for painters, illustrators, photographers and sculptors. But sculpture was the medium that truly made her famous. The sculptors of the early twentieth century were fascinated by creating idealised figures representing virtues, myths and allegories. Audrey embodied their vision of classical beauty: serene, symmetrical and quietly expressive. Her likeness appeared everywhere. One of her earliest major credits was Konti’s Three Graces at the Hotel Astor in 1909. After that, her work snowballed. She stood for dozens of artists working on public monuments, state buildings, memorial fountains and civic art. Munson posed for all these Panama-Pacific International Exhibition sculptures. In 1913 The Sun declared: “Over a hundred artists agree that if the name of Miss Manhattan belongs to anyone in particular it is to this young woman.” By now, her mother was often described as fiercely protective and very involved in her daughter’s career. The pair lived in modest rented rooms, but Audrey’s reputation inside the art world was enormous. She was dependable, she could hold a pose for long periods without rest, and she had the rare ability to remain emotionally present even while still. Sculptors said she was a natural. The Panama Pacific International Exposition By 1915 Audrey’s fame had spread across the United States. When the Panama Pacific International Exposition opened in San Francisco, she became the primary muse for its Director of Sculpture, Alexander Stirling Calder. Her figure appeared repeatedly in the Court of the Universe, on columns, domes and entryways. One newspaper captured the sense of awe surrounding her contributions: “Long after she and everyone else of this generation shall have become dust, Audrey Munson, who posed for three-fifths of all the statuary of the Panama Pacific exposition, will live in the bronzes and canvasses of the art centers of the world.” Audrey appeared roughly ninety times on one building alone. She became known as the Panama Pacific Girl. Her fame felt almost classical. She was not a celebrity in the modern sense. People did not stop her in the street or ask for autographs. Instead, her beauty circulated through artistic spaces. She was present everywhere but also strangely absent. The statues lasted longer than her fame ever would. In fact, they have lasted far longer than her life. Hollywood Takes Notice With the silent film industry growing, Audrey’s fame naturally attracted interest from studios. They recognised that people were curious about the woman behind so many statues. There was something magnetic about seeing someone known for stillness suddenly move on screen. Audrey Munson in Purity, Liberty Theatre Her first film, Inspiration (1915), was a sensation because it featured her nude. This was not pornographic. Instead, the film used her as a sculptor’s model, presenting her body as a form of art. Studio executives were nervous. Censors did not quite know what to do. Yet there was no law against depicting nudity in a non sexual context. The alternative would have been banning classical artworks themselves. Audrey performed the nude scenes while a body double, Jane Thomas, handled the acting portions. It was a solution that said more about Hollywood’s discomfort than about Audrey’s ability. Purity followed in 1916. Today, it is her only surviving film. It was rediscovered decades later in a French archive filed mistakenly among adult materials. In it, Audrey continues the role of an idealised model, a kind of living statue. Even as cinema expanded, filmmakers struggled to imagine her outside this mould. in Heed less Mo ths (1921) Her other films, The Girl o Dreams and Heedless Moths, are lost or partially mythic. Heedless Moths was said to be based on her autobiographical series, By the Queen of the Artists Studios, but its backstory was tangled in publicity stunts, lawsuits and ghostwritten scripts. In truth, Audrey was never fully embraced by Hollywood. They wanted her image, not her personality. She was valuable only as an embodiment of beauty, and that was not something she could control. The Scandal That Broke Her Career In 1919, Audrey and her mother were living in a boarding house owned by Dr Walter Wilkins. Wilkins fell obsessively in love with her. On February 27 he murdered his wife Julia, apparently believing that removing his spouse might clear the way for a relationship with Audrey. The case was sensational, lurid and deeply tragic. Detectives wanted to question Audrey, who had already left New York, and a nationwide hunt followed. She and her mother were found in Canada and questioned by private detectives. Audrey always insisted she had never reciprocated Wilkins’ feelings and had no involvement in the murder. Dr Wilkins was convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. Before his execution he committed suicide in prison. Dr. Walter Wilkins The scandal destroyed her career. Even though she had nothing to do with the crime, the aura of tragedy surrounding the case clung to her. Studios distanced themselves. Sculptors stopped calling. The press began framing her as a woman whose beauty had led men to ruin. In reality, her fame had made her vulnerable. The public loved the idea of a muse but not the reality of a woman with boundaries. Attempts to Reclaim Her Image By 1920 Audrey struggled to find work. She moved frequently. Newspapers reported her living in Syracuse and later working as a ticket taker in a dime museum. That same year a series of twenty articles appeared under her name in Hearst’s Sunday Magazine. These pieces were reflective, melancholy and full of cautionary advice to young models. One of the most quoted sections asked: “What becomes of the artists’ models? I am wondering if many of my readers have not stood before a masterpiece of lovely sculpture or a remarkable painting of a young girl, her very abandonment of draperies accentuating rather than diminishing her modesty and purity, and asked themselves the question, ‘Where is she now, this model who was so beautiful?’” The articles were popular but later revealed to be ghostwritten by journalist Henry Leyford Gates. This made Audrey furious. It was yet another example of someone else speaking through her image. Throughout 1921 she continued appearing in public, often recreating poses from well known sculptures. She also involved herself in a surreal publicity stunt seeking the perfect man to marry. She later announced she no longer wanted marriage at all. The year ended with another scandal when she was arrested in St Louis on a morals charge related to her film Purity. Though acquitted, the experience further chipped away at her dignity. In 1922, overwhelmed and exhausted, Audrey attempted suicide. Article published in the Spokane Spokesman-Review on Oct. 24, 1926 Life Inside the Asylum By the 1930s Audrey’s mental health had deteriorated significantly. On her fortieth birthday, her mother petitioned a court to have her committed to a psychiatric institution. Audrey was admitted to St Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg, where she would live for more than sixty four years. Her life there was quiet, repetitive and largely undocumented. For decades she received no visitors. Her mother died in 1958 and Audrey slipped into near total obscurity. In the 1980s a half niece rediscovered her, astonished to find the legendary Miss Manhattan still alive. By then Audrey was in her nineties, frail yet remarkably resilient. Though she struggled with hearing loss and had lost her teeth, she remained physically robust. There were stories of her occasionally escaping the nursing home to visit a bar down the road. Staff would have to escort her back, a small echo of the independence she had once known. Audrey died on February 20, 1996 at the age of 104. Only one small local newspaper reported her death. Her grave remained unmarked until 2016. A Legacy Carved in Stone What remains of Audrey Munson today is not fame in the usual sense. She left no autobiography and almost no records of her own voice. But her body of work is unusual because it is literally carved into the cultural landscape. Her face adorns fountains in San Francisco. Her form crowns municipal buildings in New York. She is the figure of memory and liberty on public monuments. She is part of the architecture of a nation. Her life was full of shadows. Her fame vanished. Her career evaporated. Her final decades were spent in quiet institutional rooms. Yet the art she contributed to has endured in ways she herself may never have imagined. She succeeded in the strange promise artists once made about her: Long after she and everyone else of this generation shall have become dust, Audrey Munson, who posed for three-fifths of all the statuary of the Panama–Pacific exposition, will live in the bronzes and canvasses of the art centers of the world. —  Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch , August 1, 1915 Sources The New York Times “Audrey Munson, 104, Dies; Model for U.S. Statues” by Robert McFadden https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/06/obituaries/audrey-munson-104-dies-model-for-us-statues.html Smithsonian Magazine “America’s First Supermodel” by Roxana Robinson https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/audrey-munson-americas-first-supermodel-180960380/ The New Yorker “The Original American Supermodel” by Margaret Talbot https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/audrey-munson-the-original-american-supermodel Library of Congress Panama Pacific International Exposition Records https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/ (General reference collection on artists and models of the 1915 Exposition) Thanhouser Film Corporation Archives “Inspiration (1915) Production Notes” https://thanhouser.org/ American Film Institute AFI Catalog Entry: Purity (1916) and The Girl o Dreams (1916) https://catalog.afi.com/ Historic Newspapers Database Various articles from 1913 to 1922 quoting period commentary on Audrey Munson https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

The early twentieth century produced some extraordinary medical experiments, and few were quite as striking as those championed by Dr Samuel Howard Monell. His 1910 book High Frequency Electric Currents in Medicine and Dentistry  reads today like a curious mix of ambition, enthusiasm and early electrical showmanship. The American X Ray Journal once praised Monell as the man who had “done more for static electricity than any other living man”, a line that captures both the confidence of the era and the faith placed in electricity as a modern cure all. Electrotherapy was not new. The ancient Greeks had once used live electric fish to numb pain, and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries scientists like Luigi Galvani and Guillaume Duchenne had revived interest in electricity as a medical tool. What Monell offered was a polished, systematic attempt to harness high frequency currents for everything from acne and skin lesions to insomnia, depression and supposedly irregular blood pressure. His book is filled with staged photographs of calm patients receiving treatments that look part scientific and part theatrical. Monell also claimed that electrical currents could help with hysteria, a diagnosis regularly applied to women at the time. While he does not go into detail in this volume, the wider medical practice of the period often relied on early mechanical vibrators designed to save doctors the manual labour involved in bringing a patient to what was then described as “hysterical paroxysm”. Modern readers will recognise this as an orgasm, though Edwardian physicians would have avoided the word altogether. Although Monell’s promised cures stretched far beyond what science can support, electrotherapy did not disappear. Over the decades it found a home in physiotherapy, pain management and muscle rehabilitation. More recently, controlled electrical stimulation has been tested for maintaining alertness in exhausted soldiers, showing that fragments of Monell’s early ideas still echo through contemporary research, long after the more imaginative claims have faded. Sources Monell, Samuel Howard. High Frequency Electric Currents in Medicine and Dentistry  (1910). https://archive.org/details/highfrequencyele00mone American X Ray Journal reference to Monell’s work. https://archive.org/details/americanxrayjour1903unse Galvani, Luigi. De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari  (1791). https://archive.org/details/b3032835x Duchenne, Guillaume. Physiology of Motion  writings and electrotherapy experiments. https://archive.org/details/electricitatieru00duch Historical overview of electrotherapy in rehabilitation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Electrostimulation research for soldier fatigue. https://www.army.mil/article/

A bacteriological experiment being conducted on a test subject in Nong’an County of northeast China’s Jilin Province by Unit 731 personnel. November 1940. Officially known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army, Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Located in the Pingfang district of Harbin, in the puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China), the facility was the epicentre of some of the most grotesque and inhumane experiments ever conducted on human beings. Unit 731 was established under the command of General Shiro Ishii, a microbiologist and a fervent advocate of biological warfare. Ishii persuaded the Japanese military of the strategic advantages of developing biological weapons, and thus, in 1936, Unit 731 was officially formed. The facility, which encompassed more than 150 buildings spread over six square kilometres, was shrouded in secrecy, its true purpose concealed under the guise of water purification and disease prevention research. The frostbitten hands of a Chinese person who was taken outside in winter by Unit 731 personnel for an experiment on how best to treat frostbite. Date unspecified. Human experiments involved intentionally infecting captives, especially Chinese prisoners of war and civilians, to disease-causing agents and exposing them to bombs designed to disperse infectious substances upon contact with the skin. There are no records indicating any survivors from these experiments; those who didn't die from infection were euthanized for autopsy analysis. After human experimentations, researchers commonly used either potassium cyanide o r chloroform to kill survivors. According to American historian Sheldon H. Harris: The Togo Unit employed gruesome tactics to secure specimens of select body organs. If Ishii or one of his co-workers wished to do research on the human brain, then they would order the guards to find them a useful sample. A prisoner would be taken from his cell. Guards would hold him while another guard would smash the victim's head open with an axe. His brain would be extracted off to the pathologist, and then to the crematorium for the usual disposal. Yoshimura Hisato, a physiologist with Unit 731, had a particular fascination with hypothermia. In his investigations into limb injuries as part of the Maruta experiments, Hisato routinely immersed prisoners' limbs in ice-filled water until they were frozen solid, forming a layer of ice over the skin. An eyewitness recounted that when these frozen limbs were struck with a cane, they produced a sound akin to hitting a wooden plank. Following the freezing process, Hisato experimented with various methods to rapidly rewarm the frozen limbs. Sometimes he poured hot water over them, at other times he held them near an open flame, and occasionally he left the subjects untreated overnight to observe how long it took for their blood to thaw the frozen limbs naturally. Atrocities Committed A Unit 731 doctor operates on a patient that is part of a bacteriological experiment. Date unspecified. Nakagawa Yonezo, professor emeritus at Osaka University, studied at Kyoto University during the war. While he was there, he watched footage of human experiments and executions from Unit 731. He later testified about the playfulness of the experimenters: Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare , or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play." Prisoners were injected with diseases, disguised as vaccinations, t o study their effects. To study the effects of untreat ed venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhoea, then studied. Prisoners w ere also repeatedly subject ed to rape b y guards. A special project, codenamed Maruta , used human beings for experiments. Test subjects were gathered from the surrounding population and sometimes euphemistically referred to as "logs" (丸太, maruta ), used in such contexts as "How many logs fell?" This term originated as a joke on the part of the staff because the official cover story for the facility given to local authorities was that it was a lumber mill. A Japanese soldier uses a Chinese man’s body for bayonet practice near Tianjin, China. September 1937. According to a junior unif ormed civilian employee of the Imperial Japanese Army working in Unit 731, the project was internally called "Holzklotz", from the German word for log. In a further parallel, the corpses of "sacrificed" subjects were dispos ed of by incineration. Researchers in Unit 731 also published some of their results in peer-reviewed journals, writing as though the research had been conducted on nonhuman primates called "Manchurian monkeys" or "long-tailed monkeys." The experiments conducted at Unit 731 were as diverse as they were depraved. Prisoners, euphemistically referred to as "logs" (maruta) by the personnel, were subjected to a litany of barbaric procedures: Vivisection : Prisoners, often without anaesthesia, were dissected alive to study the effects of diseases on the human body. Limbs were amputated to observe blood loss, organs were removed to understand their functions, and some subjects had parts of their stomachs removed and the oesophagus reattached directly to the intestines. The New York Times interviewed a former member of Unit 731. Insisting on anonymity, the former Japanese medical assistant recounted his first experience in vivisecting a live human being, who had been deliberately infected with the plague , for the purpose of developing "plague bombs" for war. "The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down, but when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time." Biological Warfare Testing : Victims were intentionally infected with deadly pathogens such as anthrax, plague, and cholera. The spread and effects of these diseases were meticulously documented. Some prisoners were exposed to bomb blasts containing biological agents to study infection patterns and lethality. Unit 731 were involved in research, development and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biological weapons in assaults against the Chinese. Plague -infected fleas , bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes over Chinese cities. These operations killed tens of thousands with bubonic plague epidemics. An expedi tion to Nanjing involved spreading typhoid and paratyphoid germs into the wells, marshes, and houses of the city, as well as infusing them in snacks distributed to locals. Frostbite Testing : In experiments designed to understand how to treat frostbite, prisoners were subjected to extreme cold. Their limbs were frozen and then thawed to study the progression and treatment of gangrene. Army Engineer Hisato Yoshimura was in charge of these experiments, Military personnel of the Unit referred to Yoshimura as a "scientific devil" and a "cold-blooded animal" due to his strictness and involvement in mass killings and inhumane scientific test, which included soaking the fingers of a three-day-old child in water containing ice and salt. Naoji Uezono, a member of Unit 731, described in a 1980s interview a grisly scene where Yoshimura had "two naked men put in an area 40–50 degrees below zero and researchers filmed the whole process until [the subjects] died. [The subjects] suffered such agony they were digging their nails into each other's flesh." Yoshimura's lack of remorse was evident in an article he wrote for the Japanese Journal of Physiology in 1950 in which he admitted to using 20 children and a three-day-old infant in experiments which exposed them to zero-degree-Celsius ice and salt water. Although this article drew criticism, Yoshimura denied any guilt when contacted by a reporter from the Mainichi Shimbun . Syphilis and Rape : In an effort to understand the transmission of venereal diseases, prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis through forced rape, often under the guise of examining wartime medical conditions. Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments. The hypothetical possibility of vertical transmission (from mother to child) of diseases, particularly syphilis, was the stated reason for the torture. Fetal survival and damage to mother's reproductive organs were objects of interest. Though "a large number of babies were born in captivity," there have been no accounts of any survivors of Unit 731, children included. It is suspected that the children of female prisoners were killed after birth or aborted . While male prisoners were often used in single studies, so that the results of the experimentation on them would not be clouded by other variables, women were sometimes used in bacteriological or physiological experiments, sex experiments, and as the victims of sex crimes . The testimony of a unit member that served as a guard graphically demonstrated this reality: One of the former researchers I located told me that one day he had a human experiment scheduled, but there was still time to kill. So he and another unit member took the keys to the cells and opened one that housed a Chinese woman. One of the unit members raped her; the other member took the keys and opened another cell. There was a Chinese woman in there who had been used in a frostbite experiment. She had several fingers missing and her bones were black, with gangrene set in . He was about to rape her anyway, then he saw that her sex organ was festering, w ith pus oozin g to the surface. He gave up the idea, left and locked the door, then later went on to his experimental work General Shiro Ishii, the commander of Unit 731. Chemical Weapons Testing : Unit 731 also tested chemical weapons on living subjects. Prisoners were exposed to various gases, including mustard gas and cyanide, to evaluate their effects and develop countermeasures. Some of the agents tested were mustard gas, lewisite, cyanic acid gas, white phosphorus, adamsite, and phosgene gas. A f ormer army major and technician gave the following testimony anonymously (at the time of the interview, this man w as a professor emeritus at a national university): In 1943, I attended a poison gas test held at the Unit 731 test facilities. A glass-walled chamber about three meters square [97 sq ft] and two meters [6.6 ft] high was used. Inside of it, a Chinese man was blindfolded, with his hands tied around a post behind him. The gas was adamsite (sneezing gas), and as the gas filled the chamber the man went into violent coughing convulsions and began to suffer excruciating pain. More than ten doctors and technicians were present. After I had watched for about ten minutes, I could not stand it any more, and left the area. I understand that other types of gasses were also tested there. — Hal Gold, Japan's Infamous Unit 731 , p. 349 (2019) Unit 731 also tested chemical weapons on prisoners in field conditions. A report authored by unknown researcher in the Kamo Unit (Unit 731) describes a large human experiment of yperite gas (mustard gas) on 7–10 September 1940. Twenty subjects were divided into three groups and placed in combat emplacements, trenches, gazebos, and observatories. One group was clothed with Chinese underwear, no hat, and no mask and was subjected to as much as 1,800 field gun rounds of yperite gas over 25 minutes. Another group was clothed in summer military uniform and shoes; three had masks and another three had no mask. They also were exposed to as much as 1,800 rounds of yperite gas. A third group was clothed in summer military uniform, three with masks and two without masks, and were exposed to as much as 4,800 rounds. Then their general symptoms and damage to skin, eye , respiratory organs , and digestive organs we re observed at 4 hours, 24 hours, and 2, 3, and 5 days after the shots. Injecting the blister fluid from one subject into another subject and analyses of blood and soil w ere also performed. Five subjects were forced to drink a solution of yperite and lewisite gas in water, with or withou t decontamination . The report describes conditions of every subject precisely without mentioning what happened to them in the long run. The following is an excerpt of one of these reports: Number 376, dugout of the first area: September 7, 1940, 6 pm: Tired and exhausted. Looks with hollow eyes. Weeping redness of the skin of the upper part of the body. Eyelids edematous, swollen. Epiphora. Hyperemic conjunctivae. September 8, 6 am: Neck, breast, upper abdomen and scrotum weeping, reddened, swollen. Covered with millet-seed-size to bean-size blisters. Eyelids and conjunctivae hyperemic and edematous. Had difficulties opening the eyes. September 8, 6 pm: Tired and exhausted. Feels sick. Body temperature 37 degrees Celsius. Mucous and bloody erosions across the shoulder girdle. Abundant mucous nose secretions. Abdominal pain. Mucous and bloody diarrhea. Proteinuria. September 9, 7 am: Tired and exhausted. Weakness of all four extremities. Low morale. Body temperature 37 degrees Celsius. Skin of the face still weeping. —  Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century (2006) p. 187 Unit 731’s Harbin facility. During the war, the activities of Unit 731 were a closely guarded secret. The Japanese government and military meticulously concealed the true nature of the unit's operations, and its existence was known only to a select few within the highest echelons of power. Even within the unit, personnel were often kept in the dark about the broader scope of their work, with duties compartmentalized to prevent leaks. In the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in 1945, the horrors of Unit 731 began to surface. The Soviet Union conducted trials of some Japanese military personnel in Khabarovsk in 1949, revealing gruesome details of the experiments. However, the United States, seeking valuable research data, offered immunity to General Ishii and other key figures in exchange for their findings. Consequently, many perpetrators evaded justice, and the full extent of their crimes remained obscured for decades. Japan’s acknowledgment of Unit 731 has been a contentious and gradual process. For many years, the Japanese government maintained a stance of denial or obfuscation regarding the unit’s activities. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s, under pressure from researchers, historians, and international bodies, that Japan began to confront this dark chapter of its past more openly. Unit 731 researchers conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects in Nongan County of northeast China’s Jilin Province. November 1940. In 1997, the Japanese court recognised the existence of Unit 731 and the suffering of its victims, although it stopped short of issuing a formal apology or providing compensation. Over the years, various documentaries, books, and academic studies have shed light on the atrocities committed, fostering a more nuanced understanding of the extent of Japan’s wartime conduct. However, official apologies have remained insufficient for many survivors and their families. In 2002, a group of Chinese plaintiffs sued the Japanese government for compensation and an apology. The Tokyo District Court acknowledged the atrocities but ruled that individual victims had no right to seek compensation under international law. Japanese personnel in protective suits carry a stretcher through Yiwu, China during Unit 731’s germ warfare tests. June 1942.

If you have ever looked up the early history of British tattooing, the name George Burchett pops up so often it almost feels like he was everywhere. Sailors talked about him, soldiers lined up outside his shop, royalty sought him out, and circus performers trusted him to create designs that would literally define their careers. Yet his story is not flashy or outrageous. It is simply the story of someone who fell in love with tattooing long before it was fashionable and kept at it until the very end. George Burchett’s life reads like quite the adventure. A Brighton childhood, a run-in with school authority, a stint in the Royal Navy, years spent wandering overseas, and eventually a tattoo studio in central London where the world seemed to come to him. For around fifty years he was the tattooist people talked about. Not because he tried to be famous, but because he genuinely cared about the craft at a time when almost nobody took it seriously. Brighton Beginnings George Burchett was born on 23 August 1872 in Brighton, the eldest of eleven children. He used to draw constantly, but the spark that really stayed with him came during a childhood trip to the Royal Aquarium in London. The Aquarium, despite its name, was more like a Victorian entertainment hall where you could find everything from performing animals to curiosities and sideshow stars. One thing that caught young George completely by surprise was the tattooed performers. These men and women stood on stage proudly showing their skin as living canvases. For a boy from Brighton, this was something entirely new. He went home still thinking about them. Once he had the idea in his head, George tried to recreate it using the only volunteers he had access to: his younger brother and a few schoolmates. His brother allowed him to scratch small marks into his skin in exchange for sweets. School, however, was less forgiving. His early experiments eventually got him expelled at the age of twelve. With formal education cut short, George went straight into work, first at Muttons Hotel in Brighton and later in London repairing shoes. But he was still restless, and by seventeen he had set his mind on joining the Royal Navy. His parents refused to sign the papers, so he asked his grandmother, who happily agreed. That decision changed the direction of his life. George tattooing his younger brother Charles Travels with the Royal Navy Serving aboard HMS Vincent, George saw more of the world in a few years than most people would in a lifetime. The ship travelled to Africa, India, the West Indies, the Mediterranean and the Far East. Everywhere he went, he watched local tattooists with fascination. Tattooing outside Europe was far more developed and often deeply tied to tradition. He later said that these travels taught him more than anything he had learned back home. During one voyage an able seaman named Weatherby sold him his first tattooing kit. With the enthusiasm of youth and very little hesitation, George began tattooing fellow crew members. The work was probably rough around the edges, but the practice was invaluable. One of the defining moments of his naval years came in Japan. In Yokohama he met the tattoo artist Hori Choyo and received one of his own tattoos. Japanese tattooing had a grace and structure unlike anything in Europe. For George, it was unforgettable. Hori Choyo Despite the excitement of travel, naval discipline was not for him. During shore leave in Jaffa he deserted, a decision that could have ended badly if he had been caught. To survive, he briefly set up shop in Jerusalem and tattooed passing travellers. Eventually he boarded a Spanish merchant ship to escape notice and spent the next twelve years away from England. In 1896 he returned, dropped the surname Davis and restarted life as George Burchett. Back in London and Back to Tattooing Returning to London, George opened a cobbler’s shop on Mile End Road. The front room sold repaired boots. The back room slowly became a tattooing space. It was modest, but word travelled quickly. If someone in the East End wanted a tattoo done properly, they were told to go to George. He married Edith Smith Walters in 1898 and the couple settled in Bow. Around this time George met two figures who would become key to his development: Tom Riley and Sutherland Macdonald. Macdonald was the first professional tattooist in the country and had recently developed an electric tattoo machine. He saw talent in George and taught him how to use it. The effect was immediate. George’s technique improved, his designs became sharper, and within a few years he was able to give up shoe repair entirely. George Burchett’s tattoo studio on Waterloo Road The Famous Studio on Waterloo Road In 1904 George moved his family and business to Waterloo Road, just a short walk from Waterloo Station. It was the perfect spot. The area was always busy and soldiers passing through London for training or deployment often stopped in for a tattoo. By the time the First World War began, his studio had become well known. Reporters occasionally visited to write features about the growing tattoo trend among servicemen. In one interview from 1917 George said, “It is a busy life now, one long rush.” He explained that most customers were soldiers or sailors, though plenty of women also came in to have regimental badges tattooed in honour of loved ones. Descriptions of his studio give a charming sense of the place. Flash sheets covered the walls. A shelf of pigments sat beside a table scattered with china palettes. His electric machine, which journalists always described with fascination, allowed him to work quickly and cleanly. Tattooing was still seen by some as an odd trade, but when people visited George’s studio they found a surprisingly calm, tidy space. Edith often modelled his designs. She had birds, flowers and delicate patterns tattooed by her husband, and photographs of her became well known. Her tattoos helped to show sceptical members of the public that tattooing did not have to be crude or intimidating. Edith Burchett A Style Shaped by Travel George Burchett’s tattoo style blended many influences. African patterns, Asian motifs, Japanese waves and classic British imagery all found their way into his flash sheets. But what set him apart was the gentle flow of his designs. Compared with the heavy bold lines used by many American artists at the time, his tattoos had a softer, more painterly feel. He tattooed everything from tigers, snakes, bulldogs and traditional hearts to finely shaded portraits. He could handle military badges, romantic motifs, exotic symbols and delicate floral work with equal confidence. This versatility made him popular with almost every type of client. By the 1920s and 1930s he was attracting far more than local or working class visitors. Wealthy clients, and eventually royalty, began coming to his studio. King Frederick IX of Denmark, Among them was King Frederick IX of Denmark, who proudly displayed his tattoos throughout his life. George Burchett also tattooed King George V and King Alfonso XIII of Spain. It was unusual for royalty to seek out a London tattooist, but George’s reputation had quietly exceeded expectations. Despite this elevated clientele, he never changed the welcoming, open nature of his shop. He tattooed soldiers, dock workers, labourers, and artists with the same respect he showed to kings. Horace Ridler and The Great Omi One of the most memorable figures in George’s career was Horace Ridler. Ridler had served as an army officer, struggled to find work after the war, and eventually turned to sideshow performance. He had tattoos already but felt he needed a more dramatic look to compete with other performers. The Great Omi In the late 1920s he contacted George with a bold request. He wanted to be tattooed from head to toe in thick stripes, transforming himself into a human zebra. George took the request seriously and made sure Ridler and his wife understood the commitment. Once he had written consent, he started work. The project took 150 hours and cost a substantial sum. When it was finished, Ridler became The Great Omi, one of the most recognisable tattooed performers of his era. George later said, “To become a freak in order to earn a livelihood was a gamble which might not have come off. Fortunately it did.” The partnership between the two men became a well known chapter in tattoo history. Cosmetic Tattooing and New Ideas In the 1930s George began exploring cosmetic tattooing. This was a completely new idea at the time. Women travelled from across Europe to have their eyebrows shaped, their lips tinted or fine colour added to their cheeks. Some came for beauty spots or complexion enhancements. George invented these techniques himself after noticing the growing interest in permanent beauty treatments. The success of this new service helped push him further into the public eye. He appeared in magazines, newspapers, and even cigarette card collections. People began to see tattooing not just as decoration but also as a form of enhancement or artistry. War Work, Retirement Attempts and Final Years George tried to retire in 1942 at the age of seventy, hoping to hand the business to his sons. But the Second World War created a sudden rush of demand and he returned to help. In a 1940 interview he said, “I have never been busier than today.” Patriotic symbols, lovers’ names, early versions of pin ups and traditional motifs remained popular. His studio once again became a steady stop for servicemen. George continued working until 1953. He was still tattooing at eighty years old and passed away suddenly on Good Friday that year at his home in Surrey. His death marked the end of a long, steady career that shaped modern tattooing in Britain. Legacy of the King of Tattooists George Burchett tattooed for more than fifty years. He took a fringe trade and helped push it into the mainstream. He taught a generation of artists what professionalism looked like. He made tattoo shops a place where anyone could feel welcome. He worked with courage, patience and a steady hand right until the end of his life. Today, his influence sits quietly behind many familiar styles. His flash sheets and photographic portraits appear in books, archives and exhibitions. Tattooing has changed enormously since his time, but his impact still runs through it. The title King of Tattooists was originally given to him in the press, but it has stayed with him because it fits. Not for showmanship, but for dedication. Not for spectacle, but for craft. George Burchett earned his place in history simply by doing what he loved and doing it well. Sources Tattoo Archive. George Burchett Collection - http://www.tattooarchive.com British Newspaper Archive. The Graphic Newspaper, July 1917 - https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk The National Archives. Royal Navy Records, HMS Vincent - https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk Circus Museum. Horace Ridler Photographs - http://www.circusmuseum.nl Vanishing Tattoo. Sutherland Macdonald Material - http://www.vanishingtattoo.com

Every family has a favourite tale they dust off whenever someone under a duvet begs for one more story. A century from now, the legend of the long bearded grandfather who rode across almost the entire length of Sweden on a battered bicycle will no doubt fall neatly into that tradition. It has all the makings of an enduring fireside classic. A stubborn hero. A rejected application. A journey so long that retellings will inflate the numbers with each passing year. One person will swear it was one thousand miles. Someone else will argue it was one thousand kilometres. Someone will claim he was 66. Others will swear he was 100. Such is the nature of a tale that mixes fact, admiration and a little gentle myth making. Yet at the heart of all the exaggerated versions lies a real event. A real race. A real man. And an utterly charming example of what can happen when someone decides that a rule, a rejection letter and sixty six years of life experience do not have the final say. This is the story of Gustaf Håkansson, the Swedish folk hero better remembered as Steel Grandpa . Setting the Scene Sweden, 1951 By 1951, long distance cycling events across Scandinavia had become feats of both sporting stamina and public spectacle. People lined roadsides to cheer on the lean young men who trained for months to cover vast distances across forests, lakes and farmland. The race in question that year was one of the toughest of its era. Its distance, depending on which newspaper you consult, settled at roughly one thousand miles. It was designed to push even seasoned riders to their limits. The field for the race included around fifty competitors. They were young, trained and heavily prepared. And far from pleased when an elderly farmer from south western Sweden applied to join them. The Man They Tried To Keep Out Gustaf Håkansson was born in 1885 in the rural province of Halland. He lived a modest life, working the land, repairing his own machinery and cycling whenever there was something to deliver or someone to visit. In most towns he passed through, people knew him as the quiet man who preferred two wheels to most other modes of transport. By his mid sixties, Gustaf had logged more road miles than most competitive cyclists, simply as part of the way he lived. Riding from farm to village and village to market was a routine. The idea of cycling a thousand miles was not something he considered outrageous. When he heard that Sweden was hosting one of its most demanding races yet, he submitted his entry without hesitation. The committee, however, had other ideas. They rejected him outright. In their eyes, sixty six was far too old for an event designed for athletes half his age. Officials insisted he lacked the necessary physical strength and stamina. In one interview many years later, a retired race steward recalled that someone on the selection panel joked that Gustaf was more suited to a rocking chair than a racing saddle. What the committee had not counted on was that Gustaf had already cycled 600 miles just to reach the starting line. Why waste the journey simply because someone had said no? Race Day The Bib No One Assigned On 1 July 1951, race day dawned and crowds gathered to watch the official field set off. Gustaf arrived not with a sleek racing machine, but with a trusty roadster fitted with mudguards, a headlamp and two panniers that contained the few belongings he thought might be useful. His beard was long and full, a point of amusement to the younger men around him. He had crafted a homemade race bib from cloth and paint. It bore a single number. Zero. The symbolism is charmingly open to interpretation. Some say he chose zero to reflect his unofficial status. Others argued he chose it because no one had assigned him a number and he was not about to borrow someone else’s. Gustaf himself simply smiled whenever anyone asked and shrugged. Because of the number of riders, he rolled across the starting line about twenty seconds late. It made no difference to him. He was on the road. That was what mattered. The Rule He Quietly Ignored The official riders had a mandatory routine. Every night they were required to stop at designated checkpoints, sleep, eat and await the following morning’s start. The regulations were strict. Overnight rests were non negotiable. Gustaf was not an official rider. And in the nicest possible way, he behaved accordingly. He pedalled on. Not all night, every night, but enough. He would rest for about an hour, then quietly mount his roadster and slip back into the darkness while the rest of the field slept. That simple act changed the entire race. Within the first few hundred miles, he had erased the ten mile deficit he had started with and pushed himself into the lead. After 300 miles, he was already twenty miles ahead. Newspapers began to pick up the story. First regional papers, then national ones. Interest in the official race waned as the public fixated on the old man with the beard who refused to sleep. Some were convinced he would drop dead at any moment. Others declared him the very embodiment of Swedish grit. Children wrote encouraging notes to be read to him at roadside towns. Local villagers prepared hot drinks in the middle of the night in case he passed through. The Country Follows Steel Grandpa After the third day, with barely more than five hours of total sleep, Gustaf led the field by more than 120 miles. His progress was so astonishing that the police intervened, concerned for his health. They tried to force him to submit to a medical check. Gustaf listened politely, let out a kindly laugh and pedalled away. At this point the race no longer belonged to the fifty trained riders behind him. National radio stations broadcast updates on his progress. Reporters followed him in cars. Farmers waited on hilltops just to watch him pass. Someone nicknamed him Stålfa morfar. Steel Grandpa. The name stuck. The Final Push And The Only Breakdown That Mattered On 7 July 1951, five days and five hours after he crossed the start line, Gustaf approached the city of Ystad. He had ridden roughly one thousand miles. A huge crowd gathered, prepared to cheer the exhausted official winner who surely must be minutes away. They expected a lean young athlete, head down, shoulders tense, sprinting for the finish. Around the final corner appeared a slightly stooped old man, wobbling gently on a rusty roadster that had suffered its first and only flat tyre less than a thousand yards from the finish. Gustaf dismounted, walked for a short stretch, then climbed back into the saddle just before the line, crossing it calmly at 2:15pm. A full day ahead of every official competitor. A Legend and a Long Life on Two Wheels Gustaf may not have been an official entrant, but the nation treated him like a champion. He was invited to meet the king of Sweden. Newspapers printed his photograph on their front pages. Crowds greeted him everywhere he went for months afterwards. One interviewer asked him what he considered the greatest moment of the entire ordeal. Gustaf answered quite simply that it was disproving the doctors who had said a man his age should not ride at all. It was not victory he sought, but proof of capability. He had set out to show he could do it. He had done precisely that. He continued cycling well into old age and lived to 102, passing away in 1987. His story remains one of Sweden’s best loved examples of gentle defiance, endurance and the quiet confidence of a man who simply refused to be told what he could or could not do. If any evidence was needed for the health benefits of cycling, Steel Grandpa offered a rather compelling case. Sources “Gustaf Håkansson – Stålfarfar” A Swedish cycling history profile covering Håkansson’s life, his 1951 ride and his legacy. https://www.cykelhistoria.se/gustaf-hakansson “The Old Man and the Mile: The Story of Gustaf Håkansson” A long form article exploring the race, the controversy over his unofficial status and the public fascination with his stamina. https://www.bicycling.com/rides/a20049264/the-old-man-and-the-mile/ “Stålfarfar Gustaf Håkansson” – SVT Nyheter A Swedish public broadcaster piece on the national reaction to Håkansson’s ride and later cultural myth making. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/stalfa-morfar-gustaf-hakansson “Berättelsen om Stålfarfar” A Swedish feature on the legend of Steel Grandpa, including details from eyewitness accounts and contemporary reporting. https://www.cykelkultur.nu/artiklar/stalfa-morfar-berattelsen-om-gustaf-hakansson

In the age of chivalry, monasteries and monarchs, land was rarely handed out lightly. Yet in 12th-century England, one rather singular individual managed to secure a manor and 30 acres (12 hectares) of prime Suffolk countryside not through valour in battle or ecclesiastical service, but by passing wind on command. Roland le Petour, better known to posterity as Roulandus le Fartere , was no ordinary court entertainer. Likely serving as a jester in the royal household of King Henry II, Roland’s annual obligation to the Crown consisted of a performance uniquely his own: “ un saut, un siflet, et un pet ”—a jump, a whistle, and a fart—performed each Christmas Day before the assembled court. For this, he was rewarded not only with patronage but with tangible assets: land, privilege, and a feudal tenure to his name. A Serious Tenure for a Comic Turn Roland’s curious arrangement was recorded in the Liber Feodorum , or Book of Fees, a 13th-century register of landholdings held directly from the king. His estate, located at Hemingstone in Suffolk, was held under what is termed a serjeanty —a form of feudal service rendered in lieu of knightly duty. In this case, the personal service required was not military aid but the performance of a trifecta of bodily feats. The record notes: “The serjeanty, which formerly was held by Roland the Farter in Hemingston in the county of Suffolk, for which he was obliged to perform every year on the birthday of our Lord before his master the king, one jump, and a whistle, and one fart…” Far from being a humorous footnote in an otherwise serious system of medieval landholding, Roland’s position underscores the sometimes bizarre confluence of duty and entertainment in the royal courts. That he was recorded at all suggests a degree of official recognition, however undignified the terms may now seem. “The Image of Irelande”, John Derrick, 1581. Two flatulists can be seen at the right part of the picture. A Man, a Myth, a Mild Mystery Despite his memorable performance, the historical trail of Roland le Petour quickly goes cold. Valerie Allen, medievalist and author of On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages  (2007), dug into the dusty records and fee ledgers of the time to uncover what little remains. Allen speculates that Roland may have first served under Henry I before continuing under Henry II. By the reign of Henry III, however, the mood had shifted. Roland’s unique talents were evidently no longer in royal favour, dismissed as “indecent”, and his lands were duly revoked. It’s highly improbable Roland himself lived to serve three monarchs. More likely, the role was inherited or passed between individuals, with the performance becoming a kind of courtly tradition. Regardless, the Roland of legend has endured as the best-remembered example of medieval flatulism as feudal duty. Medieval Wind: Morality and Mortality But why farts? Beyond the obvious comedic value, flatulence in medieval thought carried deeper meaning. As Valerie Allen points out, gas was considered the byproduct of bodily decay—morally and theologically linked to mortality itself. “There was a lot of moralisation about farts and shit,” she writes, “that they are the living daily reminder that we are going to die and that’s all we are, we are mortal, and sinful as well.” Far from being merely humorous, Roland’s act may have carried a memento mori element—a bodily reminder of humanity’s base nature dressed up in courtly performance. The humour of the act came with an undercurrent of philosophical reflection, however unconscious. According to Saint Augustine, some people could control their flatulence to the point it could resemble singing! An 1892 drawing of Le Petomane from Paris qui Rit (Laughing Paris) magazine A Tradition with Deep Roots Roland was not alone in wielding his posterior to professional ends. In medieval Ireland, there existed a known class of entertainers known as bruigedoire  or braigetori —court farters. Some texts suggest that groups of such performers dined with the High King of Ireland himself, implying not only social legitimacy but elevated status. In visual culture, this is borne out by John Derrick’s 1581 illustration The Image of Irelande , in which two farters can be seen in performance on the far right of a banquet scene. Other civilisations embraced similar talents. Among the Innu people of Canada, Matshishkapeu —literally the Farting God—is a prominent mythological figure. He had the power to bestow or withhold gastrointestinal relief and was seen as more powerful even than the Caribou Master. After cursing the latter with agonising constipation, Matshishkapeu eventually relented—but only after receiving due reverence. Saint Augustine of Hippo also recorded tales of flatulists, claiming that certain individuals could “produce musical sounds from their behinds (without any stink),” seemingly in harmony, and even with the effect of singing. Japan too had its share. In the Edo period, misemono  street shows featured “freak show” style entertainers. One performer, Kirifuri-hanasaki-otoko , is documented in 1774 as creating musical-sounding flatulence by ingesting air and releasing it in stylised bursts. An even earlier tradition, dating back to the Kamakura era (1185–1333), tells of heppiri otoko , farting men who danced and entertained aristocrats. Roland the Farter was not alone; several cultures appreciated the humor of flatulence. Japanese drawing He-gassen (Fart Battle), 1864 The Legacy of Le Petomane In more recent times, Roland’s spiritual heir was surely Joseph Pujol, better known by his stage name Le Pétomane . A fixture of late 19th-century Paris and the Moulin Rouge, Le Pétomane brought professional flatulism to vaudeville heights. His act included imitating musical instruments, extinguishing candles, and even playing odes through what he called “anal control”. “He dressed in a tuxedo and announced each sound as if he were presenting a music solo,” wrote Jim Dawson, author and self-declared “fartologist”. “Of course, the incongruence of a dignified gentleman letting farts only added to the humour.” Despite the niche appeal, Le Pétomane drew immense crowds and was a sensation in Belle Époque Paris. Le Petomane was a French celebrity (f)artist and flatulist, rivaling the fame of Roland the Farter. An advertisement from the Moulin Rouge Flatulism in the Modern Age Today, the art of flatulent performance has retreated to the peripheries of YouTube and internet subcultures. While modern society may prefer its entertainers less earthy, Roland’s legacy remains a potent reminder of a time when kings laughed at farts, and land tenure could hinge on a well-timed toot. In a world increasingly governed by contracts, professionalism, and decorum, there’s something charmingly subversive about a man who could win royal favour through bodily gags—and hold property by means of passing wind. Roland le Petour, however obscure, lingers as a strange and windy footnote in the story of English land law, feudal service, and royal entertainment. And if nothing else, he proves that laughter—especially the undignified, involuntary kind—has long held power in the highest of places. Sources: Liber Feodorum  (Book of Fees), National Archives, UK Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages  (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) John Derrick, The Image of Irelande , 1581 Jim Dawson, Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart Saint Augustine, The City of God , Book 14 National Diet Library of Japan: Misemono  records, Edo period Innu oral mythology accounts via First Nations Canada archives

In the spring of 1871 Paris felt like a city that had been shaken awake and left slightly dizzy. All around were Parisians who had endured hunger during the siege, humiliation after defeat, and a government that felt both distant and unsympathetic. Into this atmosphere stepped a remarkable collection of workers, intellectuals, printers, seamstresses, journalists and idealists. They would later be known simply as the Communards, a word that still carries an echo of both hope and tragedy. The Paris Commune lasted for only a little more than two months, yet it became one of the most studied and mythologised uprisings in modern history. It left behind enormous archival traces, thousands of political prisoners and a legacy that stretched from French working class politics to social movements across Europe and even as far as New Caledonia in the South Pacific where many exiled Communards spent years building new lives among the island’s Indigenous Kanak population. This is the wider story of the Communards, told not only through the grand political events but also through little known moments, personal encounters and the quieter details that often fall between the cracks of traditional histories. The Cannons on Montmartre, March 1871 Before the Commune France in the late eighteen sixties and early eighteen seventies was already uneasy. The Second Empire under Napoleon the Third had encouraged decadence and display, but it had also left much of the urban working population feeling as though they were observing prosperity rather than participating in it. When the Franco Prussian War erupted in eighteen seventy, that resentment deepened. By the time the Prussian forces surrounded Paris in September eighteen seventy, food was so scarce that restaurants began serving horse, then mule, and finally cat and rat. Market stalls displayed whatever could be caught. A Parisian diarist wrote with grim practicality that boiled rat with mustard was “not as unpleasant as one might fear.” The siege hardened political views and created a hunger not just for food but for a new social order. Radical clubs flourished. Newspapers appeared that spoke of workers rights, secular education, and the idea that Paris might govern itself. Twice during the siege these groups attempted to topple the provisional government. Though they failed, the attempts revealed how far the city’s political mood had shifted. Once elections were held in early eighteen seventy one the centre of government moved to Versailles. Its new head, Adolphe Thiers, was deeply wary of the radicalised National Guard who still controlled large parts of Paris. When the government attempted to seize cannons belonging to the Guard on eighteen March, Parisians saw the move as an act of provocation. Crowds gathered, soldiers mutinied, and two generals were killed. By nightfall the city was effectively in the hands of the insurgents who proclaimed the Commune. A barricade in the Paris Commune, March 18, 1871 The short life of the Commune From March to May eighteen seventy one the city became a laboratory for political experimentation. The Commune abolished conscription, reopened factories under workers committees and talked frequently about universal education and support for abandoned children. It also indulged in a great deal of debate. One Communard later joked that every second citizen seemed to be preparing to deliver a speech about the future of France. Despite the stereotypes, the Commune was not purely a socialist uprising. It included Jacobins, republicans, feminists, printers associations and a few dreamers who believed Paris could become the model city for the entire world. Women played a notable role. Louise Michel, schoolteacher and revolutionary, later recalled that she spent the early weeks “running from meeting to meeting with barely time to eat.” The Communards pulled down the statue of Napoleon in the Place Vendôme. Yet the Commune was troubled by internal disagreements and hampered by the approach of the French Army massing at Versailles. Thiers refused all negotiation, and his officers prepared to retake the capital step by step. Between twenty one and twenty eight May the French Army entered Paris. Street by street the Communards resisted. Barricades rose in every district. Fires swept through parts of the city. The week became known as Bloody Week and remains one of the darkest episodes in nineteenth century European history. The exact number of deaths has been debated for one hundred fifty years. Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, who fought for the Commune and later wrote its first great history, estimated twenty thousand killed. Modern historians usually place the figure between ten and fifteen thousand, though some argue it may still be higher. What is certain is that the repression was swift and ruthless. Communards (National Guards) at Boulevard Voltaire After the guns fell silent In the days following the collapse of the Commune more than forty thousand people were arrested. Many were imprisoned in makeshift camps, some were executed without trial, and others simply disappeared into the confusion. Around six thousand fled abroad, forming temporary communities in Belgium , Britain, Switzerland and the United States . A government inquiry concluded with predictable conservatism that the true cause of the uprising was a lack of religious belief among the working classes. The remedy, according to the committee, was a moral rejuvenation combined with the removal of undesirable political elements from the country. Deportation was chosen as the main solution. Executions during and after Bloody Week One part of the story that is often simplified in popular retellings concerns the executions carried out by both sides. During the final days of fighting, as the French Army pushed deeper into the city, captured Communards were often lined against walls in courtyards or along garden walls and shot within minutes of being seized. One of the most well known sites is the Mur des Federes in Père Lachaise Cemetery, where a group of National Guard fighters made their last stand among the tombs and winding pathways. Contemporary witnesses wrote that the smoke from the muskets drifted through the cemetery like morning mist. Photo of seven Communards in their coffins, by André-Adolphe-Eugène_Disdéri What is less known is that executions also took place in much smaller and more improvised locations. One parish report mentions a group of suspected insurgents brought to the back yard of a small primary school where they were shot beside an apple tree that continued to bear fruit for many years after. Another policeman recalled that several firing squads operated from the stables of commandeered houses because they provided space to line up prisoners away from the public gaze. In some districts the French Army used portable wooden barriers as makeshift execution points. These barriers had originally been built to control horse traffic during the Second Empire and were still stacked in municipal storerooms. Soldiers dragged them into position to create instant walls for firing squads. The fact that such mundane objects were repurposed in this way is a reminder of how quickly order collapsed into violence. After the fighting ended, formal and informal executions continued for several days. Some officers insisted on quick field trials that lasted only a few minutes. Others avoided even this. One military doctor later testified that an officer told him the goal was to act so swiftly that there would be no chance for sentiment. By contrast, a rare few officers refused to participate and even tried to shield captured Communards by registering them as wounded soldiers rather than prisoners. The number of those killed in these executions is still debated. Estimates range widely, partly because the distinction between battlefield death and summary execution was not recorded with any consistency. Yet most modern scholars agree that the executions form a significant portion of the overall death toll of Bloody Week and were a major cause of the bitterness that persisted long after the Commune had fallen. Corpses of federated soldiers during the Paris Commune of 1871 How the executions shaped memory, politics and art The executions of Bloody Week did not fade quietly into the background of nineteenth century France. They became part of the political language of the era and a reference point for generations of activists. In the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties trade union meetings often opened with a short tribute to the Communards. Some speakers would pause and say simply that they remembered “the walls of May,” a phrase understood instantly by the audience. Even moderate republicans who had once viewed the Commune with suspicion gradually absorbed its imagery into their own campaigns for expanded rights. The socialist leader Jean Jaurès wrote in eighteen ninety five that the silence surrounding the executed Communards had become “a hollow in the national conscience” and argued that France needed to confront the full history of the repression if it wanted to claim the values of liberty and equality with honesty. His writing helped revive public interest in the individual stories of those who had died. Artists found the subject no less compelling. Painters in the late nineteenth century frequently depicted the barricades, the chaos of the fighting and the grim aftermath. One little known example is the painter Maxime Maufra who created a quietly unsettling canvas of a deserted Paris street with a single abandoned rifle propped against a wall. Though no figures are shown, the painting was recognised immediately as a reference to the executions of eighteen seventy one. Victor Hugo Writers were equally drawn to the theme. Victor Hugo, already deeply sympathetic to the cause of amnesty, wrote several poems that hinted at the suffering of the condemned without naming them directly. Louise Michel became one of the most prolific chroniclers of the experience. She spoke about the executions with a mixture of sorrow and defiance, reminding audiences that many of the dead were ordinary workers who had simply believed Paris could be governed more fairly. The executions also influenced the political culture of the early French Third Republic. Each anniversary of the Commune drew crowds to the Mur des Federes in Père Lachaise Cemetery. By the early twentieth century these gatherings had become major events with banners, speeches and brass bands. Some mourners brought flowers while others placed small handwritten notes at the base of the wall. One tradition involved leaving a handful of red carnations which became a quiet symbol of remembrance for the executed Communards. Later in the century the memory of the executions travelled further still. In the Soviet Union, where the Commune was revered as a heroic forerunner of the workers state, murals and posters depicted idealised versions of the firing squads and the last stands. Streets and districts were named after Communards and the events of May eighteen seventy one were incorporated into official school textbooks. Deportation to New Caledonia New Caledonia, a distant archipelago in the South Pacific, had been annexed by France in eighteen fifty three and converted into a penal colony. Conditions were harsh, and tropical diseases had previously discouraged widespread settlement. By the eighteen seventies it contained a mixture of Indigenous Kanak communities, European colonists, regular criminal convicts, and a steadily growing number of political prisoners. New Caledonia More than four thousand Communards were transported to the island. Their sentences fell into three categories. Some received simple deportation which often meant being sent to the Isle of Pines and allowed to live in self organised communities. Others were sent to fortified sites on the Ducos Peninsula. Three hundred received the harshest classification, deportation with forced labour, usually to the main island where they were mixed with ordinary convicts. A few unusual administrative details survive from this period. One record from the Isle of Pines describes a group of tailors from Paris who created a small cooperative workshop and began producing shirts for sale. Another mentions a former piano tuner who tried to build a small reed organ from driftwood but found that the tropical climate warped every piece of wood he prepared. These tiny fragments remind us that the deportees were not only political symbols but practical people trying to recreate pieces of their former lives. Daily life in exile The French authorities provided almost nothing for the deportees. Many had to build huts from scattered timber. Food allotments were frequently insufficient, especially in the first years. Some Communards recorded that they exchanged clothing or small tools with the Kanak in return for fruit and fish. Others took up fishing themselves and discovered that the reefs near the Isle of Pines were rich in shellfish. For those under forced labour conditions life was considerably worse. Accounts from the period describe beatings, the use of thumbscrews and punishments that echoed earlier European penal traditions. Yet not every moment was bleak. A school was established for the children of deportees and the wives who travelled to join their husbands were given greater property rights than they had enjoyed in France. One little known detail comes from a report written by a military doctor. He noted that Communard prisoners had introduced a form of communal cooking where each person contributed what little they had to a shared pot. The practice reminded him of rural French customs and he commented that it seemed to improve morale more than any official measure. Escape across the ocean In eighteen seventy four a daring escape transformed the atmosphere on the island. Six prisoners including François Jourde, Henri Rochefort and Paschal Grousset boarded a ship operated by Captain John Law. They hid in the hold until the vessel was well beyond the harbour and resurfaced only after hours at sea. Their arrival in Sydney created an immediate sensation. Crowds gathered at the quayside and local newspapers described the escape as “a triumph of ingenuity against tyranny.” Jourde later joked that the best part of the escape was the first breakfast eaten in freedom. He wrote that Australian bread was “lighter than any I had tasted in years, perhaps because it did not share the flavour of supervision.” The escape however made conditions much worse for those who remained. New rules banned prisoners from walking near the sea, entering forests or meeting in informal groups. Curfews were imposed and the authorities tightened surveillance across the island. Contact with the Kanak Before the severe restrictions of the mid eighteen seventies relations between Communards and Kanak communities were surprisingly cordial. Achille Balliere, for example, frequently visited Kanak homes and later wrote fondly about evenings spent listening to stories he described simply as “wisdom carried in spoken form.” There were even marriages between Communard men and Kanak women in the early period, though the government later discouraged or outright prevented further unions. Louise Michel When the Kanak rose against French colonial rule in eighteen seventy eight some Communards expressed public sympathy. Yet this solidarity was short lived. Many still held racial ideas common in nineteenth century France which quickly diluted any deeper alliance. One exception was Louise Michel who supported Kanak youth, taught at a small school and encouraged the performance of Kanak theatre. Her writings show both admiration and the paternalistic tone of the era. Notable Communards Henri Rochefort spent time in the United States after his escape and delivered lectures that criticised the French government with considerable flair. He also wrote a novel, L Evade, which contributed greatly to the romanticised view of the deportations. Another remarkable figure was George Pilotell, a political caricaturist who became self appointed director of fine arts in the Commune. After escaping to London he enjoyed an entirely new career as a portrait painter and costume designer. His work can be found today in the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Adrien Lejeune gained fame long after the events themselves by surviving into the twentieth century. When he died in nineteen forty two in the Soviet Union he was widely publicised as the last living Communard. The long road to amnesty By the late eighteen seventies pressure grew inside France to pardon the Communards. Early pardons in eighteen seventy nine left many unsatisfied especially those who had never been formally convicted. Calls for complete amnesty were made in petitions across Paris. Victor Hugo became one of the strongest supporters. Finally in July 1880 parliament granted total amnesty. Ships carried the deportees home and thousands of Parisians gathered at the docks to greet them. Donations were collected, employment was offered and temporary accommodation was arranged by committees led by figures such as Louis Blanc. Yet returning home was not always easy. Many deportees struggled to resume their former lives. Encountering former jailers in the street sometimes ended in angry exchanges. Others felt oddly distant from Paris after so many years in the Pacific. An investigative committee examined allegations of torture in New Caledonia. The resulting depositions and testimonies gradually opened the door for reconciliation, though the memories of repression remained vivid. Some Communards never returned. They built new lives in New Caledonia or settled in Australia where their descendants remain today. Legacy The story of the Communards travelled far. In the Soviet Union entire neighbourhoods were named in their honour. In France the Commune became a reference point for political thinkers from anarchists to social democrats. And for many working class Parisians the memory of Bloody Week remained a warning about the cost of social transformation. The quieter details of the exile experience, from communal cooking to improvised workshops, remind us that history is made not only through dramatic revolution but also through the resilience of ordinary people forced to rebuild their existence in unfamiliar places. Britannica: Paris Commune https://www.britannica.com/event/Paris-Commune Gallica Digital Library Collection of Paris Commune Documents https://gallica.bnf.fr OpenEdition Journals: Scholarly Articles on the Paris Commune and New Caledonia Deportations https://journals.openedition.org State Library of New South Wales Archival Material on Communard Escapees in Sydney https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au Victoria and Albert Museum Collection Record for George Pilotell https://collections.vam.ac.uk British Museum Database Entry for Works by George Pilotell https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection Musée d Orsay Digital Archive for Louise Michel and the Commune https://www.musee-orsay.fr French National Archives Documents Relating to the New Caledonia Penal Colony https://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr Smithsonian Libraries and Archives Collection on Franco Prussian War Context https://www.si.edu/archives

“All the Danes who were in England were to be slain.”— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , entry for the year 1002 On 13 November 1002, King Æthelred II of England issued one of the most chilling commands in early medieval European history. On the feast day of Saint Brice, he ordered the killing of Danes living within his kingdom. The event became known as the St Brice’s Day Massacre and has lingered long in the historical imagination. It was a moment shaped by fear, tension and political fragility and it would help determine the future of England itself. England before the massacre To understand how Æthelred reached this decision, it helps to picture England at the turn of the millennium. The country was a newly united collection of older kingdoms such as Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. Unity had been achieved through hard-won military success, but beneath the surface old cultural boundaries still mattered. For more than two centuries, England had lived with the presence of Scandinavian peoples. Some arrived as raiders and left swiftly with silver. Others settled permanently, married locally and raised children who would have known no other home. These settlers formed the backbone of the Danelaw, a broad region across the north and east where Norse language, customs and legal practices blended with existing English ones. Æthelred In many towns, particularly in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Anglia, one might have found craftsmen with Norse names trading beside Anglo-Saxon merchants, or families living under a mixture of English and Scandinavian laws. Place-names ending in by, thorpe and toft tell the story of that settlement. Archaeology supports it too. A brooch of English design might be found beside a Viking comb or a coin stamped with both an English king’s name and Scandinavian motifs. This was not a simple case of two separate peoples. Daily life was interwoven, yet the memory of earlier raids and sudden violence never completely faded. England was culturally mixed but politically anxious. Æthelred’s uneasy crown Æthelred did not inherit an easy throne. He became king in 978 after the suspicious death of his half-brother, Edward, later canonised as Edward the Martyr. His epithet, often mistranslated as “the Unready,” actually comes from the Old English word unræd , meaning “poorly advised.” Throughout his reign, Æthelred faced renewed Viking raids. In 991, England suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Maldon. Rather than risk more bloodshed, the king’s advisers negotiated the first of several large payments to Viking forces. This tribute, known as Danegeld, became a defining element of his rule and a heavy burden on the kingdom. The heavy burden of Danegeld The Danegeld was not an occasional bribe. It became a constant drain on England’s wealth. The first payment in 991 amounted to 10,000 pounds of silver, a staggering sum when most individuals rarely handled silver coins. To raise the money, the king levied a national tax that required contributions from every shire, estate and monastery. Communities were pressured to surrender silver, livestock and goods that could be converted to coin. The scale of the payments increased rapidly. In 994, following a major attack led by Olaf Tryggvason and Sweyn Forkbeard, Æthelred authorised a payment of 16,000 pounds of silver. In 1002, the year of the massacre, the kingdom handed over yet another 24,000 pounds. Modern scholars estimate that the entire annual income of the English Crown at the time may have been eight to ten thousand pounds. The Danegeld therefore consumed years of revenue and weakened England’s defensive capacity. These payments shaped the kingdom’s diplomatic relationships but also its internal tensions. Some of the silver was used to pay Scandinavian mercenaries who fought for Æthelred. These soldiers were essential for coastal defence, yet they resembled the very raiders who tormented the kingdom. Their presence blurred the lines between ally and enemy. For ordinary English people, the constant taxation fuelled resentment. They felt they were paying for peace that never lasted more than a season. Raids continued and tribute only encouraged more aggression. By the late 990s, England was weary, frightened and economically strained. This atmosphere forms the backdrop to the decision Æthelred would take in 1002. Olaf Tryggvason Rumours of conspiracy Late that year, the king’s advisers reported a disturbing rumour. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  claims they believed that “the Danish men who were in England had plotted to put the king to death, and afterwards all his council, and then have his kingdom without any resistance.” There is no independent evidence for this alleged plot. Yet in a kingdom worn down by raids, tribute and suspicion, the rumour appears to have been enough to sway Æthelred. The Danish population in England numbered in the tens of thousands. Many had lived peacefully for generations, but others were recent arrivals. Some had served in the king’s mercenary forces. The court feared that if Scandinavian rulers launched another invasion, these men might assist them from within. The king’s order On 13 November 1002, the feast day of Saint Brice, Æthelred issued his order. His surviving charter speaks darkly of Danes who had “sprung up in this island like cockle among the wheat,” and who were to be “destroyed by a most just extermination.” The language suggests that Æthelred sought to frame the act as both righteous and necessary. The massacre was not a nationally coordinated slaughter. Communication in the eleventh century was slow and uneven. What occurred instead seems to have been a series of localised attacks in towns where the Danish presence was most visible. The evidence for this comes from a combination of written sources and modern archaeology. What the slaughter looked like The surviving written sources give only brief lines about the killings, but archaeology and later accounts allow us to build a clearer sense of what happened on the ground. The decree was carried out by local officials, household retainers, town militia and, in some places, by ordinary townspeople acting under the permission of royal authority. It would not have unfolded uniformly. Each settlement had its own mixture of English and Scandinavian inhabitants, and the reactions varied from tense caution to violent upheaval. Remains at Ridgeway Hill In towns where Scandinavian households were well known, the killings may have begun in the early morning. The king’s order would have been delivered by a local thegn or reeve, and there would have been little time for discussion. Those who carried out the act might have moved street by street, seeking out Danish men who were identified by name or neighbourhood reputation. A door could be knocked upon and, once opened, a man seized without time to resist. Many victims were surprised before they could reach for a weapon. The archaeological remains at Oxford suggest that some victims attempted to flee. The absence of defensive wounds is striking. Many of the skulls show heavy blows from behind, the type inflicted when someone is struck while trying to escape. Others were hit on the back of the legs, a disabling strike used to bring down a running man. This implies that the killings were not a clean or orderly process. They were hurried, chaotic and driven by fear as much as by royal command. In Oxford, the situation escalated when Danish residents sought sanctuary inside a church. Medieval custom held that the church was a protected space, but during the massacre that boundary was ignored. The charter describing the event records that those sheltering inside were surrounded and the building set alight. The bodies discovered centuries later bear scorch marks that match this account. Some bones show cracking consistent with exposure to fire while still fresh, suggesting the victims were burned within minutes or hours of death. It is possible that similar scenes occurred in other walled towns. Churches were often the only stone buildings in smaller settlements, and they offered a defensible structure. Yet once the attackers set fire to the timber roofs or pushed burning material against the doors, the people inside would have had no escape. The psychological shock of watching a place of sanctuary turned into a trap must have been immense for survivors and witnesses. The Dorset site at Ridgeway Hill shows a different pattern. The men there were rounded up and taken to an exposed hillside before being killed. Many had their arms tied, indicated by the unnatural positioning of their shoulders and elbows. Their execution was methodical. The skulls were found in a neat pile separate from the bodies, suggesting that the beheadings took place in a deliberate sequence. The blades used were heavy, likely axes or broad knives, and the cut marks show that some heads required multiple blows to detach. The scattering of personal items at the Dorset site suggests that the victims were forced to undress before death. Their belts, knives and clothing were stripped away, possibly to prevent resistance or perhaps to humiliate them before the execution. Naked, cold and exposed, they were made to kneel or lie down before the killing began. A few individuals bear marks that indicate they tried to twist away at the moment the blade fell. These attempts were futile, but they leave a vivid human trace of fear and instinct. Elsewhere, the killings may have been quieter but no less brutal. In villages where Danish families lived alongside English neighbours, some men may have been killed inside their own homes. Others might have been dragged into yards or fields. The king’s order targeted men specifically, but that line may not have been followed perfectly. Some late medieval chroniclers, writing centuries later, suggested that women and children were also killed. There is no firm evidence supporting this, but the panic and confusion of the moment make it difficult to rule out. What is clear is that the killings were swift. There was no prolonged campaign and no repeated rounds of violence. The massacre unfolded over hours, perhaps a day or two in some regions, and then it stopped. The king’s decree had been carried out, and those Danes who had survived would have been left to bury their dead or flee. The suddenness of the act, rather than its scale, is what left such a deep mark on England. One day, Scandinavian neighbours were part of the community. The next, they were identified as enemies and removed with frightening speed. A final detail comes from the Oxford grave. Several victims had their skulls split open by vertical blows from above. This is a technique used when an attacker is standing over a kneeling or prone victim. It suggests that many of the men were forced to the ground in submission before being killed. The violence, while hurried, was direct and personal. It involved close contact, handheld weapons and physical struggle. The killers would have been able to see the faces of the men they struck down. A burial pit at Ridgeway Hill in Dorset is similar to the one at Oxford. However, where the victims at Oxford appear to have been killed in a frenzy, these men were ritually executed (a pile of skulls is visible here, behind the archaeologist), perhaps to be made examples of. The massacre was not neat or uniform. It was a patchwork of hurried executions, panic, house raids, burnings and public killings carried out by frightened communities under royal instruction. The silence of the archaeological sites tells only part of the story, but it hints at a grim emotional landscape in 1002, a moment when suspicion, uncertainty and the pressures of an embattled kingdom erupted into lethal action. The Oxford mass grave In 2008, beneath St John’s College in Oxford, excavators uncovered a pit containing the remains of 37 young men. Nearly all showed signs of violent death. Many had been struck repeatedly on the head or stabbed from behind. Some had burns on their bones, suggesting exposure to fire either during or after the killing. DNA and isotope testing revealed that several had Scandinavian origins. There were no defensive wounds, which suggests the men were ambushed rather than engaged in battle. Their deaths date to the early eleventh century and align compellingly with Æthelred’s decree. Contemporary documents mention that Danes in Oxford took refuge in a church and were burned within it. The charred state of some bones seems to reflect this account, making the Oxford grave one of the clearest physical traces of the St Brice’s Day Massacre. Ridgeway Hill and the wider evidence A second site discovered in 2009 at Ridgeway Hill in Dorset contained 54 male skeletons, all decapitated and dumped into a mass grave. Their heads had been placed in a separate pile. Forensic analysis indicated Scandinavian origins and suggested that the men had been executed, not killed in battle. Although it is difficult to link this site definitively to the St Brice’s Day decree, the timing and pattern of violence fit the broader context. The legend of Gunhilde Some later sources claim that among the dead was Gunhilde, said to be the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, the Danish king. According to this tradition, her death provoked Sweyn’s wrath and inspired his later vengeance. The historicity of Gunhilde is uncertain, but the story reflects contemporary attempts to explain why Sweyn’s retaliation came so swiftly. Sweyn Forkbeard’s revenge In 1003, almost immediately after the massacre, Sweyn launched a new series of assaults on England. His armies burned towns across the south and west. These raids continued year after year, exhausting the kingdom. Sweyn Forkbeard By 1013, Sweyn invaded not as a raider but as a conqueror. English nobles submitted to him with little resistance. Æthelred fled to Normandy, and Sweyn was accepted as king of England. Although he died soon after, his son Cnut would complete the conquest in 1016 and build a North Sea empire that linked England, Denmark and Norway. The massacre that Æthelred hoped would secure his kingdom instead helped destroy it. Life inside the Danelaw Before 1002, many Danes and Anglo-Saxons had lived side by side with little conflict. The Danelaw was characterised by cultural blending. Local law codes contained influences from both traditions. Families kept a mixture of Norse and English customs. Archaeology shows that people in the region lived in similar houses, ate similar food and used similar tools. In such communities, the king’s decree would have struck like a lightning bolt. For those of mixed heritage or for settled Danes who considered England their home, the massacre meant betrayal by the very kingdom they supported with taxes and labour. The church and the meaning of the massacre Because the event took place on Saint Brice’s Day, later church chroniclers tried to explain it within a moral framework. Some suggested that Æthelred believed he was cleansing the kingdom of internal corruption. Others argued that the massacre was a sin that would invite divine punishment. When England later fell to Sweyn and Cnut, many saw this as the inevitable consequence of Æthelred’s actions. Æthelred’s legacy Æthelred’s reputation has suffered for centuries. The image of a weak and indecisive ruler has overshadowed attempts to understand the pressures he faced. Modern historians take a more nuanced view, recognising that he ruled during a period of immense difficulty, when England faced one of the most formidable military powers in the North. Nevertheless, the St Brice’s Day Massacre remains a lasting example of how fear and suspicion can drive rulers to catastrophic decisions. The human cost revealed by archaeology The remains uncovered at Oxford and Dorset offer a poignant reminder of the individuals caught in the political turmoil of their age. These men were not faceless raiders. Their bones show signs of ordinary labour, previous injuries and daily life. Many may have been craftsmen or traders. Some could have grown up in England. Their deaths illustrate how swiftly neighbours could become targets in moments of political panic. England after 1002 In the decades following the massacre, Anglo-Saxon England grew weaker. The repeated raids, the economic strain of Danegeld and the crisis of leadership left the kingdom vulnerable. Danish rule under Cnut brought a period of relative stability, and under his authority Anglo-Saxons and Danes lived together once more. It is a striking irony that the very people Æthelred feared would undermine his kingdom became integral to its governance and recovery under new leadership. A long memory Modern historians see the St Brice’s Day Massacre as a key event in understanding early medieval England. It highlights the delicate balance between multicultural coexistence and political distrust, and it demonstrates how quickly violence can erupt when fear and policy collide. Archaeology continues to deepen our understanding, allowing the voices of the dead to be heard across a thousand years. As one scholar observed, “The bones in Oxford say more than any chronicle ever could.” Sources The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , trans. D. Whitelock (Everyman, 1961) Historic UK. “The St Brice’s Day Massacre.” www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/St-Brices-Day-Massacre/ History Today. Lyons, M. (2024). “The St Brice’s Day Massacre.” www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/st-brices-day-massacre History Extra. Musgrove, D. “What really happened on St Brice’s Day?” www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/st-brices-day-massacre-what-happened-how-violent/ Museum of Oxford. “The St Brice’s Day Massacre.” museumofoxford.org/the-st-brices-day-massacre/ Alumni Oxford. “St John’s and the St Brice’s Day Massacre.” alumni.ox.ac.uk/article/st-johns-and-the-st-brices-day-massacre Archaeology Magazine. “Vengeance on the Vikings.” archaeology.org/issues/november-december-2013/features/viking-england-st-brices-day/ Roach, Levi. Æthelred the Unready  (Yale University Press, 2016)

Abraham Reles’s story begins in a struggling immigrant family, living in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighbourhood, a hotbed of Jewish and Italian organised crime in the early 20th century. Born on May 10, 1906, Reles was the son of Jewish immigrants from Galicia. His father, Sam, a hardworking garment worker, turned to peddling knishes on the streets as the Great Depression worsened, struggling to support his family amid the economic turmoil. Reles, known formally as Elkanah ben Shimon in Hebrew, didn’t seem destined for the criminal life at first. He attended school until eighth grade but abandoned his studies, gravitating instead toward the pool rooms and candy stores that dotted Brownsville’s streets, spaces where petty criminals congregated and schemes were born. It was here he met Martin “Buggsy” Goldstein and Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, who would become close allies in crime. Despite his small stature, Reles possessed an outsized ambition and a willingness to use ruthless violence—qualities that would propel him to the highest echelons of Brooklyn’s underworld. Early Encounters with Crime Reles’s first recorded encounter with the law came in 1921, when he was caught stealing $2 worth of gum from a vending machine, a small infraction that led to a four-month stint in the Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Yet, this early brush with authority did little to curb his criminal tendencies. After his release, Reles continued associating with Goldstein and Strauss, committing petty crimes that gradually escalated. Martin (Buggsy) Goldstein (L), leader of the Brooklyn murder syndicate, and Harry (Pittsburgh Phil) Strauss, "a co-terrorist", are shown on the train as they neared Sing Sing, where they are scheduled to die in the electric chair In the early days of Prohibition, Reles and Goldstein started working for the Shapiro brothers, three notorious gangsters who dominated Brooklyn’s rackets. Under the Shapiros’ control, Reles and his associates committed various minor crimes. However, a fateful turn came when Reles was caught in one of these ventures and sentenced to two years in a juvenile institution. While he served his sentence, the Shapiros offered no help or support, an act of betrayal Reles would not forget. This snub ignited a desire for revenge that would drive him to dismantle the Shapiro family piece by piece. The Birth of Murder, Inc. and Reles’s Role Upon his release, Reles reconnected with his associates and ventured into the lucrative slot machine business, an area dominated by the Shapiro brothers. Through George Defeo, a mutual criminal associate, Reles managed to broker a deal with Meyer Lansky, an influential figure in organised crime who was interested in expanding into Brooklyn’s poorer districts. With Lansky’s support, Reles built a solid criminal operation that was nearly untouchable within Brooklyn’s underworld. The business grew rapidly, and with it, Reles’s influence. Together with Goldstein and Strauss, he expanded into loan sharking, gambling, and union activities, particularly within the restaurant union. As his power increased, so did his reputation for unflinching brutality. His preferred weapon for carrying out murders was an ice pick, which he would use to drive through the victim’s ear into the brain, a method that came to define his lethal efficiency. The Shapiro brothers soon recognised Reles’s expanding influence as a threat, and a violent rivalry began. In one attempt to eliminate Reles, the Shapiros lured him and Goldstein to East New York, only to ambush them. Both men were wounded but managed to escape. Shortly after, Meyer Shapiro, the eldest brother, attacked and raped Reles’s girlfriend, escalating the feud into a personal vendetta. Determined to exact revenge, Reles recruited two more Murder, Inc. assassins—Frank “Dasher” Abbandando and Harry “Happy” Maione—to help eliminate the Shapiros. After several attempts, Reles’s crew succeeded in killing the Shapiro brothers one by one. Irving Shapiro was dragged from his home and beaten in the street before being shot multiple times. Meyer Shapiro was shot in the face in broad daylight. The last brother, William Shapiro, was taken to a gang hideout, beaten, stuffed into a sack, and driven to Canarsie. As Reles and his men were burying William, a passerby spotted them, forcing them to flee. William’s body was exhumed soon after; an autopsy revealed he had been buried alive, a gruesome detail that epitomised the violence of Reles’s crew. From Crime Lord to Informant Reles’s infamy grew as Murder, Inc. became the feared execution arm of organised crime. The syndicate handled contract killings for various crime families across the country, and Reles, Goldstein, and Strauss became synonymous with murder-for-hire in Brooklyn. However, the New York authorities soon closed in on Murder, Inc., and Reles found himself facing charges for multiple murders. Realising the gravity of his situation and the possibility of execution, Reles decided to turn state’s witness, a decision that would not only shatter the syndicate but also ultimately seal his fate. Reles’s cooperation with law enforcement implicated some of the biggest names in organised crime. His testimony led to the conviction and eventual execution of his former boss, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, as well as several key Murder, Inc. figures, including Maione, Abbandando, Strauss, and even his childhood friend Goldstein. But Reles’s most significant target was Albert Anastasia, a powerful figure in Cosa Nostra and co-chief of operations for Murder, Inc. The stakes for Reles’s testimony had never been higher. The Mysterious Fall at the Half Moon Hotel In 1941, as Reles awaited Anastasia’s trial, he was placed under heavy police protection at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island. Law enforcement took no chances; five officers guarded his room around the clock. Despite these precautions, Reles was found dead on November 12, 1941, after a fall from his sixth-floor hotel room window. Reles' supposed escape route Accounts of Reles’s death are conflicting. The official story suggests he attempted to escape by tying bedsheets to the radiator and lowering himself out the window. A piece of wire, tied to a valve in the room, appeared to be an improvised climbing aid, but the knot came undone, sending him plummeting onto a second-floor landing. This explanation, however, has been met with widespread scepticism. Many believe Reles was murdered to prevent him from testifying against high-ranking crime figures, especially Albert Anastasia. The fact that five officers were guarding him yet failed to prevent his death aroused suspicion. Furthermore, Frank Costello, another crime boss, allegedly raised $100,000 to bribe the guards to eliminate Reles. Rumours circulated that NYPD Detective Charles Burns, one of Reles’s bodyguards, had a history of involvement in underworld dealings, including the infamous disappearance of Judge Joseph Force Crater. Reles’s unexpected death cast a long shadow over the trial. While his demise was ultimately ruled an accident by a grand jury in 1951, theories about his assassination continue to circulate. Reles had earned the mocking nickname “The Canary Who Could Sing, But Couldn’t Fly,” as newspapers relished the irony of his fate. Sources: Burton B. Turkus and Sid Feder, Murder, Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate  (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951). Michael Newton, Encyclopedia of Gangsters: A–Z Guide to Notorious Mobs and Mobsters  (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007). The New York Times , “Abe Reles, Murder Aide, Dies in Fall,” November 12, 1941. Brooklyn Eagle , “The Canary Who Could Sing but Couldn’t Fly,” November 13, 1941. FBI Archives: Murder, Inc. Case Files (1940–1941).

Despite her gentle appearance, Dorothy Puente was actually a serial killer who committed a minimum of nine murders in her boarding house in Sacramento, California during the 1980s. Portraying herself as a compassionate caregiver, Puente managed a boarding house in Sacramento, California, catering to marginalized individuals such as the homeless, elderly, disabled, and mentally ill. While offering them shelter, she embezzled their Social Security and disability benefits and carried out their murders. Although Puente seemed like a kind elderly woman, her facade concealed her true nature as a ruthless murderer driven by greed. Exploiting her boarding house, she exploited the vulnerable to steal money and administer lethal drugs. Eventually, seven bodies were discovered buried on the property of the "Death House Landlady," leading to accusations of her involvement in the deaths of nine individuals. Dorothea Puente (birth name Dorothea Gray) was born in 1929 in Redlands, California. Her childhood was not an easy one — her mother was an abusive alcoholic who died when she was 10 and her father died when she was 8, Sactown Magazine reported in 2008.  She spent her teen years bouncing between foster homes and orphanages, and was allegedly sexually abused at one point, according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article. At the age of 16, she began working in the sex industry, but later married a World War II veteran. In 1946 and 1947, she had two children, but she didn't seem interested in motherhood. Eventually, she gave one child to relatives and put the other up for adoption, as reported by Sactown Magazine. Her first marriage ended in 1948. Following this, she had a series of marriages and got involved in criminal activities. She spent four months in prison for writing a check under a false name and served another 90 days after being arrested in a police raid at a brothel, according to Sactown Magazine. In the 1970s, she ran an unlicensed boarding house for disabled, elderly, and homeless individuals. However, she was secretly taking their benefits checks and was convicted in 1978, receiving a five-year probation, as per the publication. Puente was undaunted. She set about creating a more matronly image with her clothes and makeup, added years to her age, and became an in-home caretaker. She then drugged three elderly female patients and stole their money and valuables, a scam that landed her in prison in 1982 for five years, according to "Murders At The Boarding House." She was released early in 1990, but not before a state psychiatrist evaluated her and diagnosed her with schizophrenia. "This woman is a disturbed woman who does not appear to have remorse or regret for what she has done," he said, according to Sactown Magazine. "She is to be considered dangerous, and her living environment and/or employment should be closely monitored." Puente then opened the business that would give her the nickname "The Death House Landlady": a boarding house at 1426 F Street in Sacramento. The Victims Puente's first victim may not have been one of her boarders, though. Her business parter, a 61-year-old woman named Ruth Monroe, died suddenly in 1982, shortly before Puente was arrested for drugging her three elderly patients. Monroe had just moved in with Puente when she died of an overdose — but a coroner couldn't determine if it was homicide or suicide,  The Los Angeles Times reported in 1993.   Everson Gillmouth is suspected to be her next target. He and Puente developed a pen pal relationship during her time in prison, leading him to develop feelings for her. Following her release, he relocated to be with her, as per The Los Angeles Times. However, their planned marriage never materialized. Tragically, in 1986, his body was discovered in a coffin in the Sacramento River. After Puente opened up her boarding house at 1426 F Street, a string of people died there. Puente, who took in people who were older, disabled, or otherwise ailing, would steal their Social Security and benefits checks and poison them by lacing their food with prescription medicine, according to The Los Angeles Times. Prosecutors would later allege she pulled in over $87,000 from her scam and spent some of the cash on a facelift, the outlet reported. Among the deceased individuals discovered on her premises were Dorothy Miller, a 64-year-old war veteran who passed away in October 1987; Benjamin Fink, a 55-year-old struggling with alcoholism who died in April 1988; Leona Carpenter, a widowed woman in poor health who also died in 1987; Bert Montoya, a man with intellectual disabilities who passed away in 1988; Betty Palmer, aged 78; James Gallop, a 62-year-old with multiple health problems; and Vera Faye Martin, aged 64. Her crimes were discovered It was Montoya's disappearance that led to Puente's downfall. An outreach counselor with Volunteers of America had placed him at Puente's boarding house and she was alarmed to learn he had seemingly vanished in October 1988, according to Sactown Magazine. Puente offered up a variety of stories, including that Montoya had gone down to Mexico, before the counsellor filed a missing persons report. An officer visited the home and spoke with Puente as well as a tenant while in Puente's presence. The tenant backed Puente up — but then slipped the cop a note saying that Puente was forcing him to lie, the magazine reported. The tenant eventually told police Puente hired prisoners on furlough to dig holes in her yard and filled some of the holes with concrete and also alerted them to another boarder who had mysteriously vanished. It wasn't the first tip authorities had gotten about Puente, either. Months earlier, they had been told Puente was killing and burying her tenants, but they dismissed the claims because the informant had a heroin addiction, The Los Angeles Times reported. Police returned to search the home and check out the backyard on Nov. 11, 1988. After they started digging, they found a human leg bone and a decomposing foot, according to Sactown Magazine Puente was questioned but claimed no involvement with the body found in the yard. Despite being released, investigators returned the next day to search the backyard further. Puente then requested permission to meet her nephew for tea at a nearby hotel due to her nerves. The police granted her request, and shortly after her departure, a second body was discovered. By the time they realized this, Puente had already disappeared, as detailed in "Murders At The Boarding House." A manhunt ensued for the 59-year-old woman, and she was eventually found four days later at a California motel. She had been drinking at a bar with a man who thought she was acting oddly, later realizing it was Puente, a wanted woman. He alerted the police to her presence and she was arrested. Puente had become interested in him after learning he received disability checks, The Los Angeles Times reported. “She was just pure evil,” Mildred Ballenger, a social worker who knew her, told Sactown Magazine. “I don’t know that she ever did anything good without a bad motive.” The Trial In total, seven bodies were found in Puente's yard. She was put on trial in 1993 for the nine murders. She denied killing anybody. The charges against her were largely circumstantial: There was her criminal past and of course, the corpses at her home. All the tenants had died from a cocktail of drugs, including the sedative Dalmane, which Puente obtained dozens of prescriptions for, claiming it was to help her boarders sleep. It was difficult to determine, though, whether she had poisoned the tenants or if they had taken the fatal overdoses themselves, according to Sactown Magazine. "She sat there so totally motionless and emotionless,” one juror said of Puente's demeanor during the trial, the outlet reported. “It’s like she was watching a movie she wasn’t particularly interested in.” Ultimately, Puente was convicted of just three murders and sentenced to life in prison. Her time in prison was spent visiting the prison chapel, reading John Grisham books, and watching TV. She even wrote a cookbook from behind bars: "Cooking with a Serial Killer." Puente eventually died of natural causes at the age of 82 in 2011, The Los Angeles Times reported. She maintained her innocence until her death. “They don’t have all the facts,” she told Sactown Magazine in 2009. “They’ve never talked to me. ... I don’t think anyone would pick this kind of life. But God always puts obstacles in people’s way." Sources: “Dorothea Puente: The Boarding House Killer.” FBI Vault – Criminal Investigations , https://vault.fbi.gov/dorothea-puente Newton, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers . Infobase Publishing, 2006. “Dorothea Puente’s House of Horrors.” Los Angeles Times , November 1988. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-13-mn-154-story.html “The Landlady of Death.” Sacramento Bee , November 1988. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article “Dorothea Puente: The Death House Landlady.” Crime Museum . https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/dorothea-puente/

On a mild Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, as New Yorkers were finishing their workweek, tragedy ignited in the heart of Manhattan. In mere minutes, the bustling Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was engulfed in flames, forever imprinting its name in history as one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the United States. What began as a seemingly routine workday would end with unimaginable los, sparking major changes in labour laws and workplace safety that resonate even today. Inside the Triangle Waist Company Located in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood, the Triangle Waist Company occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, today known as the Brown Building, part of the New York University campus. Built in 1901, this structure became synonymous with tragedy due to the catastrophic events of that day. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, owners of the Triangle Waist Company Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, both Jewish immigrants, owned the factory which produced women's blouses, popularly called "shirtwaists". Their workforce consisted primarily of young immigrant women—mostly Italians and Jewish Eastern Europeans—aged between 14 and 23 years. These young workers endured gruelling shifts of nine hours a day on weekdays, plus an additional seven hours on Saturdays, earning meagre wages ranging from $7 to $12 per week. Adjusted to today's currency, this equates to between $236 to $405 weekly or approximately $4.92 to $8.44 per hour. Owners Blanck and Harris deliberately hired immigrant women, capitalising on their vulnerability, lack of union representation, and willingness to accept lower wages. The environment was difficult; the employees had little education and struggled with the English language, making unionisation efforts challenging. How the Fire Began The disaster unfolded at approximately 4:40 pm. A small spark, believed to be from an unextinguished cigarette or match carelessly discarded into a bin overflowing with fabric scraps beneath a cutting table, rapidly spread into a raging inferno. Despite strict no-smoking rules, workers often secretly smoked, exhaling the smoke discreetly into their lapels. Conflicting theories circulated at the time, with speculation ranging from faulty sewing machine engines to arson for insurance purposes—given that shirtwaist styles had recently declined in popularity. Blanck and Harris had previous suspicious fires, but no substantial evidence confirmed arson in this tragedy. A horse-drawn fire engine on t he way to the burning factory A Catastrophe Escalates With no audible alarm system, employees on the ninth floor had little warning until flames erupted around them. A bookkeeper managed to warn the 10th floor via telephone, but tragically, the message never reached the 9th floor in time. Workers desperately sought escape, but the exit doors to stairwells were locked—a common yet deadly practice to control breaks and prevent theft. The keys were with the foreman who had already fled. Flames swiftly blocked stairways, trapping terrified workers. Employees rushed to the flimsy fire escape, which soon collapsed under the overwhelming weight, sending about 20 workers plummeting approximately 100 feet to their deaths. As flames intensified, many were forced to jump from windows, unable to face the consuming fire. A Scene of Horror Reporter William Gunn Shepherd vividly described the harrowing scene, stating, "I learned a new sound that day, a sound more horrible than description can picture, the thud of a speeding living body on a stone sidewalk." Bystanders watched helplessly as bodies fell, including a poignant moment where a young man kissed a girl tenderly before both leaped together to their deaths. Lift operators Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortillaro heroically tried to rescue workers, making multiple trips under worsening conditions. Eventually, Mortillaro's elevator buckled, and bodies falling into elevator shafts rendered Zito’s final rescue attempts impossible. Devastating Aftermath In just eighteen minutes, the fire claimed the lives of 146 workers, 123 women and girls, and 23 men. Victims included 43-year-old Providenza Panno and tragically young teenagers Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese, both only 14 years old. Bodies were moved to Charities Pier (dubbed "Misery Lane") for identification, a traumatic experience for grieving families. Police officers and fire fighters check for signs of life and collect personal items from victims of the Triangle fire. Initially, six victims remained unidentified until 2011, when historian Michael Hirsch painstakingly confirmed their identities, giving some closure after a century of anonymity. These victims now rest beneath a memorial in Brooklyn’s Cemetery of the Evergreens. Justice and Controversy Owners Blanck and Harris faced charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter. Despite evidence of locked exits and prior violations, their attorney, Max Steuer, effectively cast doubt on witness testimonies, leading to acquittals in criminal court. However, a civil suit in 1913 found them liable for wrongful death, awarding victims' families a mere $75 per casualty. Paradoxically, the owners received insurance compensation exceeding their losses—approximately $400 per victim. Factory owners and their employees gather for a group portrait, circa 1910. Isaac Harris stands in the center with folded hands, and Max Blanck is to his right. Despite their brush with justice, Blanck and Harris continued questionable practices. In 1913, Blanck was fined only $20 for once again locking factory doors during working hours, highlighting the difficulty of enforcing workplace reforms at that time. Catalyst for Change The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire became a rallying cry for labour reformers and union activists. Rose Schneiderman, a prominent union leader, passionately argued for the necessity of workers' rights and unionisation. Frances Perkins, an eyewitness, was profoundly influenced by the tragedy, eventually becoming the U.S. Secretary of Labour under President Franklin Roosevelt. Following intense public pressure, the Factory Investigating Commission formed to scrutinise factory conditions statewide. This investigation spurred revolutionary reforms: fire exits, sprinklers, improved working hours, and safer conditions became law. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) gained momentum, advocating tirelessly for safer and fairer workplace standards. From the ashes of tragedy, a progressive transformation emerged, establishing New York State as a pioneer in labour reform and workplace safety. The Lasting Legacy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Today, the Brown Building stands as a National Historic Landmark, a poignant reminder of the devastating fire and a testament to the lasting impact on labour rights. Rose Freedman, the last surviving worker, lived until 2001, becoming a staunch advocate for union rights, ensuring the victims' stories inspired generations. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire remains a powerful symbol of the ongoing struggle for fair labour practices, worker protection, and the dignity of those who produce our goods. Reflecting on its legacy reminds us of progress made and the continual need to uphold worker safety worldwide.

John Emil List, an unassuming accountant, made headlines in 1971 for committing one of the most notorious familial crimes in American history. His story is a chilling reminder of the hidden darkness that can lurk behind closed doors, and it continues to fascinate true crime enthusiasts and psychologists alike. On November the 9th, 1971 John List acted out his decision to murder his wife Helen, 45; his children, Patricia, 16, John, Jr., 15, and Frederick, 13; and his 84-year-old mother, Alma. The accountant executed all members of his family, left their bodies neatly laid in the ballroom of his mansion (except for his mother who was too heavy to drag down the stairs), arranged photos and books he had borrowed from a neighbour on a table and disappeared. After his story was featured on the TV program "America's Most Wanted", seventeen years later, a tip from a caller led authorities to Richmond, Virginia, where they discovered him residing under the alias Robert P. Clark. The man who committed matricide was living a seemingly ordinary life in Richmond, resembling the one he had left behind in Westfield, New Jersey, seventeen years earlier. John List List was characterized as a distant and unemotional individual who had a limited social circle. Raised as the sole offspring of strict German parents, he faced the overbearing and excessively protective nature of his mother. Despite these challenges, he remained committed to the Lutheran faith and even took on the role of a Sunday school teacher. List's military service included time in the Army during World War II, and he eventually obtained an ROTC commission as an Army Lieutenant. He attended University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and a masters degree in accounting. List's lack of social skills, however, caused him many problems. He had a history of losing jobs. Investigations revealed that he had been suffering from financial problems due to losing his job as an accountant. Once he'd made the decision to kill his family, List says, there was no turning back. "It's just like D-Day, you go in, there's no stopping after you start," he said. After finding an old 9 mm pistol he had bought as a souvenir of World War II, and a .22-caliber target pistol, he purchased new ammunition and went to a shooting range for target practice. One night after dinner, he even asked his family what should be done with their bodies after they died. "I remember talking about funerals and cremation and burials. I thought I was being real clever," he said. The List house at the time of the murders On the day of the murders, after sending his children off to school, List took his two handguns out to the car to load them, then walked into the kitchen and shot his wife from behind as she was drinking coffee. "I approached all of them from behind so they wouldn't realise till the last minute what I was going to do to them," he said. Next he went upstairs, to where his 84-year-old mother was having breakfast, kissed her, and shot her in the head. Then he went downstairs, dragged his wife's body into the ballroom and began scrubbing up the blood so the children would not realise what was going on when they got back from school. List placed bloodied towels in a paper bag, which leaked blood across the pantry floor. He went to the post office to stop the family's mail, then to the bank, where he cashed his mother's savings bonds, checking that he got the correct interest to the penny. Returning home, he made several calls to explain that the family had gone to North Carolina to visit his wife's ailing mother, and that he was planning to follow by car. Then he sat down and ate lunch at the same table where he had shot his wife hours before. "I was hungry," he told Downtown, adding with a chuckle, "that's just the way it was." In the afternoon, he killed his children as they came home — first his daughter Patty, a budding actress at 16; then his youngest, 13-year-old Frederic; and finally 15-year-old John, his namesake and his favourite. Unlike the others, John didn't go quietly, his body jerking as List emptied both the 9 millimetre and the .22 into his son. "I don't know whether it was only because he was still jerking that I wanted to make sure that he didn't suffer, or that it was sort of a way of relieving tension, after having completed what I felt was my assignment for the day," List said. Patty, John F. and Freddy List He lined up the four bodies in the ballroom (he said his mother's body was too heavy to move), put music on the internal intercom, and cleaned up meticulously. Then he sat down and wrote a confession letter to his pastor explaining his financial problems. "At least I'm certain that all have gone to heaven now. If things had gone on who knows if that would be the case," he wrote. Alma List Dr. Steven Simring, a psychiatrist who examined List after his arrest years later, told said that his "sense of neatness" was the result of a compulsive personality. Simring said List showed "no evidence of anything that approached genuine remorse," adding, "He's a cold, cold man." The day after the killings, List scoured the house for family photographs, tearing his image out of them so police would have nothing to use in Wanted posters. Then he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where he left his car as a false lead and took a bus into the city. Westfield police did not discover the bodies until nearly a month later. The lights had been on in the three-story Victorian mansion nonstop, so something funny was going on but, as in all close-knit U.S. communities, no one bothered to do anything about it. List posted the keys to the house and desk back to the mansion after he left Not until Patricia's drama teacher decided he'd had enough of not knowing what the hell was going on, and decided to visit the family. It was then that neighbours decided to act. Thinking the house was being burgled by the snooping drama teacher, a neighbour rang police. So when the police got to the house and discovered that the teacher was actually trying to find out what was going on in the house they decided to break in. And from the smell that hit them as they forced a window open, it was probably a bit late for the family. The middle child, John Frederick List, left his bag and two books on the counter before he was killed. The two officers that entered the house walked toward some music being played in the room affectionately called the 'Ballroom' by the List family. On there way to this room they passed through the kitchen where they had to step over piles of dirty clothes in the middle of the floor. But when one of the officers noticed what appeared like dried blood stains smeared all over the floor it became apparent that the pile of clothes was a bit more than that. It was in fact Mrs. List and her three children. Each had their faces covered with a piece of cloth. Next A police photo of the bodies as they were discovered in the ballroom Dec. 7, 1971. Upstairs they encountered another body. It was Alma List. Her head was also covered with a piece of cloth. She was apparently too heavy to be dragged downstairs with the others, so the killer had left her upstairs on her own. There was no sign of John List. The house had given up all of its secrets. Almost. The police found the last of these upstairs. It was a note addressed - "To The Finder." It told of where certain documents could be found that would explain the scene in the house. List left the guns and ammunition in a desk drawer labelled "guns and ammo" These 'documents' were written by John List, the missing husband. One was to his employer, telling them how they could win new clients, and finishing up a few files that List had been working on prior to his disappearance. Others were to members of List's family. Investigating police found the letter to his pastor, Eugene Rehwinkel of Redeemer Lutheran Church, explaining his motives: He felt that the 1970s were a sinful time, and that his family was beginning to succumb to temptation, especially his daughter, who expressed interest in an acting career, an occupation that List viewed as being particularly corrupt and linked to Satan. He told his pastor that by killing his family before they had the opportunity to renounce their religion, he was saving their souls and sending them directly to Heaven. Most criminal profilers asked to analyse List--including John E. Douglas-- have concluded that List came up with this motive in order to put his own mind at ease and rationalise murdering his own family to lessen his own stress. John List covered the faces of Helen and John Jr. with towels after leaving them in the ballroom. In the letter to his pastor he told of how, even though it may have looked bloody, it really was quite peaceful. And he was quite sure John jr. hadn't suffered too much. He had put him out of his misery fairly quickly after the struggle. The note ended - "I got down and prayed after each one." The case understandably caused a huge stir in the U.S. List's face was shown all over the media, but it was all to no avail, he had vanished. Eventually, police stopped looking, and the case file was put to one side. Meanwhile, List had travelled from New York overland to Denver, where he began a new life under the name Robert P. Clark, working first as a hotel fry cook and later as an accountant for H&R Block. He joined a local Lutheran church and, in 1985, married a widow named Delores Clark, with whom he moved to Richmond, Va. Attorney David Baugh with Delores Clark, John List's unsuspecting second wife, at a press conference June 8, 1989. Arrest In 1989, America's Most Wanted featured List and a forensic sculptor's impression of how List would look 18 years after the murders. List caught the tail end of the show with his wife, who did not know his past. "I was perspiring like anything," he remembered, but said his wife did not seem to have recognised him. However, the show quite a stir amongst a group of friends in Aurora, Colorado. They all spoke about the face over the next few days, remarking how much it looked like their friend Robert P. Clark, an accountant who had just moved with his wife to Midlothian, Virginia. For most it was just a bit of a laugh, but one decided to call the police and tell them to check out Clark. Police checked Clark out extensively, and on June 1, 1989 decided that it was time to see if he really was who he said he was. Robert Clark vehemently denied that he was List, even after his fingerprints were found to be an exact match to John List's. Not surprisingly police charged Clark with the five murders. He kept up his denial until February the next year. He told his lawyer that he was John List. He then went on to tell the court that he had felt that there was no alternative to the murders. His lawyers attempted to get List off with an insanity verdict, but it didn't work. "I feel when we get to heaven we won't worry about these earthly things. They'll either have forgiven me or won't realise, you know, what happened," On April 12, 1990 John E. List was convicted in a New Jersey court of five counts of first-degree murder, and on May 1 was sentenced to five life terms in prison. List died from complications of pneumonia at age 82 on March 21, 2008, while in prison custody at a Trenton, New Jersey hospital. In announcing his death the Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger referred to him as the "boogeyman of Westfield". His body was not immediately claimed, though he was later buried next to his mother in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Firefighters can be seen entering the front door of Breeze Knoll as the mansion burned on Aug. 30, 1972. Shortly after the murders, The List home was destroyed by a fire in mysterious circumstances. Among the things lost in the fire was a significant irony: the empty ballroom's glass ceiling, signed by Tiffany & Co., could have potentially cleared all of John List's debts.