“This is a list of publicly unexplained human disappearances, and of people whose current whereabouts are unknown or whose deaths are not substantiated, as well as a few cases of people whose disappearances were notable and remained unexplained for a long time, but were eventually explained, or the body found.”
- 71 BC – Spartacus, leader of a slave rebellion against the Roman Empire. Although he was presumed killed in battle during the Third Servile War, his body was never found and his fate remains unknown.
probably dead by now though
- 53 BC – Ambiorix was, together with Catuvolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of northeastern Gaul (Gallia Belgica), where modern Belgium is located. According to the writer Florus (iii.10.8), Ambiorix and his men managed to cross the Rhine and disappeared without a trace.
probably died sometime after 53 BC but before 1 BC, most likely near modern Belgium or possibly elsewhere
- c. 96 – Apollonius of Tyana (Philosopher) First century teacher who was known throughout the Roman Empire vanished mysteriously while walking down the road at age 100.
he was very old and he died on the road somewhere
- 108–164 – Legio IX Hispana (Ninth Spanish Legion) was a Roman legion stationed in Britain during the Roman conquest of Britain that disappears from surviving records without explanation in the second century. There are multiple conjectures regarding what happened to it and why no record of its fate has been found. Many references to the legion have been made in subsequent works of fiction.
whatever happened, at the very least, they are now dead; there is no chance they are still alive
- 378 – Roman Emperor Valens was defeated by the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople (modern Edirne, Turkey). The body of Valens was never found.
killed by Goths, though
- c. 834 – Muhammad ibn Qasim (al-Alawi) led a rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate but was defeated and detained. He was able to flee but was never heard from again.
no one ever heard from him again because eventually he died, maybe right away or maybe a long time later but he definitely didn’t live into, say, the twelfth century
- 1071 – Hereward the Wake was a formerly exiled Anglo-Danish minor noble rebel who led a huge revolt in the marshy region of Ely in England against the rule of William the Conqueror. Eventually betrayed by fearful local monks who led the Norman troops through secret trackways, many rebels were mutilated or executed, but Hereward escaped, never to be heard of again.
okay but he’s not still around
- 1203 – Arthur, Duke of Brittany, an heir to the throne of England. He was supported by French nobility who did not want John of England as overlord. On 31 July 1202, while besieging his grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine, Arthur was surprised and captured by John’s barons and imprisoned at Falaise in Normandy. The following year, Arthur was transferred to Rouen and then vanished mysteriously in April 1203.
dead now
- c. 1291 – Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, Genoese sailors and explorers lost while attempting the first oceanic journey from Europe to Asia.
probably dead somewhere in the ocean but absolutely dead
- 1412 – Owain Glyndŵr, the last native Welsh person to hold the title Prince of Wales, instigated the Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England in 1400. Although initially successful, the uprising was eventually put down, but Glyndŵr disappeared and was never captured, betrayed, or tempted by royal pardons.
right but that didn’t make him immortal. he was never captured but he did eventually die. maybe in 1414? or some other, similar year
- 1483 – The Princes in the Tower, Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, first duke of York (9), sons of King Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville, were placed in the Tower of London (which at that time served as a fortress and a royal palace as well as a prison) by their uncle Richard III of England. Neither was ever seen in public again and their fate remains unknown. The remains of four children have been found which could be the princes, but they have not been subjected to DNA analysis to positively identify them.
their fate is that they died
- 1499 – John Cabot, Italian explorer, disappeared along with his five ships during an expedition to find a western route from Europe to Asia.
died somewhere on the way to Asia
- 1501 – Gaspar Corte-Real, Portuguese explorer, disappeared on an expedition to discover the Northwest Passage from Europe to Asia. Two of his ships returned to Lisbon, but the third, with Gaspar on board, was lost and never heard from again.
update: he’s dead now
- 1502 – Miguel Corte-Real, Portuguese explorer, disappeared while searching for his brother Gaspar. Like his brother, he took three ships, and as with his brother, the ship with Miguel on board was lost and never heard from again
like his brother, he’s dead
- 1578 – Sebastian of Portugal, Portuguese King, whose body was never found after the Battle of Alcácer Quibir; many Portuguese came to believe that Sebastian had survived the battle and would return to claim his throne. The belief arose that Sebastian could return at any moment to help Portugal in its darkest hour
well not now he can’t, no matter how long he maybe survived after that battle, it definitely hasn’t been for “secretly 500 years”
- c. 1590 – The Roanoke colonists disappeared, becoming known as the Lost Colony. On 18 August 1590, their settlement was found abandoned.
someone found out what happened to them, I forget what but we definitely found out
- 1696 – Henry Every was an English pirate who vanished after perpetrating one of the most profitable pirate raids in history; despite a worldwide manhunt and an enormous bounty on his head, Every was never heard from again.
then he died
- 1788 – Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, daughter of a wealthy plantation owner on the French island of Martinique. After being sent to a convent school in France, she was returning home in July or August 1788 when the ship she was on vanished at sea. It is thought that the ship was attacked and taken by Barbary pirates. It has been suggested that she was enslaved and eventually sent to Istanbul as a gift to the Ottoman sultan by the Bey of Algiers. It is unconfirmed if she was the same person asNaksh-i-Dil Haseki, consort of the sultan
either that’s what happened to her and then she died, or she died before any of that and it happened to someone else
- 1792 – James Harrod, 46, an early explorer of the areas west of the Appalachian Mountains prior to their settlement by European-Americans, never returned from a trip to western Kentucky from Harrodsburg. Theories about his fate range from murder at the hands of his companions or Native Americans in the area, to accidental death or a desire to abandon his wife and family.
he died probably somewhere in Kentucky or elsewhere, but he’s certainly dead now
Well, thanks for clearing that up.
FREE YA IDEA IN THE VEIN OF THE FACE ON THE MILK CARTON
Bored teen explores this Wikipedia page only to find an entry that sounds suspiciously like themself.
“After being sent to a convent school in France, she was returning home in July or August 1788 when the ship she was on vanished at sea…
“Haha, same”
I mean sometimes my bus is late and that’s essentially the same thing
There is a series of books by Margaret Peterson Haddix called “the Missing” in which famous missing children from history time travel and are adopted by 21st century families. The first one is called “Found.” I cannot attest to their quality, but they were very popular a few years ago.
Yet another “and here I though I was the only one that went through life doing that” moment brought to you by The Toast.
Wow, I was literally looking at that page an hour ago (via Manic Street Preachers>Richey Edwards).
Mallory, you know my SOUL.
With every year that passes, it becomes more and more of a certainty that the Zodiac Killer is dead, and the chances of us figuring it out dwindle ever lower. Isn’t that the biggest relief and simultaneously the biggest disappointment in the world? All these mysteries are limited by the PUNY HUMAN LIFESPAN.
hold up didn’t we identify the zodiac killer just recently
Yes, former US Presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
Also: Kennedy Assassination. If it were the CIA or the army, probably one of the dozen conspirators would have said something as they were dying.
It was Jackie. Obvs.
All I’m saying is that it is a REAL DICK MOVE to take a secret with you to the grave. What are you going to do with that secret once you’re dead? Spill the beans!
This is the best thing I’ve read today, and I am going to make it my life’s work to learn as many secrets as I can so I can posthumously publish a book.
This is why it’s important to make sure all your co-conspirators are younger and healthier than you are. You want your secrets revealed on your deathbed, not on some other plotter’s deathbed while you are still alive.
if i’ve learned anything it’s that you’re supposed to make some kind of elaborate puzzle or secret treasure map with your grave being the final clue that holds the secret
Look, if it was Jackie, I wouldn’t blame her in the least.
Right??
I read a v. interesting theory* that the second bullet was fired by an overeager Secret Service agent who had brought his own firearm from home and accidentally squeezed off a shot as he brought the gun up to aim at Oswald.
I like this theory and have adopted it as canon, mostly because it makes the killing shot into a grand cosmic accident and still leaves room for a conspiracy. (As the Secret Service, wouldn’t you spread misinformation to prevent this from getting out?)
* James, Bill. Popular Crime. He read it somewhere and cited it up proper, but I don’t have the book.
The best-case scenario IMHO is that the Zodiac Killer is not limited by a human lifespan at all — they were a giant tortoise the whole time
please note that this does not preclude ted cruz from also being a giant tortoise in disguise
suddenly a lot of things make sense huh
i always felt he had more of an iguana thing going on but I’m not willing to rule this out
Ok but can either of them eat soup???
I feel like this about Jack the Ripper. Whoever did it has got to be dead by now but it’s so creepy that we don’t know who did it.
It’s also creepy we decided to use the story to create a bunch of weird tourist attractions
I mean, what else are murdered prostitutes* good for, really?
*women, some of whom were prostitutes, others of whom probably worked as washerwomen, but did so in the bad part of town, so let’s just say they were probably prostitutes.
Don’t forget the merchandise, because apparently there’s money in making t-shirts and keychains related to the murders of multiple women
“formerly exiled Anglo-Danish minor noble rebel” has a lovely ring to it.
I’ve been reading a book about Elizabethan England’s links to Islamic rulers which covers the Battle of Alcácer Quibir. Pretty sure there’s an eyewitness account in it where someone’s like ‘Ah it was sad to see the bodies of three dead kings’ which is maybe a fabrication but also possible evidence that people did see Sebastian’s body. Anyway, like you say, dead now.
It is also very close to fitting the rhythm of “supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious”.
And “Anglo-Danish minor noble” fits the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rhythm.
Yes, yes, you’re welcome!
I am irrationally angry that it doesn’t actually fit the rhythm. I mean, it’s SO CLOSE. It does work if you take off the “rebel,” which makes sense anyway, because “minor noble rebel” is like, an adjective and two nouns. “Rebel minor noble” would be more accurate, since, to my understanding, “minor noble” is not, like, an adjectival phrase. It could be, I suppose, but for the purposes of making me not irrationally angry at the lack of rhythm, I say it isn’t.
I spent way too long thinking about that …
It works if you jam all of “formerly” into the two syllables of “super.”
Yes, what made me notice it was that I originally misread “formerly” as just “former” and thought “wow, that rhythm is… familiar.” I’ve been trying out variations and I think what works the best is to sort of elide the “ly” and the “ex” together into one syllable.
I love you all.
What book? That sounds fascinating!
This Orient Isle by Jerry Brotton.
If there didn’t die before, they’re certainly dying now. 2016 is a brutal year and we’ll all be lucky to make it out alive.
This is the naked truth.
so far…
I can’t be sure about the rest but Owain Glyndwr is just biding his time ok
I kind of need a spec-fic book with Owain Glyndwr returning during the Miner’s Strike. it would really surprise me if there’s not at least a short story out there with that premise.
I mean, there’s that whole YA series by Maggie Stiefvater, but I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for.
It was what I was looking for! (I’ve just finished The Raven King and haven’t quite recovered yet.)
ditto! sniff.
I have MANY THOUGHTS about it and my YA partner in crime is still MID BOOK and I have no one with whom to discuss itttttttt
wikipedia tells me that it may well be up my alley, but I was more thinking glorious torrents of pro-working class welsh nationalism and trade unionism with a King Arthuresque return to lead his people against the police and Thatcher. Which is incredibly specific, but also seems like something that would inevitably have been written in the 80s?
I know what you mean, it does feel like it should exist. Am I wrong (child of the 90s here) in thinking there was an upswing in Celtic mythological fiction in the 80s as well?
that feels like it should also be a thing? The Dark is Rising Sequence is ’65-77 and the Prydain Chronicles ’64-8, but the Mists of Avalon (ugh, MZB, ugh) is ’83, Mythago Wood is ’85, and there were a looot of them in the 90s. It might be more down to TV with stuff like Robin of Sherwood? (which someday I have to watch in its entirety rather then random episodes out of context)
Don’t forget Patricia Kennealy-Morrison’s Keltiad books which ran from 1984-1996? Ohhh man. I never revisited those books after high school but I really loved me some Celts in Space.
Also Morgan Llywelyn’s books, which run from 1978 to the present. I see from wiki I have some more new titles to catch up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Llywelyn
ROBIN OF SHERWOOD IS AMAZING GO WATCH IT RIGHT NOW.
It feels right? I mean we had Clannad, Enya, and Loreena McKennitt as well as The Corrs back in the late 80s/early 90s and some of that must have bled over into the storytelling?
So what I’m getting here is that we, the patrons of the online bar/conspiracy headquarters that is The Toast dot com, have discovered a small hole in the universe where an 80s penned, anti-Thatcher, unionist, Celtic Revivalist, Welsh Nationalist fantasy novel about Owain Glyndwr rising again to help with the mining strikes SHOULD exist, but does not appear to.
I dont know what to do with this knowledge.
I know. it seems important and primed for action but… that’s where I stop knowing what’s going on.
Look, Welshmen are super tough. This is extremely likely*.
*it is not at all likely.
Definitely alive and well!
“It’s Owain!”
“Who?”
“You know, from the video.”
Owain’s one of the supposed-to-come-back guys, but I believe it’s recently been proven that he moved in with his daughter and died a natural death eventually.
My favorite Owain Glyndwr factoid, though, is that in praise poetry, he is renowned for being exceptionally generous with the beer. Archaeological investigation at the site of his home, Sycharth, reveals that the soil in the vicinity of the building contains extremely high levels of beer piss. The things modern archaeology can prove ….
Pfah! Proven by who?? Scientists? We all know whose pocket THEY’RE in.
Clearly, in the pocket of Iolo Goch: “Na syched fyth yn Sycharth”: “No thirst forever in Sycharth”!
I wish I could give this a million likes because there are SUCH excellent factoids herein, to wit:
1. Owain was generous with beer, which is already a fantastic fact but that’s merely the start because
2. This was deemed worthy of mention in praise songs, demonstrating that those medieval poets had their priorities in proper order, and,
3. This has been scientifically proven to be true because scientists today have their priorities in proper order and
4. MODERN SCIENCE CAN IDENTIFY ANCIENT BEER PISS RESIDUE.
Truly we live in an age of wonders.
If historical folk disappear mysteriously like these people did, I usually just assume they became vampires.
This is a pretty suspect article for Mallory to write then. If she disappears we’ll be on to the whole vampire plot.
Maybe that’s the real reason the Toast is closing.
Yeah, I was going to say, they disappeared because it started looking suspicious that they weren’t aging. So they are not in fact dead, but undead.
I’m pretty sure there’s more than one book where Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and son of Henry VIII is a vampire or similarly immortal. I know the Tanya Huff Blood series for certain, but I can’t remember the other one.
It was also a TV show, based on the books, which I watched when there was still hope it might get renewed for a second season. *le sigh*
I watched the TV show and went on to read at least one or two of the books based solely on the hotness of the actor playing Henry Fitzroy.
Yet another in a long line of Vampire-related television shows that don’t make it much past the first season. (I loved you Moonlight! You were the closest modern television has come to replacing Highlander in my kind of campiness!) Although I suppose between Buffy and Angel and True Blood they’ve actually done okay on balance.
Moonlight was so gloriously ridiculous.
They had a Leroy Jenkins shout-out!
Re: Roanoke colonists – they ran out of food and started starving to death. Eventually the survivors joined the nearby Native American settlement.
Yeah wasn’t it like, never really a mystery because the next lot of colonists that came along found that some Native people from round there had blond hair and blue eyes? And also according to Wikipedia straight up told them ‘Yes we have white ancestors.’
BUT WE’LL NEVER KNOW FOR SURE.
Yep. The colonists carved the name of a nearby island on a tree, and when the English went there they found some blond, English-speaking Native Americans. SUCH A MYSTERY.
HOWEVER COULD THAT HAVE HAPPENED, WELP, GUESS WE’LL NEVER KNOW
hahaha, they left a forwarding address! And, yet, such a mystery. I wish all the organizations that send me mail were so bad at this.
C R O A T O A N
What could it mean? Oh, let’s go ask these folks who call themselves by that name. Who live on an island with that name.
Every time the “mystery” of Roanoke comes up in a tv show or book I end up yelling “WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!”
Same
Absolutely, I don’t think it was mysterious that they just went “everyone is dying and we have no food, fuck this shit, let’s go somewhere else, maybe see if the guys who are actually used to living in these parts and have food might take us in”
Pretty sure that’s also what happened to the Spanish Legion.
I have spent way too much time in wiki spirals starting on that page but this is definitely true
I AM SPARTACUS
I remember the Third Servile War, I remember it like it was just yesterday. If anything it was twice as servile as the first two, it may have been the most servile war in history. We’d shout over the battlements, “We’ve all decided to surrender over here, we simply can’t imagine fighting against such a valorous and well-ordered force.”
And they’d shout back, “Not at all, please allow us to surrender to you, it would be the greatest honor imaginable to bend our knees to such impressively armed and hygenic foes.”
“Goodness, our blushes! In all sincerity, we can’t bring ourselves to raise a hand against you. Instead of fighting, what do you say we all fade away mysteriously out of the annals of history?”
“Splendid! We’ll bring pie!”
I still have flashbacks about it sometimes, if it’s no bother.
I’m Spartacus!
I’m Spartacus, and so’s my wife!
I’m Frank Sinatra’s son
All turned into vampires, survived to present day, belong to RPG group whose average character level is in the four figures.
+1 Intelligence to you, sir.
I covet this. I gotta be honest. The best thing about immortality is how I would have had time to acquire every cool mount in WoW.
Unfortunately, Owain Glyndŵr survived long enough to be the premise for a series of deeply annoying YA novels.
Spartacus is 100% dead, though.
*stage whispers from the I Keep Trying To Read These Various Hyped YA Books And Failing section*
thank you
*stage whispers I Liked Those Books Okay But Only Stuck With It Because I LOVE LOVE LOVED Scorpio Races*
maybe try Scorpio Races if you haven’t and it sounds interesting? it’s miles better than anything else Maggie Stiefvater has written imho
I tried. Something about her writing (the overwrought, overly-wordy comparisons? ‘kissing so and so was like… [insert a paragraph of unrelated things]’ no. it wasn’t. it was just mouth melding with an attractive person. we’ve been doing it for centuries.) just rubs me the wrong way. Lord knows I’ve tried.
Ah, I see. The writing is actually what I enjoy most about her books (and one of the few reasons I read all the way through the raven cycle) but she definitely has A Style and I can understand how someone might not like it!
I really liked her Shiver series, they still suffer from the standard YA tropes, but they’re entertaining. Plus the aesthetics of the printed books pleases me (minimalist monochrome covers with the printing inside the same colour).
If I was an actual teen or tween I might’ve jumped in with zero regrets, but I’ve become crotchety in my old age and the sparser the language the better.
That and I couldn’t stand the main character of Scorpio and Raven in both of the bits I managed to get through.
Oh man, Blue is a lot like I was as a teenager and reading those books was an exercise in understanding why I (probably more often than I remember) came across as difficult/annoying to others while simultaneously loving her for our similarities. I don’t know if I’ve met a fictional character that I identify with as much as I do Blue, so that was a new experience for me.
Please tell me more about these YA novels because I need something to buy my mum for her birthday.
Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle, a series ostensibly about teens trying to find Owen Glendower but actually just puttering about plotlessly and acting annoyingly twee for four 500+-page books. I gave up after book #2.
Hmmm, doesn’t sound campy enough for my needs. But thank you!!
The real Glendower was the friendships they made along the way. The codependent friendships with a side of shipping.
Is THAT what that series is about?! I only know of it from fandom osmosis, and I thought it was about, idk, a sad wizard boy band.
Would watch, TBH.
Same here! Or, like, a Chosen One and his friends
I mean… you’re not WRONG.
When it’s spelled “Glendower,” I have to read it in the MST3K “Rowsdower!” voice. So now I’m assuming these books are basically The Final Sacrifice.
I wonder if there’s beer on the sun…
I was unaware of the series in question, so at first I thought this was throwing shade at The Dark Is Rising (because I’m pretty sure Owain Glyndŵr shows up in that at some point, yes?). Thankfully I had to go do something before I could compose an offended comment, and I’m relieved to see that I was mistaken. 🙂
Yes, he totally shows up–because ALL the Celtic folk heroes show up in that series (one of the reasons I love it).
SPOILERS THEY WERE ALL THE ETERNAL COMPTE
on a sadder note, in an era where everyone is carrying a radio they can use to talk to anyone else in the world from almost anywhere, I now assume “right but he’s probably dead though” immediately on hearing a missing persons report =
That kid in Japan was found alive after a week, though, so there’s still hope.
…of course, his parents DID know where they had literally abandoned him…
Yeah, the headlines where there was a lot of ‘Every parents nightmare!’ kinda got the side eye from me, like ‘C’mon, guys, all parents have dropped their kid at the side of the road and drove off, right?’ Nah, think that’s just you, actually.
I guess it depends on what happened and why they’re missing. If it’s a hiker, someone who voluntarily ran away and just needs time to think, or someone who is otherwise lost… they might still be alive after a week.
In most cases, though, isn’t there something like how chances of someone being found alive significantly decrease after 48 hours?
That’s why I like reading about disappearances that involve fugitives or possible assumed identities. More fun to think about how someone is outsmarting the people trying to look for them than to consider how quickly a helpless person would die at sea or out in the cold. This one is wild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Kinne
in an era where everyone is carrying a radio they can use to talk to anyone else in the world from almost anywhere
There was an item on Marketplace yesterday about cell phone service, and they were talking about how cell phones only work on, like, 14% of the earth’s surface. Not to mention battery problems and service provider limitations: when I lived in China my only phone was one that didn’t work outside the mainland of the PRC, even in special administrative regions like Hong Kong, so I was phone-less while traveling in Hong Kong and Malaysia. There are a lot of holes in that net.
Hell, I live in the PNW and there are huge, huge swaths of my state that do not have cell coverage.
My apartment barely has cell coverage, although to be fair I am unlikely to become lost there. But my mom has been having this issue recently – she moved to a new house where coverage is spotty at best, and whenever she tries to give people directions, they’re like, no worries, I’ll just use GPS! And she has to remind them that about half the drive is through a canyon where your phone can’t talk to the satellites.
GPS cannot locate our office building (due to some issues with industrial park driveways vs. actual roads), but whenever I tell a visitor that and try to offer directions, they always say, “No problem, I’m sure the GPS can find it.”
And then they call me later when they are lost and I have to go out into the parking lot and jump around waving until they can find us. (GPS will get you close.)
I once found myself in a part of the west hills in Portland with no cell service. If I climbed to the top of a hill (in someone’s driveway) I could see downtown. It was freaky.
But yeah: there are huge portions of the state, near civilizaton!, that have no service, because hills.
There was that kid who found out he was missing when he applied for college.
“Hereward the Wake” is a great name, though.
Shit, I’m not on Twitter, but if I was, I’d find a way to use “Hereward the Woke,” AMIRITE
welcome to the wake of hereward the wake, who’s totally dead
I’ve only ever heard of him from the Josephine Tey book, “Brat Farrar,” which is itself a missing persons story and I love it. Someone is asked if they remember the wallpaper with characters like Robinson Crusoe and Hereward the Wake, who had an enchnting profile.
I am real life, 2016, friends with a guy called Hereward. You don’t think…..?
I thought I remembered hearing on Rex Factor that John killed Arthur of Brittany? Maybe even by his own hand? Are any historian toasties able to comment on this?
That is the assumption, yes. Though it’s a bit like the “Richard III killed the Princes in the Tower” theory in that both John and Richard suffered from a lot of bad press after their deaths and there is no evidence, etc. I personally am slightly more inclined to believe that John had Arthur killed than that Richard had the Princes killed. But I would be very very surprised if I had magic time traveling powers and learned that either one of them killed any of their nephews in person.
Please discuss Richard III and his nephews at length. I am here for this. Personal opinions, intuitions, use of ouija board acceptable references in addition to actual historical evidence. I trust you.
What if the real nephews were the friends we made along the way
You’ve read Josephine Tey, “The Daughter of Time,” right??
(“More than ever, Grant wondered with which part of their brain historians reasoned.”)
Do whatever you want, they’re super-dead.
I will always thumbs-up not-so-random H references.
Especially on Mallory posts because they piss her off 😛
Bonus! (Please don’t strike me down Mallory I worship you only you always you)
>well not now he can’t, no matter how long he maybe survived after that battle, it definitely hasn’t been for “secretly 500 years”
I’d like to point out that there’s a whole folk thing about him showing up in Portugal to sort out the country, a bit like the British thing about King Arthur coming back
or maybe that’s what you were referring to with the “secretly 500 years” thing?
Mallory did not consider that they are residing in a land without time to be called into our world when we need them the most.
WHOA hey SPOILER ALERT Mallory seriously wtf
This seems like a good place to leave a link to Frock Flick’s “There are no spoilers in history” merch
http://shop.spreadshirt.com/FrockFlicks/
A+: would like again
My theory is that these are all the same eternal being. I mean, did anyone ever see all these people in the same room at once? Right??
Well, but maybe the two brothers…
They did it with mirrors
That sounds correct. Comment rescinded.
I was going to say, clearly this means there were exactly two immortal beings. Either allies or enemies or enemies-turned-allies-over-the-millennia.
Ala Crowley and Aziraphale.
They were, indeed, exactly who I was thinking of.
I can imagine Aziraphale somehow genuinely getting lost at sea, and Crowley being very exasperated that he has to go find him.
Between this and having re-read Lord of the Rings over the past few days, I am ready to go write some smutty fan fiction. Woe for the fact that I’m temping in an office which… would not understand.
The PHILISTINES. *tch*
I spent a whole summer once reading about cases like this from the late 19th/early 20th century. I know that the people involved are probably dead now, but it still creeped me out. It’s even creepier when you’re reading about women and half of the theories are about abortions gone wrong, shitty boyfriends, serial killers, and/or gangsters who had a grudge against their boyfriends.
Hm.
I just realized that I’m generally more inclined to enjoy thought exercises and imaginary flights of fancy regarding real vanished people if they’re men
Because if they’re women I just instantly assume a man murdered them
🙁
Yeah. Yeah, that.
And you’re probably right in most of those cases.
Yes, basically. The answer to missing women 99% of the time is “men” and it’s really depressing.
I wish that the answer to all missing women could just be “she ran away because she wanted to enjoy her freedom and led a happy life until she died peacefully in her old age”.
There’s a street in my town named Corte Real, so based on this totally conclusive proof it’s obvious that the Corte-Real explorer-brothers decided to emigrate to unexplored northern Canada and leave over-civilized Europe behind them for good.
Sounds pretty legit to me. I mean, is there any other reason to emigrate to Canada?
They went there first, looking for passage to the Pacific, and had a pretty heavy influence on founding of Euro settlements in Canada
(source: one time I spent an afternoon reading up on those guys so I could make up a folk tale about the third brother left behind – the king wouldn’t let him go after his brothers and he was pretty pouty about it.)
Last week I learned that that there was a Welsh MP who disappeared after being swept out to sea in a balloon. From Wikipedia: “The crew tried to descend near Bridport but the balloon hit the ground so hard that Templer was thrown out. As a result the balloon rose again, Agg Gardner fell out from a height of about eight feet and broke his leg, and Powell, remaining in the car, was swept out to sea to the south east. He was last seen waving his hand to Captain Templer and nothing more was heard of him.” Amazing.
(Wikipedia has a whole list of missing aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_air… Also, the article for “Records of members of Parliament of the United Kingdom” is amazing. Want to know who the heaviest-ever MP was? This will tell you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_members_…
That is an excellent list of records! Turns out there were many MPs who died falling from horses, and one who died after being gored by his pet bull in 1665.
Ahh so many of these are gold:
‘1843 (died of tetanus after accidentally shooting himself in the Pyrenees)’
Ooo nasty
‘1832 (effects of choking on chicken bone)’
Chicken bone – possible effects: death
‘1881 (fall on turnip while shooting)’
SO MANY QUESTIONS
‘1910 (fall from horse in House of Commons Steeplechase)’
Give how many MPs died from falling off horses, you’d think a House of Commons Steeplechase would have struck someone as a terrible idea…
Oh my god, there are actually two MPs who have died after being gored by their pet bulls. And two who died from choking on a chicken bone, one of whom was named Mr Dingle Foot.
oh man, right in the Pyrenees, that’s a very painful place to get shot
Thank you, I will treasure this information always. XD Dingle Foot.
And so many who have died in a duel! Why all the duelling, guys?
It’s very important to look impressive for the hot ladies who totally aren’t interested in you anyway. Prestige and whatnot.
Can we agree that duels are dumb and immature?
Sure!
No, we cannot. I’LL SEE YOU AT DAWN, YOU SCOUNDREL.
“1845 (died of tetanus after breaking leg in altercation with horse).”
I really wish there were more info given here, particularly from the horse’s perspective.
I feel like the horse would be so much more objective and honest about what happened.
The list of “physically disabled MPs” is also interesting, mostly because a lot of them became disabled through battle or duels, but at least two had their “hand cut off in lieu of execution” (William Page and John Stubbs) and one (Brook Watson) who had his leg bitten off by a shark.
The “accidental deaths” are also quite interesting, and I wonder if 600 years or so is “too soon” to laugh about poor Sir Ralph Carminowe who was “pulled over a cliff by a pack of hounds while hunting” in the 1300s. Or Sir William Keyt, who died in a house fire that he set “when insane.”
And the dude who died of gangrene after someone *stepped on his toe.*
((vows to be more careful when dancing))
Powell is obviously the Wizard of Oz.
Australia lost a Prime Minister once. I mean he went swimming and never came back so it’s not really a mystery coughsharkscough. But still, bit careless there Aus.
Didn’t they name a swimming pool after him?
My favorite conspiracy theories about Harold Holt are: he was a spy for the Chinese and was picked up a by their submarine and taken into hiding before his cover was blown; or he was killed by the CIA because he was less than committed to the Vietnam war and was opposed to American military bases in Australia.
That is way more plausible than just going swimming at a notoriously dangerous beach full of sharks and being drowned/eaten.
Those Chinese subs are everywhere man. Everywheeeerrreee…..
HDU, Owain Glyndŵr is definitely still alive and still writing letters to the king of France
“Hereward the Wake” is the BEST name.
Why the certainty here, but only a careful hedging of bets w.r.t. dogs and cats throughout European art history? What are you not telling us?
Look, all of us pet owners know that animals are eternal, there’s really no mystery to me. Well, except for the exact location, upstate, of that farm they all retire to.
I just guffawed at this, in part because it reminds me of watching old movies with my mom and her charming habit of saying, of any dog featured in the movie, “he’s definitely dead now.”
RIP all dogs who have crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. They deserve heaven more than we ever could.
These theories all severely ignore the possibility of time travel. I firmly believe that many mysterious old people are really time travelers who having found themselves displaced from their original wars settled down to peaceful lives in small towns secure in the knowledge that their battles were won centuries ago.
That or aliens.
Time-traveling aliens, clearly.
Like Old Spock!
You missed a golden opportunity to say “but Real talk, he’s totally dead now.”
I’ve always felt that whatever the historical record the Ninth Spanish Legion was just a big accounting fraud.
I just mistook the German lost legions for the Spanish lost legions, mea culpa!
wait how many legions have been lost?? How do you misplace a legion??
Well it’s not like we have good records. Basically, there’s an inscription (? I think it’s an inscription but it might be a papyrus and no I’m not going not google it.) from 170 CE or so that lists all of the legions, and the 9th isn’t on it. But we definitely have mentions here and there up to 120 or so, when they were in Britain. So, somewhere between 120 and 160 that legion ceased to exist for some reason or another (disbanded? Wiped out? Just left off this particular list?)
It was a very big empire.
There were a lot of lost legions I guess, so no worries?
I mean there’s some (?) evidence that they might have been just posted to Syria. Then probably got wiped out in a battle there.
Or got lost onthe way, like luggage.
I hate when that happens.
Real disappointed Theodosia Burr is not here, really wanted to hear Mallory’s opinion on her deadness
The most one can ever hope for from Mallory on anything even tangentially Hamilton-related is a not-unkind reminder that Mallory does not much care about anything even tangentially Hamilton-related.
Appolonius of Tyana is currently touring with the Circus of Dr. Lao, if I recall correctly.
c. 1291 – Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, Genoese sailors and explorers lost while attempting the first oceanic journey from Europe to Asia.
“…Couldn’t we just walk?”
“For shame, Ugolino! Where is your spirit of adventure?”
“It just seems like it makes more sense to walk.”
“We wouldn’t be able to carry much liquor by ourselves, now would we?”
“Horseback, then.”
“Ugolino, tell me: where are our horses?”
“Ah. We sold them, for liquor. I’d forgotten.”
“So we have no horses, but what DO we have?”
“A ship, which we were unable to sell for liquor, because it is so incredibly unseaworthy.”
“Exactly! You see the beauty of this plan! Come, let us prepare for our voyage!”
“Which way are the docks from here?”
“…Do you have your compass with you?”
“I have… a bottle.”
“Give it here… The bottle says we go this way.”
That is, ten thousand percent, exactly how it went down.
One of my favorite parts of the movie Barry Lyndon is the epilogue:
“It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.”
But what matters is that FIRST THEY LIVED, amirite?
(I mean, they did, presumably.)
OK BUT SOMEONE GIVE ME A GOOD REASON that we haven’t tested the children’s bodies (worst thing to type ever but oh well) so see which if any are the Lost Princes? This is EMOTIONALLY IMPORTANT TO ME to know for sure.
But it still wouldn’t tell us who killed them, so does it really matter?
To know that they are found? And not still unaccounted for?
Queen says nah.
When I was a child I received a magazine for nerds (Aquila! It had stuff on science and history and books, and it was wonderful. It still exists) which published one article saying that at least one of the skeletons has bloodstains on the cheekbone of the sort caused by blood vessels bursting during suffocation. Therefore, definitely the Princes in the Tower. I have always just accepted that as conclusive.
Wait, do we know the Princes were strangled though? Or could they just be other, unrelatedly strangled children??
I think (from reading that comment) that the “the Princes were strangled” thing was because of the blood stain.
Was this … a kids’ magazine for nerds? That discussed how dead children were murdered? Or were you just a precocious child?
Yes, for children! I think the assumption was just “everyone knows about the Princes in the Tower, so let’s just talk objectively about the science of suffocation”. It was great – I never felt patronised by it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquila_%28children&…
I never read this magazine but can confirm that there have been children’s reading material that mention the Princes in the Tower. I had a few of those books about spooky mysteries and it included the Princes in the Tower.
One of them (about ghosts) even included a story about how some of Jack the Ripper’s victims have supposedly been seen as ghosts.
I AM ALSO FEELING THIS.
Especially after that tepid/ridiculous/kind of awesome documentary about the discovery and verification of Richard III.
Sort of relatedly, because, y’know, vanishing / killed English royalty, Ian Mortimer has a great theory on how Edward II was not actually killed (and certainly not in the gruesome way that Marlowe suggests) but lived out his life as a religious pilgrim with occasional visits from his son, and he does marshal the evidence for it, which is quite wonderful. It’s in his book about Edward III.
Personal headcanon is Owain Glyndŵr turned into a corgi and is very happy somewhere.
He’s one of the Queen’s, perfectly poised to take his final revenge on the English monarchy—when they least expect it.
Would read the hell out of this novel.
The fate of every loyal Welshman.
This is why you don’t besiege your grandma, right? Because she will make you disappear?
Especially not when your grandma is the badass Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Eleanor is the role model for Olenna Tyrell, trufax.
Too soon.
(My favorite is *Update*)
“probably dead by now though”
This made me giggle snort in public.
NEVER NAME YOUR PRINCES ARTHUR
AARGH
Maybe they were part of the 4400? Anyone?
Gaspar & Miguel Corte-Real also had crews who were never found, and maybe they’re still alive?
I was reading this with my sister and the thing we were most amazed by was how many different ways you could say “he/she died” and it still was amusing so props for that 😀
I was reading this with my sister and the thing we were most amazed by was how many different ways you could say "he/she died" and it still was amusing so props for that 😀