International Best Seller Colin Falconer

stories of romance and epic adventure

Tag: history (page 3 of 6)

THE FACE THAT SUNK A THOUSAND SHIPS (WELL 3, ANYWAY.)

May 6, 2013 / / 10 Comments

As any old sea dog will tell you, it’s unlucky to have a woman on board ship.

(Unless the woman is naked, apparently. Sailors make up the best superstitions.)

But in the case of Violet Jessop, you’d have to say the old sea dogs have a point.

Violet started life as a landlubber, her parents were Irish sheep farmers living in Bahia Blanca in Argentine. Violet was a born survivor - three of her nine siblings did not live beyond infancy. She herself developed tuberculosis when she was a child and doctors said she would die.

But she didn’t. As events would later prove, Violet was pretty much unsinkable. Continue reading

IS EVERYONE BORN WITH A SOUL?

April 17, 2013 / / 25 Comments

So who is this in the photograph? Do you recognize the face? What a cute little baby!

It’s someone very well known.

Instantly recognizable as an adult, in fact.

I’ll give you a clue. It’s a he.

What do you think he became when he grew up – saint or sinner? Famous or notorious?

Write it down and check your answer later.

Writers are taught from the get-go to create believable motivations for their characters. Some teachers even recommend creating whole folios on our MC’s family of origin so that we understand them better.

A hero should have understandable flaws, I was told; and a villain has to have reasons for being bad so we can at least empathize. All very good advice.

But how does it hold up in real life? Continue reading

MAN WHO INVENTED THE SENSATIONAL HEADLINE DIES IN BIG DISASTER!!

April 12, 2013 / / 9 Comments

One hundred and one years ago today, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic; on board was one of the greatest newspapermen of his age, and the most famous Englishman on the ship - William Thomas Stead.

Who?

You have probably never heard of him - he didn’t even rate a cameo in James Cameron’s movie.

Yet Stead was a towering figure in Victorian England, the man who invented tabloid journalism.

He was the first journalist to break the law in the public interest, the man whose actions first raised the question of ethics in newspaper reporting - before Rupert Murdoch was even born.

A hundred and fifty years later the lessons of Stead’s life are still startlingly relevant. Continue reading

THE FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

April 5, 2013 / / 6 Comments

Who was the first female Native American female president of the United States?

(a) Pocahantas
(b) Hiawatha
(c) this is a trick question, isn’t it?

If you answered (c) you’d be right. Because no, there has never been a female American president, never mind one with Native American heritage.

Well, sort of. Historians are divided. Continue reading

THE TITANIC SINKS IN 1898! RICHARD PARKER EATEN TWICE!!

March 27, 2013 / / 10 Comments

You cannot use co-incidence in a novel.

Not ever.

Every writer is taught that, from Story Structure 101.

Even back in Ancient Greece, when Horace was in short pants, the deus ex machina was the mark of the amateur.

Yes, but …

what if you write about a co-incidence before the co-incidence has happened?

Does that count???

Take Edgar Allan Poe for example. Continue reading

THE 19 FUNNIEST WRITER’S NAMES IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD

March 25, 2013 / / 10 Comments

We discussed here a few weeks ago why it is sometimes a good idea to use a pen name.

Here are some more good reasons.

I knew you’d think I was making these up so here they are, complete with Amazon links, the 19 funniest names for writers in the history of the world.

19. FILIBERTO VAGINA d’EMARESE

Being born in the 19th century is no excuse. Books live forever. Even one with a title as gripping as Dei primi elementi dell’economia politica secondo i progressi della scienza libri quattro … con aggiunta d’una memoria sui vantaggi resultanti dalla coltura dei publici pascol. Continue reading

THE SHE WOLF OF ROME: THE EMPRESS THEY JUST COULDN’T KILL

March 21, 2013 / / 3 Comments

Her mother is remembered by history as a modest and heroic woman.

photograph: MrArifnajafov

Agrippina the Younger isn’t.

She was born at a Roman outpost on the Rhine, near present day Cologne.

She came from a line of Roman bluebloods; her father was a popular general and politician, while on her mother’s side she was great grand-daughter of the Emperor Augustus (the one who defeated Cleopatra) and the adopted grand-daughter of the Emperor Tiberius.

When she was 13 she married her second cousin Domitius who, although wealthy, was - according to Suetonius - “a man who was in every aspect of his life, detestable”

When she was 21 the emperor Tiberius died and her only surviving brother, Caligula, became the new emperor. A man who was, in every aspect of his life, degenerate. Continue reading

IF YOU WRITE THAT, I’LL KILL YOU

March 17, 2013 / / 6 Comments

So, religion. Is it about God or is it about women’s rights?

source: Sherry Jones

Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood recently spoke out against a UN declaration on women’s rights, saying it could “destroy society” by allowing a woman to travel, work and use contraception without her husband’s approval.

They want their country to reject and condemn the declaration.

Egypt has joined Iran, Russia and the Vatican (!!) in what some diplomats have dubbed ‘an unholy alliance.’ (And for all the euphoria about the new Pope, who seems like a nice bloke, remember - he is a staunch conservative on women’s issues.)

Is this religion? Continue reading

LIVIN’ THE VIDA LOCA: JUANA OF CASTILE

February 22, 2013 / / 8 Comments

Juana of Castile’s little sister may be more familiar to English-speaking readers; she was Catherine of Aragon, Henry the Eighth’s first wife.

Catherine became, in the eyes of history, the betrayed wife of a fickle king. Thomas Cromwell said of her “If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History.”

But Juana was just as capable and strong-willed: yet she became merely La Loca - Crazy Jo.

She was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Like her sisters, she was groomed from birth to make a good marriage and thus expand her parent’s sphere of influence. Her first lessons were French, needlework, music and dancing, everything required to make her a good medieval wife. Continue reading

THE QUEEN WHO WOULD BE KING

January 26, 2013 / / 8 Comments

It was once written of her: “To look upon her was more beautiful than anything.”

photo: Rob Koopman

But these days Hapshetsut is not the beauty she once was. Her eyes are black resin, her nostrils plugged with linen. She is bald.

But still - not bad for a woman who has been dead for three and a half thousand years. Continue reading

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