The History Bluff

Another week, another winner in the Caption Contest. This week’s winner is Reece who submitted the following caption.

Gandhi: So this guy walked into a bar…

Check the Caption Contest page on Monday for the next caption contest.

The history of performance-enhancing drugs in athletics stretches back as far as ancient Greece and the battle at Marathon.

Morbid obesity became common in the boxing of the early 1900’s, but would it last?

Maria Smith developed a new kind of apple in 1868, grown from the remains of French crab apples. Smith died in 1870 after battling severe, undiagnosed stomach pains for two years.

In her last portrait, Granny Smith is in obvious pain after eating one too many of her apples.

Today, the Spanish Inquisition is usually viewed as an instrument of fear, torture and death, a device used to keep the masses in total subjection to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Lost in this depressing picture is the real origin of the Inquisition, which was, of course, was a hit traveling game show.
Upon [...]

Two historians were involved in a hotly contested battle in this caption contest. In the end Jon was victorious with this caption:

Get off my shoulder, little angel! And stop telling me what to do!

Second place was Matt who believed President Nixon was doing the hokey-pokey: “You put your whole self in and shake it all [...]

One of the most celebrated campaigns in military history occurred in 1415, when Henry V of England invaded France. The accepted reasons why he invaded France, however, have long been debated. Recent research by our team has proven that Henry V invaded France because his top-secret network of spies (known as The French Connection) had [...]

New light is shed on a tragic event involving the pool of Bethesda.

Alexander the Great, one of the greatest military commanders in history, conquered the majority of civilization after his ascendancy to the throne of Macedon in 336 BC. His men, however, would not continue into the relatively unknown region of present-day India.
Historians have often speculated why Alexander’s men refused to continue. Was the Ganges River was [...]