Retaking the Ship from Confederate Pirates
In July, 1861, the U.S. merchant sailing vessel S.J. Waring was seized by Confederate pirates. William Tillman, a black man and the ship’s cook and steward, learned the pirates intended to seize him too and sell him into slavery in the Confederacy. Tillman was not going to let that happen. He spent nine days quietly […]
The Chinese Legation to the Paris Commune
In 1870, the government of China had to send an emergency legation to Paris in response to an incident in a Chinese port. It was an unusual circumstance; this was only the third formal diplomatic mission sent by the Qing dynasty to the Western world. A translator with the 1870 mission, Zhang Deyi, had served […]
Cotton Mather’s American Ghosts
The Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather (1663-1728) is one of the boogeymen of early American history. Among his many sins, he helped fuel the Salem witch trials that executed 20 people for witchcraft. In the trials he successfully argued that the contents of magical visions should be considered legally admissible evidence. Mather was a prolific writer. […]
Terrible Mountain Travels in 16th-Century Afghanistan
This week we return to another intriguing moment in the life of Babur (1483-1530). He would go on to found the Mughal Empire in India, but at this point in his story he was fleeing from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. He would soon claim a new kingdom, then have to make a perilous mountain crossing in […]
Fantastical Islands from a Roman Novel
Lucian of Samosata was a second-century author writing in Roman Turkey. His best-known work is A True History, a satire of ancient historians who breathlessly repeated whatever half-baked tall tales they’d been told about foreign lands. Much as it pains me to see my beloved Herodotus so ill-treated, A True History is both funny and […]
The Wreck of the Convict Ship ‘George III’
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Patrocles’ Caspian Exploration Fraud
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Ibn Battuta’s Maldivian Coup Plot
We’ve talked twice before about Ibn Battuta, the medieval Moroccan traveler. This time, we’re going to talk about his adventures in the Maldives, a paradisiacal tropical archipelago south of India. In the Maldives, Ibn Battuta got pressed into service as an Islamic judge, let his bad attitude get him into political trouble, and plotted a […]
Wild Adventures Mapping the Khorasan Border
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Xuanzang and the Five Border Towers
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Emissary to the Mongols
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The Wonders of Sir John Mandeville (Asia)
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The Wonders of Sir John Mandeville (the Mediterranean)
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Tall Tales of the West African Gold Trade
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The Wreck of the Ma’adin Ijafen
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