Hu in the Asylum
From 1723 to 1725, the French asylum at Charenton held a patient named Hu John, a Chinese Catholic. How Hu got to France and how he came to be committed is a remarkable story. Springing him is an even better adventure! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Justin Moor. Thanks for […]
Madame Chouteau’s Clever Frontier Inheritance
Marie-Thérèse Chouteau was one of the founders of the city of St. Louis, Missouri. She was a powerful and unusual woman, existing both inside the Franco-Spanish colonial system and outside it, depending on what suited her needs. The way she obtained her inheritance from her not-husband screams to be turned into an adventure, and she […]
Post-Pirate Politics in a Mughal Port
It was 1695 in Surat, a large seaport city in what is today northwest India and was at the time the Mughal Empire. Every year, ships from Surat sailed west across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. They carried goods to trade in Yemen and Muslim pilgrims on the hajj: the pilgrimage to Mecca […]
PCs on the Battlefield: the Siege of Cartagena
The 1741 siege of Cartagena, in what is today Colombia, featured a really interesting variation on the normal siege framework. The British attackers knew going into it that they would likely suffer a devastating outbreak of yellow fever, and that the Spanish defenders would likely be unaffected. Thus, they were racing the clock: they had […]
The Pirate Mutiny that Made the ‘Fancy’
In 1694, a mutiny occurred aboard a British ship moored in a Spanish harbor. A group of sailors, led by the first mate, overpowered the captain and those loyal to him. The mutineers set their enemies adrift and, with the rest of the crew apparently behind them, set off to become pirates! Their ship, rechristened […]
The Bizarre Court-Martial of Francesco Caracciolo
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The Lyon Mail Stagecoach Robbery
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Infiltrating the She-Wolf’s Bandits
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Weird Japanese Monsters
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Shen Fu’s Complicated Family
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Ching Shih
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Carving Up Spain
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Easter Island Collapse
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The State of Muskogee
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Kunstkamera
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