Your favorite historical mystery, legend, conspiracy theory...

[WordMan]

Clearly the most compelling is the revival of zombies.

[DrForrester]

I watched a documentary on the History Channel a few years ago - before they went all “Ancient Aliens” - on the Man In The Iron Mask. They ran through all of the most popular theories. They gave the reasons why the theories emerged and why they have been discounted.

Then, in the last moments of the show, they say that they have almost certainly discovered the true identity of the man, and are looking for specific documents, which should exist. Then, it ended! The new theory wasn’t discussed any further. No details - about who the guy was or why he was kept a prisoner for so long… Just, essentially, “Stay Tuned!”

sigh Very annoying. But, I enjoy this particular mystery because it should, in principle, still be possible to solve it.

[Clementine]

Wow, now this is a zombie thread. Thirteen years old!

Here’s a fun one that was published before this thread started:

The Israeli "art student" mystery

[KatTP]

@Lissa

My favorite has always been the death of Amy Dudley.

For those of you unfamiliar with this, Robert Dudley was a favorite of Elizabeth I. They were so close that folks believed that if he weren’t already married to Amy, Elizabeth would have married him.

Amy was found dead at the foot of her staircase one day. It was determined that she had fallen and broken her neck, but questions have alwasy abounded surrounding the incident. Did an overzealous servant perhaps get rid of Amy thinking that it was what his master truly wanted? Many historians now think that Amy’s spine spontaneously snapped due to breast cancer, but there are still unanswered questions.

Another mystery that has always intrigued me: Mary, Queen of Scots and the murder of Lord Darnley (actually the title of a new book on the subject.)

I’ve also always wondered what Jeanne D’Arc said to the Dauphin which convinced him that she was sent by God.

Oh, that is a great story! We visited Kenilworth castle a few months ago where the have a great display, and many stories of Dudley, the Queen, and his wife. When we first started reading the displays we were quite sure he was a fan boy of the queen, and it was a rather unrequited love on his part, but reading further it appeared she also felt the same way. When we got to the part about poor Amy I assumed that he pushed her down the stairs. Didn’t quite work out the way he wanted.

Kind Arthur legends are my favourites. Fell in love with the story 25 years ago and have read quite a bit through the years. We moved to England 2.5 years ago(from Canada) and have managed to visit a lot of the places I had read about for so so long. We recently went down to Cornwall, visited Tintagel, went to Glastonbury, his supposed resting place. Been over to Wales, visited the roman ruins in Caerleon, that was very cool.

[Bridget_Burke]

@Ms_Boods

Prester John, the mysterious priest who wrote letters to western leaders in the Middle Ages – over a period of about 300 years – describing his paradisical kingdom ‘far to the east.’ Expeditions were sent East to find him; he supplied them with maps and directions and tantylising descriptions of the fountain of youth and genstones lying scattered about on the ground as common as gravel. As a child, I hoped liked mad to be able to research as an adult what I think is the greatest Rag Week/Frat Boy prank of all time…

No idea how you could research this, but I’ve always felt a pang when I read about someone who was well known in his lifetime, who falls right out of the history books: Catullus just disappears from history at a young age despite his contemporary fame as a poet.

And no one knows what happened to poet and criminal Francois Villon. I can’t remember if he was acquitted or escaped after his last conviction, but he vanishes from history afterwards, still a fairly young man…

I’m taking advantage of this zombie resurrection to mention Avram Davidson’s Adventures in Unhistory.

[Bridget_Burke]

@Ms_Boods

Prester John, the mysterious priest who wrote letters to western leaders in the Middle Ages – over a period of about 300 years – describing his paradisical kingdom ‘far to the east.’ Expeditions were sent East to find him; he supplied them with maps and directions and tantylising descriptions of the fountain of youth and genstones lying scattered about on the ground as common as gravel. As a child, I hoped liked mad to be able to research as an adult what I think is the greatest Rag Week/Frat Boy prank of all time…

No idea how you could research this, but I’ve always felt a pang when I read about someone who was well known in his lifetime, who falls right out of the history books: Catullus just disappears from history at a young age despite his contemporary fame as a poet.

And no one knows what happened to poet and criminal Francois Villon. I can’t remember if he was acquitted or escaped after his last conviction, but he vanishes from history afterwards, still a fairly young man…

I’m taking advantage of this zombie resurrection to mention Avram Davidson’s Adventures in Unhistory. From the Amazon summary:

Not a novel, not a book of short stories,* Adventures in Unhistory* is a book of the fantastic–a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and–revealed at last–the Secret of Hyperborea.

Endlessly fascinating…

[PatrickLondon]

@Cicero

Whatever became of Peter The Painter after the Siege of Sydney Street (1911)?

There’s certainly been one book that identified him as somehow getting away and ending up as an NKVD hatchet man in the 1930s.

The Amber Room: I thought it had been established that it was in Königsberg at the time the Red Army was advancing in early 1945, and was probably destroyed in the fighting?

The Man In the Iron Mask: I read one theory that there was such a man, and that he was the son of the Captain of the Royal Guards of Louis XIV’s mother - his confinement being attributed to his bearing an uncanny and embarrassing likeness to Louis XIV (who came very late in the marriage of Louis XIII and Anne, after several stillbirths), rather than an inconvenient twin with a legitimate claim on the throne.

[Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil]

The Voynich Manuscript is definitely intriguing.

Another favourite is the Dyatlov Pass Incident. While I don’t believe there’s anything supernatural behind the tragedy, I’d really like to know what compelling natural force caused it because, well, it’s just weird. The main question being of course not how the members of the expedition died (hypothermia for most of them) but what caused the apparently senseless behaviour that preceded and probably caused their death, bearing in mind that these were experienced hikers. There’s a theory I hadn’t heard of before based on an infrasound-induced panic attack that I find interesting.

Finally, this thread has reminded me of the sweatings sickness. The idea of a disease that could kill in a matter of hours popping up for a few decades and then vanishing completely is unsettling.

[Dendarii_Dame]

For anyone interested in Lizzie Borden, I recommend Florence King’s essay. Lizzie Borden's Wasp Murders | National Review

I’d add the Green Children–two kids turn up, and they’re green. They supposedly said they were from “another place” and were carried here by “a whirlwind”. Green children of Woolpit - Wikipedia

Also I’m interested in the Tunguska Event. Read somewhere that instead of a meteor or a comet, an earthquake might’ve opened a vent that released natural gas. Lightning or some other spark could’ve ignited it.

[Katriona]

And I see that I posted the same thing years ago. Whoops.