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It was medieval England's worst antisemitic massacre. Here's what happened next
Kavita Puri explores York's long and complex Jewish history
On a cold, grey January day in York, I climbed the steps to Clifford’s Tower, continuing all the way to the top to enjoy panoramic views across the city. This structure was for many years a notorious prison, and housed a royalist garrison before being taken by the parliamentarians during the Civil War. Long before then, though, it was the site of one of the worst antisemitic massacres of the Middle Ages. Towards the end of the 12th century, peaking around the time of the Third Crusade, anti-Jewish hostility swelled in England. Antisemitic rioting broke out in London and across the east of the country. In spring 1190, as Jewish properties in York were looted or burned, concerned royal officers sheltered some 150 Jewish people inside a timber structure in York Castle that almost certainly stood on the current site of Clifford’s Tower, built perhaps 60 years later. Read more | “Some say that the first Jews sailed here on King Solomon’s ships”: Kavita Puri on India's long Jewish history A mob surrounded the tower and prepared to attack. On the night of 16 March, many of the Jews inside – seeing no safe way out of the situation – took their own lives, having set their possessions on fire, which ignited the tower itself. One of the aggressors reputedly offered an amnesty to any Jew willing to convert to Christianity – but all who left the tower to do so were murdered. However, that terrible incident did not mark the end of Jewish life in York. Within a few years, a new community was established, which endured in the city throughout the 13th century. Research from the University of York published in 2023 shows that a synagogue stood on Coney Street from 1205 to 1290 – the year when all Jews were expelled from England by order of Edward I. A commemorative plaque was unveiled at the site in 2024. Read more | The history of York: a northern powerhouse of many names Today, Coney Street is a busy commercial thoroughfare – as it was in the Middle Ages, when it was home to a clothier, a leatherworker, a vintner, a goldsmith, a baker and an apothecary, along with important members of the medieval Jewish community. The 2023 research found that a branch of Boots stands on the site occupied by one Leo Episcopus; his son-in-law, Aaron, lived nearby at the spot where Next is today. Both inhabited homes built by Christian landlords and leased to Jews, who lived alongside prominent Christian citizens. Leo and Aaron served as chief representatives of the entire Jewish community in England. In the 1230s and 1240s, Aaron was considered to be the richest man in the country. Charters from the Durham Cathedral archive show how Aaron co-operated with senior clergy of York Minster in purchasing the large stone building that became the city’s Guildhall. It also seems likely that Aaron worked with Minster authorities on the ‘Five Sisters’ window – previously known as the Jewish window – in return for land on which to extend the Jewish cemetery. For so long, the Jewish history of York has been overshadowed by the horrors of what took place at Clifford’s Tower in 1190. Remembrance of this tragedy continues to evolve today: there are plans to redevelop the area around the tower, and proposals include a more formal memorial to the massacre. Each spring, daffodils bloom on the mound – flowers of a six-pointed narcissus variety whose shape echoes the Star of David, creating an annual reminder of the massacre. Read more | The assassins' reign of terror: how these 12th-century killers spread fear in the Middle East It’s right that we mark such a horrifying event – but also that we remember the Jewish community which, in the decades that followed, lived largely harmoniously alongside Christian neighbours in one of the most high-status streets in York. York’s Jewish history is complex – but the university’s research suggests strongly that, during the 13th century, Jews and Christians worked together for the common good, developing civic and religious sites that remain important in the city today. Serendipitously, the university’s findings were revealed just as York appointed its first resident rabbi since the expulsion of 1290 – the latest positive milestone in the city’s long Jewish history. This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
I wrote a letter to the world's most famous terrorist – and nothing could have prepared me for his reply
In December 1975, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – better known as Carlos the Jackal – attacked the headquarters of a global oil organisation in Vienna. Jason Burke recounts the story of the incident, and reveals how his efforts to interview the terrorist helped solve a 50-year-old mystery
About half an hour after opening the letter sent to me by one of the most notorious terrorists of all time, I realised that not only did it contain a note offering “revolutionary greetings”, but that it would lead to the solution of a decades-old mystery. It was the summer of 2023, and for months I had been trying to contact Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal. While researching my book, a narrative history of 1970s terrorism entitled The Revolutionists, I had already spoken to several of those who had bombed, hijacked and shot their way through the decade, but Ramírez Sánchez was the most iconic figure of these years. Arguably the world’s first real ‘celebrity terrorist’, Ramírez Sánchez was responsible for around a dozen major attacks in western Europe between 1973 and 1983. But despite the many articles, books and films about him, there was still much about his career of deadly violence that was unknown. As such, the letter on my doormat marked a significant breakthrough. From Caracas to Paris It had been easy to locate Ramírez Sánchez, who by that point had been incarcerated for nearly 30 years. Captured by the French intelligence service while undergoing minor surgery in Sudan in 1994, he had been convicted of multiple terrorist offences and held in several different prisons across France. Now locked away in a high-security facility in Fresnes, about 20 miles south of Paris, he was allowed a small number of visitors. To be among them, however, I needed an invitation. As a first step, I got a message to him via an intermediary to establish my bona fides. I then wrote directly, explaining my interest in hearing his own version of events. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/9-GettyImages-115106383-1d24d91-e1774617817390.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A multi‑storey brick complex with red‑tiled roofs and uniform tall windows fills the foreground. The older industrial‑style buildings sit within a townscape of smaller houses, trees, and a few commercial structures, including one with a visible shop sign." title="An aerial view of Fresnes Prison in Val-de-Marne – one of several French facilities in which Ramírez Sánchez has been held over the past three decades (Image by Getty Images)" /> Thanks to a large body of existing literature – declassified diplomatic cables, leaked documents and interviews with spies, officials and others – I had already learned a lot about the man from my research. For example, I found that he had not been a precociously young leftwing activist in Venezuela in the 1950s, as often claimed, but a timid and chubby teenager who steered clear of the street politics of his hometown, Caracas. In London in the 1960s, living with his mother and younger brother after his parents’ divorce, his tastes tended more towards Napoleon brandy, tailored suits and sleazy West End clubs than protests and sit-ins. In fact, his journey into violence appeared to have been motivated more by megalomania than Marxism. When sent to Moscow to study for an undergraduate degree by his leftwing lawyer father, Ramírez Sánchez was noticed not for his commitment to ideology, but to what the Soviet capital offered by way of nightlife. If, in 1970, he had made a trip to Jordan to find Palestinian factions dedicated to what they called the “armed struggle” against Israel, his claims to have fought against government forces in the virtual civil war there were exaggerated to say the least. It became apparent, too, that the idea he had been recruited by the KGB was probably just Cold War propaganda. One fact I dug out was the origin of his famous soubriquet: Carlos the Jackal. This was invented by British journalists in the summer of 1975, shortly after he had killed two French policemen, seriously injured a third, and then executed his superior in the breakaway Palestinian faction he had joined, known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations (PFLP-XO). All three murders had taken place within the space of a minute inside a small apartment on Paris’s Left Bank. First, French investigators had found a false passport in the name of ‘Carlos Martinez’ at the apartment of a girlfriend. Then, reporters spotted a copy of Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal in the London home of another lover, a Basque waitress. The false ID and the book were swiftly combined, and a thousand headlines followed. Read more | The JFK assassination attempt you’ve never heard of Terror in Vienna In the letter that dropped through my door that summer morning, Ramírez Sánchez expressed his delight at my intended visit. Sadly, this delight was not shared by French authorities, who blocked my request for an in-person meeting but did allow me to send a series of letters. Though he avoided answering my pointed enquiries about his misdeeds, he posted me dozens of printed and photocopied documents. These described his youth and the treble murder in Paris, before going into considerable detail about the attack that earned him global infamy. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/IMG2705-62cdd3a-e1774619170787.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A collection of printed and handwritten documents lies spread out on a surface, many showing the name Ilich Ramírez Sánchez along with numbers and institutional headings. Some pages are typed, others handwritten in French." title="Although the French authorities denied his request for an in-person interview, author Jason Burke received numerous documents from Ramírez Sánchez via post (Image by Jason Burke)" /> The plan had been put together in the early autumn of 1975. Ramírez Sánchez was to lead a team from the PFLP-XO and a West German extremist group called the Revolutionary Cells in an attack on a meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at its headquarters in Vienna. They would seize the high-ranking ministers due to attend, demand a plane from the Austrian authorities, and then fly around the Middle East, releasing the hostages one by one at the airports of their respective capital cities. Two would not be freed: instead, the ministers from Saudi Arabia and Iran would be shot dead. The date of the attack, 21 December 1975, was a Sunday. The streets of Vienna were quiet, the air was chilly under a clear blue sky, and carols piped over the speakers of the Christmas Market opposite OPEC’s modern, seven-storey headquarters on Ringstrasse. The attackers arrived at their target at around 11am, rushed through the unguarded entrance of the building, and made their way up to the main meeting room on the first floor. Ramírez Sánchez then fired five shots, shouting: “Don’t move… I am the famous Carlos. You may have heard of me.” There was little resistance. Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann, the only female member of the team, shot dead a bodyguard of the Iraqi oil minister, before killing a plain-clothes policeman as he tried to surrender. Ramírez Sánchez then killed a Libyan economist, and explosives were wired around the building. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/7-GettyImages-541472303-0c984ab-e1774618111712.jpg" width="1500" height="1500" alt="A black‑and‑white portrait shows a person with curly dark hair wearing large, thick‑rimmed glasses and a collared shirt, photographed straight on against a plain background." title="One of Ramírez Sánchez’s accomplices, Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann, killed two men during the OPEC siege. Two years later, she was arrested after shooting two border guards in Switzerland and was sentenced to 15 years in prison (Image by Getty Images)" /> Once he was done, Ramírez Sánchez relaxed. He distributed cigarettes, chatted with his 60-plus hostages (conversing in English, Spanish and French), and ordered food from the local Hilton. Ham sandwiches – which any Muslim captives would not eat – were angrily sent back. When one of the Palestinian gunmen struggled to adjust the explosives, Ramírez Sánchez quipped, “Oh dear, I’ve told him a thousand times how to do it, and he still can’t get it right”. Similarly, when an OPEC driver tried to persuade him to free the female hostages, claiming they “might get hysterical”, Ramirez demurred, pointing to Kröcher-Tiedemann. Three unanswered questions Early the next morning, a bus arrived to take the hostages and their captors to Vienna airport, where a fully fuelled aircraft had been readied as Ramírez Sánchez had requested. He ordered the plane to fly first to Algiers, where a handful of the captives were released. The next destination was Tripoli, where Ramírez Sánchez hoped to obtain a bigger aircraft with enough range to fly around the Middle East. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/6-GettyImages-515113970-52211b8-e1774618468264.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows a snowy airfield where several people stand between a bus and the tail section of an aircraft marked “OE‑LDB.” One person appears to be walking toward or boarding the plane, with snow‑covered ground and distant trees in the background." title="The OPEC attackers, including Ramírez Sánchez (thought to be the figure on the left, next to the bus), board the aircraft they had requested at Vienna airport. They planned to fly first to Algiers, before transferring to a larger plane in Tripoli (Image by Getty Images)" /> But he was to be disappointed. In the Libyan capital, there was a frosty reception for the angry, despondent and exhausted terrorists. No one expected them, and not a single person – even in this supposedly ‘revolutionary’ state – wanted to help. It was clear there would be no new plane. The only option was to return to Algiers, where Ramírez Sánchez was presented with an ultimatum by local authorities: he could carry out the plan to shoot the Saudi and Iranian ministers (and take his chances with Algerian security forces afterwards), or accept the $20m being offered by the Saudi and Iranian governments as ransom for the two men. Read more | How Britain stirred the cauldron of conflict in Palestine Amid stormy scenes, tears and obscenities, Ramírez Sánchez told his team that the time had come to end their escapade. A few hours later he was on his way to a five-star hotel in Algiers, thence to a luxurious government guesthouse for a few weeks’ rest and eventually back to the PFLP-XO’s base in Aden. Over the next two decades, Ramirez Sanchez would operate from bases in Baghdad, Prague, Budapest and Damascus. While some attacks were simply motivated by personal vendettas, many were commissioned by powerful patrons, including Gaddafi. Eventually, ‘Carlos the Jackal’ would become a fugitive himself, ending up in Khartoum, where the French found him. Though I had spent months investigating this whole episode, three mysteries remained unsolved. Firstly, who commissioned the attack on OPEC? Secondly, what happened to the $20m ransom payment? Finally, how had Ramírez Sánchez escaped punishment by the PFLP-XO for his failures? My correspondence with the then 74-year-old prisoner resolved the first of these questions. Ramírez Sánchez’s account unequivocally named Libya’s president, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, as the man responsible for the OPEC attack. This made sense. The mercurial Libyan leader had the means – and the motive – to embarrass pro-western Arab countries and hike the price of oil, which would boost his income. Furthermore, I had already seen testimony that a Libyan diplomat had provided weapons to the assault team in Vienna, evidence of previous Libyan support for such violence, and multiple reports of Ramírez Sánchez cursing Gaddafi as “impossible to work with” when he realised that, rather than delivering the vital new plane as presumably agreed, the Libyan leader had simply disappeared into the desert. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/8-GettyImages-591708114-8a4a827-e1774618771964.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A person wearing glasses and a collared shirt stands at a podium, speaking into two microphones and gesturing with both hands. The background is plain and dark, drawing focus to the speaker." title="According to Ramírez Sánchez, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi – seen here in 1973 – was the instigator of the OPEC attack (Image by Getty Images)" /> Fame as a weapon The whereabouts of the $20m cash remained unresolved, however. It is possible that Ramírez Sánchez kept it, as some veterans of the PFLP-XO suggested to me when I tracked them down. But I found no proof, and the alleged thief himself did not respond to my questions on the matter. There is some reliable documentary evidence, too, that only Saudi Arabia actually paid up and that these funds were kept by the Algerians – the designated intermediary – as ‘compensation’ for their trouble. And why wasn’t Ramírez Sánchez shot by his comrades? Either after killing a respected member of the PFLP-XO, or after the debacle of the OPEC raid itself? Here, the correspondence offered an important and unsolicited insight. Much of what this most famous of terrorists sent to me consisted of press cuttings. These said nothing new, but confirmed something I had long suspected: that Ramírez Sánchez’s greatest talent was not as a terrorist, but as a self-publicist. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/3-GettyImages-652492568-6c4d73d-e1774618878699.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Several uniformed officers wearing dark clothing, bulletproof vests, and gold‑trimmed hats hold firearms while standing near a stone archway. A dark van with a yellow licence plate is parked behind them on the paved street." title="French police officers guard a van carrying Ramírez Sánchez ahead of a hearing in Paris, 1995. The terrorist only avoided being murdered by his former comrades because of his celebrity, says Jason Burke (Image by Getty Images)" /> If most of his attacks failed to attain their objectives, this did not matter. They all helped construct his legend, and this fame made it impossible for his outraged ‘comrades’ to consign this hero of their cause to a shallow grave in a Middle Eastern desert. It also convinced Gaddafi and other sponsors to pay Ramírez Sánchez tens of millions of dollars to carry out violent new operations in western Europe, and eventually persuaded several eastern European regimes to offer him a base in their own countries as well. The greatest weapon Ramírez Sánchez possessed, I realised, was not his Tokarev pistol or total unconcern for the suffering of others – and nor was it his undoubted ability to manipulate and charm. Rather, it was his celebrity, in which western governments and media were to some extent complicit. It was this, above all, that had allowed him to continue his career of violence at great cost to many hundreds of innocent people. Memories of his violence may have faded, but the morbid fascination with Carlos the Jackal – and sometimes other terrorists too – remains. Jason Burke is the international security correspondent for The Guardian. His latest book, The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists who Hijacked the 1970s (Vintage, 2025), was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
History's most notorious crime scenes: from Lizzie Borden's lair to HH Holmes's 'murder castle'
What is it about places marked by murder and violence that continue to pique our interest, long after the crimes have been committed? Caitlin Blackwell Baines uncovers the history behind some of the world's most morbid locations – from a crumbling Slovakian castle to Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel
1. Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, United Kingdom Founded in AD 597, Canterbury Cathedral is Britain’s oldest and most important religious complex: the ‘mother church’ of the Anglican faith and seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. With its soaring 250-foot central tower and 13,000 square feet of stained-glass windows, the cathedral draws more than a million visitors each year – some who come to worship, others simply to marvel at its serene majesty. Such a setting would seem an unlikely place for a murder, but, ironically, that murder has been a big part of the pull for the past 850 or so years. The victim was Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, on the night of 29 December 1170, was hacked to death in the cathedral’s northwest transept. Once a royal favourite – Henry II’s chancellor and closest confidant – Becket ran afoul of the monarch soon after being ordained in 1162. By refusing to uphold the king’s authority over that of the church in the following years, the archbishop effectively sealed his fate. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/1-GettyImages-2188130261-ad7bb3e-e1773932992660.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A medieval illuminated manuscript shows three armored knights striking a kneeling, haloed cleric at an altar. The cleric prays as blood streams from his head. A chalice and open book sit on the altar, and the background is filled with ornate red and gold patterns" title="A medieval manuscript illumination depicts Thomas Becket’s gruesome demise. The archbishop was brutally killed in Canterbury Cathedral, turning a place of worship into a crime scene" /> “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Henry is reported to have ranted to his courtiers. Interpreting this as a kind of kingly hit order, four of his knights stole away under the cover of night, travelling in secret from Normandy to Canterbury, where they accosted Becket as he entered the cathedral. At first, the knights attempted to arrest the cleric, but when he refused to accompany them, a violent scuffle broke out. As Becket desperately clung to a column, the knights slashed at him with their swords, eventually striking a fatal blow to the top of his head, spraying blood and gore across the cathedral floor. The gruesome crime shocked the whole of Christendom, quickly transforming victim into martyr, and crime scene into pilgrimage site. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/2-GettyImages-999672134-08df4e0-e1773934721665.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A ruined stone castle stands on a rocky hilltop above a dense green forest, lit by warm sunrise or sunset light. Rolling hills fade into the distance under a soft pastel sky" title="A panoramic shot of Čachtice Castle, western Slovakia. Now a crumbling ruin, the castle was supposedly the site of dozens of murders perpetrated by Countess Elizabeth Báthory (Image by Getty Images)" /> 2. Čachtice Castle, Slovakia You’ve probably heard of Castle Dracula, the seat of the titular character in Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel. But have you heard of Čachtice Castle? It is the setting for a real-life horror story far more frightening than anything dreamed up in Gothic fiction. Now a crumbling ruin, teetering on a rocky outcrop in the Trenchin region of western Slovakia, the castle was once home to Countess Elizabeth Báthory – purportedly the most prolific female serial killer in history. Čachtice Castle began its existence as a 13th-century fortress built to defend the western border of the Kingdom of Hungary. Over the centuries, it was expanded and transformed into a stately home. Passing through several hands, it eventually came into the possession of nobleman Francis Nádasdy II, who, in 1575, gifted it to his 14-year-old bride, Elizabeth Báthory, as a wedding present. By all accounts, the marriage of Francis and Elizabeth was a happy one. Home life at Čachtice Castle, on the other hand, was not exactly the picture of domestic bliss. With Francis frequently away on military campaigns against the Ottoman Turks, Elizabeth was left behind to manage the family’s household and vast estates, and in her husband’s absence, the countess seems to have taken up an unusual hobby: the torture and murder of her servants. Her many victims – a revolving door of peasant girls recruited from nearby villages – were variously cut, burnt, bitten, beaten, starved and even frozen to death. Posthumous rumours that Báthory bathed in the blood of her prey to preserve her youth have never been proven, but the available evidence suggests that her actions went far beyond that of a harsh mistress. Read more | Elizabeth Báthory: a 17th-century 'serial killer' She was a sadistic killer whose position of power and relative isolation at Čachtice Castle allowed her to operate unchecked for over two decades. During this time, she is estimated to have killed as many as 600 young women and girls. Had the cruel countess stuck to her original victim pool of poor servants, she may have escaped capture. Indeed, it was only when several young noblewomen invited to the castle to attend a gynaeceum (finishing school) went missing that the authorities finally took notice. In December 1610, Čachtice Castle was raided on the orders of King Matthias II. Báthory was seized during a post-Christmas feast – and not, as it was later claimed, in the middle of a murder. Owing to her high station, however, she managed to avoid trial (and inevitable execution) and was instead placed on house arrest in her castle. She died there four years later. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/3-GettyImages-167652325-3e2d3aa-e1773934794798.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Historic three‑storey corner building with wrought‑iron balconies and arched windows in a busy street scene" title="The present-day LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans. The original building burned down in 1834, revealing evidence of Delphine LaLaurie’s horrific torture of enslaved people (Image by Getty Images)" /> 3. LaLaurie Mansion, New Orleans, United States Sadistic slave-owning socialite Delphine LaLaurie might just be New Orleans’ answer to Countess Báthory. If ever you travel to the city, you will inevitably hear of the notorious madame and her house of horrors. It is a stately three-storey French empire-style townhouse located on Royal Street in the heart of the historic French Quarter, the city’s main tourist district. On 10 April 1834, the mansion caught fire, attracting a large crowd of curious onlookers. At the time, the LaLaurie Mansion was renowned for its lavish interiors and decadent soirees – as well as for something more sinister. Rumour had it that the mistress of the manor treated her slaves exceptionally cruelly – which spoke volumes, given that most slave-owners thought nothing of whipping their workers at the time. These rumours would soon prove to be true. When concerned members of the community entered the house to help extinguish the flames, they made a horrific discovery. According to reports, behind the padlocked door of the attic, they found “seven slaves more or less horribly mutilated… suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to another”. So shocking was the scene that the once-respected society hostess was run out of town by an angry mob. Nearly 200 years later, the legend of Madame LaLaurie lives on as one of the darkest chapters in the city’s pre-Civil War history. Though privately owned and publicly inaccessible, the present-day LaLaurie Mansion (rebuilt three years after the fire) still manages to draw hordes of tourists, who come to gawk at its paradoxically elegant exterior. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/4-GettyImages-117081718-8c2be8c-e1773938765180.jpg" width="1500" height="1002" alt="Black‑and‑white photo of a worn brick building with an arched passageway and a sign reading ‘Millers Court." title="The exterior of 13 Miller’s Court, Whitechapel, c1900. In 1888, the body of Mary Jane Kelly – the last of Jack the Ripper’s ‘canonical five’ victims – was discovered inside (Image by Getty Images)" /> 4. 13 Miller's Court, London, United Kingdom No list of historical true crime would be complete without an entry on Jack the Ripper, the pseudonymous serial killer responsible for the brutal slayings of at least five women in London's Whitechapel district between August and November 1888. Easily the most infamous unsolved murders in global history, there’s no shortage of Ripper-related content out there: books, films, TV shows, websites – and even historical walking tours offering the opportunity to follow in the mysterious murderer’s footsteps. Of course, there’s not much for the modern Ripper tourist to see. The gritty East End streets that comprised the killer’s hunting grounds were long ago transformed as part of a series of early 20th-century improvement projects designed to eradicate the scourge that was the Whitechapel slums. But before this modern uplift, at least a few intrepid explorers were able to visit the crime scenes and view them much as the killer would have done. Read more | He's the Victorian serial killer you've never heard of – and we may now know who he was On 20 December 1890, The Birmingham Mail published the account of one journalist’s journey through Jack the Ripper’s East London. The highlight of his adventures in so-called ‘Murderland’ was a trip to 13 Miller’s Court – the site of the last (and most ghastly) of the canonical Ripper murders. It was inside this squalid one room tenement that, just two years earlier, Mary Jane Kelly – a sex worker in her mid-20s – was found mutilated beyond all recognition. According to the journalist, “for a long time after the murder [the room] was vacant. Nobody would take it, owing to the rumour that it was haunted by Jack’s victim”. But, by the time of the journalist’s visit, it was occupied by “an old crone” and her “bedridden husband” who, for the “drop of half-a-crown” would show visitors the “ghastly relics of the crimes”. These included “a huge crimson stain” on the floor, “the fading imprints of a bloody hand on the wall”, and some pencil scratched graffiti purportedly left behind by the killer. Such “ghastly relics” were ultimately destroyed when, in 1928, the property was demolished to make way for the rebuilding of Spitalfields Market. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/5-GettyImages-145262286-5b9ade9-e1773938831936.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white sketch depicting a tall, three-storey building with several windows. Telegraph poles and lines stand outside the building, and the street out front has lots of people walking around" title="HH Holmes’ infamous ‘Murder Castle’ in Chicago. The three-storey structure, long since demolished, was rumoured to contain a network of secret passageways (Image by Getty Images)" /> 5. 'Murder Castle', Chicago, United States At around the same time that Jack the Ripper was roving the streets of Victorian London, another pseudonymous serial killer was wreaking havoc across the pond in Chicago. Operating under the alias ‘HH Holmes’, Herman Webster Mudgett was a conman posing as a pharmacist, who, between the years of 1891 and 1894, lured as many as 200 men and women to their deaths. But where the Ripper seemingly killed for the sheer thrill of it, Holmes had ulterior motives – namely money. Most of his victims were the unwitting targets of insurance schemes and romance scams. And unlike his British counterpart, who committed all but one of his crimes outdoors, the nefarious ‘Dr Holmes’ preferred the privacy of his own home: 601–603 West 63rd Street, a sprawling three-storey structure, aptly dubbed the ‘Murder Castle’ by the Windy City press. Having been gutted by fire shortly after his arrest in the autumn of 1894, Holmes’s ‘Murder Castle’ is a bit of an enigma. According to contemporary reports, it possessed a labyrinthine layout, replete with secret passageways, soundproof rooms and a network of chutes and trapdoors purportedly designed for the fast disposal of dead bodies. But was it purpose-built for murder? The oft-repeated story that Holmes hired new building crews each week to ensure that no single person knew the property’s layout is likely apocryphal. Instead, he was probably attempting to cheat his contractors out of fair pay. Holmes’s astonishingly high body count may too have been exaggerated – he confessed to 27 murders, of which only nine have been confirmed. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/6-BordenHouse92SecondStFallRiverMassachusetts1892-24f9fc3-e1773938890143.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Black‑and‑white photo of a two‑storey wooden house with a gabled roof and a leafless tree in front" title="230 Second Street, Fall River – where 32-year-old Lizzie Borden allegedly murdered her father and stepmother – is one of America’s most notorious addresses" /> 6. The Lizzie Borden House, Fall River, Massachusetts, United States 230 Second Street, Fall River, Massachusetts. At first glance, this modest clapboard cottage hardly stands out in a city where the streets are lined with Victorian buildings – many of them far grander than this home. But this is actually Fall River’s most famous landmark: the Lizzie Borden House. Almost all Americans know of the alleged crimes of the accused axe-murderer Lizzie Borden. Outside of America, however, Lizzie is perhaps less well-known. And yet, most will be familiar with this little ditty: Lizzie Borden took an axe Gave her mother forty whacks. She gave her father forty-one. Andrew Borden now is dead, Lizzie hit him on the head. Up in heaven he will sing, On the gallows she will swing. But if all you know of Lizzie is the morbid nursery rhyme, you don’t know much. On the morning of 4 August 1892, Lizzie Borden, the 32-year-old daughter of Andrew Borden, a wealthy yet miserly property developer, allegedly killed her stepmother, Abby, using a hatchet. Lizzie struck 18 (not 40) blows to Abby’s head in an upstairs bedroom. When her father returned home from work for a mid-morning nap on the parlour sofa, Lizzie killed him with a more conservative 11 whacks as he slept. Read more | These are four of the most brutal Victorian murders. Were women really the perpetrators? The second verse gets it wrong too. Lizzie was acquitted of the murder charges in 1893, thus escaping the gallows. She then lived out the rest of her days in a larger, more luxurious home purchased with her father’s fortune – worth about $9.5 million (£7.5 million) in today’s money. And if we are to believe the reports of thrill-seeking tourists, Andrew is hardly singing up in heaven. He’s moaning right here on earth, forever stuck in his former home, now known as the Lizzie Borden House, a murder-themed bed and breakfast since 1996. Ghost-hunting guests claim to have encountered Andrew, Abby, their family maid Bridget – and even Lizzie herself – in the house. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/7-GettyImages-51096199-6211f5a-e1773938947804.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Black‑and‑white photo of a patterned wallpapered wall with dark stains and a closed double door." title="The basement room at the Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, where the Romanovs met their end. The wall has been torn apart by investigators looking for bullets and other evidence of the crimes committed there (Image by Getty Images)" /> 7. The Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, Russia The fall of the House of Romanov, the imperial family that ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917, irrevocably shaped the history of their country – and indeed, the world. As anyone with even the faintest recollection of their secondary school history lessons will recall, the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and subsequent execution of his entire family laid the foundations for the first socialist state in history. What most of us will be less familiar with is the house that hosted that fall: the Ipatiev House, a fairly unassuming former merchant’s home in the city of Yekaterinburg. Built in the 1880s for mining industrialist Ivan Redikortsev, the two-storey neoclassical manor would have been perfectly in keeping for a man of Redikortsev’s station, just as it was for subsequent owners: gold-dealer IG Sharaviev and military engineer Nikolai Nikolayevich Ipatiev. But for a family who had once resided in some of the most resplendent residences in Russia – including the 2.5-million-square-foot Winter Palace in St Petersburg – it was something of a downgrade. In the spring of 1918, Tsar Nicholas, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, their five children and household staff were moved into the house, where they would spend 78 days confined to just four upper-storey rooms. Under the watchful eye of Bolshevik guards, the prisoners were occasionally permitted time outdoors – though the house’s modest grounds with their oppressively high fences would have paled in comparison to the Tsarina’s private garden at the Winter Palace. Finally, on 17 July, the family was ordered to the Ipatiev’s basement where they were executed by firing squad. Meanwhile, the house itself wouldn’t fall until 1977 when it was demolished under the orders of the Soviet government. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Church on the Blood was erected on its site, with a cross marking the exact location of the Romanov murders. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/8-JohnSowdenHouseLosAngeles-e1773939013743.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A geometric, reddish‑brown building partially hidden behind dense tropical plants, including palms and large-leafed greenery" title="Despite its impressive architecture, Sowden House is best known for being the former home of George Hodel – the prime suspect in the infamous ‘Black Dahlia’ murder" /> 8. Sowden House, Los Angeles, United States Like many old Hollywood mansions, Sowden House is steeped in a long and colourful history. Constructed in 1926 for its namesake, artist John Sowden, for nearly a century the property has played host to lavish parties, film crews and fashion shoots. It’s featured in Oscar-winning films like LA Confidential and The Aviator, and reality TV programmes like America’s Next Top Model. But did it also bear witness to one of the most notorious unsolved murders in American history? On the night of 14 January 1947, did the enigmatic ‘Black Dahlia’ take her final breath in the bowels of this 5,600-square-foot fortress of luxury? Maybe… Located in Los Feliz, a hillside community east of Hollywood, Sowden House is one of countless mansions in this upscale district. Yet, even in a sea of swanky properties, it sticks out – partly owing to its unusual appearance. Composed of giant concrete blocks configurated and carved in designs meant to mimic an ancient Maya step pyramid, the house is perhaps the most iconic example of the Mayan Revival Movement of the early 20th century. It is widely regarded as the pinnacle of achievement for architect Lloyd Wright (not to be confused with his more famous father, Frank Lloyd Wright). Surprisingly, however, none of these things are what Sowden is best known for. Its main claim to fame is for being the former home of one Dr George Hodel, a prominent LA physician and prime suspect in the 1947 slaying of Elizabeth Short – a 22-year-old budding starlet (christened the ‘Black Dahlia’ in the press on account of her raven hair), whose mutilated and dismembered body was found in a vacant lot, six and a half miles south of Sowden House. Aside from his surgical skill and supposed sadomasochistic interests, there’s actually very little to connect Hodel to the crime. Still, legions of armchair detectives are convinced of his guilt. His own son, Steve Hoddel – a 30-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department – is adamant that the Dahlia’s dismemberment took place in the basement of his childhood home. Caitlin Blackwell Baines is an art historian and author who specialises in Georgian art and architecture. She is the author of How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession (Profile Books, 2025)
The relentless rise of the mafia: a grisly tale of extortion, execution and Don Corleone
The 20th century was a golden age for organised crime groups. Ryan Gingeras reveals how gangs from the Sicilian Mafia to Mexico’s cartels capitalised on political chaos, economic upheaval and mass migration to spread their tentacles around the world
In the early 1860s Sicily was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. Soon after, visitors to the island discovered what they believed was a criminal fraternity at work in Palermo and its environs. That fraternity – the ‘Mafia’ – possessed secret rites and bylaws that governed its members. Chief among their rules was the vow of silence, omertà, when it came to their interactions with the police. Many assumed this ‘honoured society’ was born out of the prisons of Palermo, a place where hardened criminals mixed with members of secret revolutionary organisations. Before 1900, Mafiosi distinguished themselves by a clear pattern of criminal behaviour. Brigand gangs who robbed travellers on the roads were bound to the Mafia. Large landowners and government officials abetted the murders, thefts and acts of extortion mafiosi committed. Yet there were aspects of what Mafia was that remained difficult to pin down. Mafiosi, Palermo’s mayor told one public enquiry, could be “anyone who has self-respect and has a certain exaggerated pride, and the inclination to not be overwhelmed but to overwhelm others, the will to appear courageous, to be ready to fight, and so on”. For people in the 19th century, what made Sicily’s Mafia significant was the threat it posed to the government in Rome. Mafiosi appeared to rule the island from the shadows. The violence associated with them was used to intimidate citizens and to demonstrate its power to the Italian capital. In the global context, the Sicilian Mafia seemed to be a part of a pattern. Other secret organisations were challenging states and empires in the hopes of winning self-rule or overthrowing governments. By the start of the 20th century, commentators outside of Italy began characterising nationalist guerrillas, anarchists and other revolutionaries as ‘mafias’ in their own right. The first generations Colloquially speaking, the word ‘mafia’ is often used as shorthand for groups involved in organised crime. But not every gang enjoyed the distinction of being called a mafia. Genuine mafias possess gravitas and do not come and go. They possess a culture, history or pedigree that adds to their status. Their mythos overshadows the exploits or dangers of the common criminal. The term ‘mafia’ is quite old. Use of the word dates back centuries in Italy, even though its meaning and significance has evolved. For Sicilians, ‘mafia’ historically meant a kind of boldness. A mafioso specifically denoted someone who was domineering or who bragged of their strength or prowess. Scholars tend to agree that the Sicilian Mafia is one of four historic mafias that endure to this day. The other three –the Camorra, which emerged in Naples, China’s Triads and the Yakuza in Japan – have similarly rich backstories. In each case, the development of these groups or subcultures speaks to their cultural roots. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-1082329096webready-e3f9054-e1773654775259.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two men in traditional Japanese formal dress walk at the front of a group, followed by several men in dark suits. They appear to be outdoors during a formal event" title="Members of the Yakuza, Japan’s notorious organised crime syndicate, attend a funeral in Kobe, 1981. From the mid-19th century, the group were integral to the radicalisation of Japanese politics (Image by Getty Images)" /> The precise story of how the Yakuza came into existence is a detail lost to time. The term itself originates from the phonetics of the word ya-ku-za, meaning 8-9-3, the worst hand to hold in a Japanese game of cards. This name alone confirms that gamblers were the first to acquire a connection to Yakuza culture, which dates back as far as the seventh century. Intimidating opponents Unlike Sicily’s Mafia, Yakuza culture spanned much of Japan. From the Middle Ages forward, Japan’s elite relied upon clan members to manage or mitigate crime within their midst. Violence was a key to Yakuza culture, as were intricate tattoos and rituals. Later, after the Meiji Restoration (1868) and the establishment of a modern state, political operatives sought Yakuza support in the hope of intimidating opponents. Yakuza became integral to the radicalisation of Japanese politics, a process that eventually led the nation into the Second World War. Read more | The first mafia? How an early medieval kingdom perfected the art of deadly diplomacy Neither crime, nor politics, gave birth to China’s Triads. Their history dates to the country’s tradition of secret mystical societies. A feature of this was the way fraternal organisations promoted folk religion and mutual aid for China’s rural underclass. With Manchu conquest in the 17th century, these organisations morphed into secret societies associated with opposition to the government. The establishment of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) led to the creation of a group calling itself the Three United Society, from which the term ‘triad’ was coined. The number of Triad-derived groups rose as Manchu rule grew increasingly more unpopular in the 19th century. To sustain themselves, many secret societies resorted to theft, extortion and the sex trade. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-1354467399webready-f00eeb0-e1773654880975.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Three individuals stand side by side before an ornate, possibly ceremonial backdrop. One wears a light suit, while the others wear traditional Chinese clothing. Each has a ribbon pinned to their chest." title="Shanghai gangsters in c1925. In the early 1900s, secret societies capitalised on a power vacuum to form de facto governments across much of China (Image by Getty Images)" /> Adding to the strength and mysticism of the Triads were rich customs and a hierarchical structure involving initiations. After the fall of the Qing in 1912, secret societies expanded their influence over much of China, in many cases forming de facto governments over the countryside. Europe’s fragmented political landscape did not produce such universalised criminal societies. To understand the growth of the Camorra, we need to begin with 18th-century freemasonry. This provided a critical model for the organisation of subversive groups. Political radicals embraced its cult of secrecy and hierarchy in building movements aimed at national liberation or revolution. In the port city of Naples, rather less idealistic figures also took inspiration as, within the main prison, inmates in the early 19th century began to mimic masonic traditions in crafting secret codes and rules. Outsiders called this budding culture the Camorra, a possible allusion to the chamarra, or jackets, they wore. Camorra culture gradually exited the prison, finding members among the impoverished of Naples. With the threat of nationalist revolution threatening the city’s establishment, political leaders in Naples relied on the Camorra as informants and enforcers. Similarly to the Mafia in Sicily, Camorristi monopolised and exploited the underworld of Naples as extortionists and smugglers. They formed alliances with business leaders, politicians and the police. They became part of the city’s elite. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-1450387208webready-88367a6-e1773654963308.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Four uniformed officers stand in a line in front of tall metal bars, behind which several people are confined, some gripping the bars and looking outward. The setting appears institutional, with tiled walls" title="Italian police guard men accused of being members of the Camorra, during a trial in Naples, 1985. This crime group was originally modelled on the secret codes and rules of 18th-century freemasonry (Image by Getty Images)" /> Coming to America Each of these cultures initially operated as provincial conspiracies. Yet in the late 19th century, an era of mass migration, this changed. Like the millions of other people leaving Asia and Europe, Triads, Camorristi, Yakuza and Mafiosi sailed abroad. Many settled in the United States where they fell into familiar patterns of behaviour. This was a phenomenon Americans recognised almost immediately. In the run-up to the new century, newspapers took a keen interest in what they believed were vast immigrant conspiracies. Urban areas appeared to develop new underworlds as the vice trade came under the control of Chinese fraternal lodges (often referred to as Tongs). Japanese gamblers formed violent gangs on the west coast. Italian extortionists, known as Black Hands, became the scourge of communities across the USA. Read more | How J Edgar Hoover secretly ruled America Tabloids feasted on these revelations and fanned anti-immigrant sentiment. An occasional offence could be forgiven but, as one Mississippi editor put it, “When foreign groups transport and carry on here their Tongs, mafias, vendettas, class enmities and hostilities, it is a disturbance of such alien… and bloody character that America is not obliged to endure it and should not.” Like activists in other parts of the western world, crusaders in US cities grew fearful of the effect gambling and prostitution had on society. Increased use of alcohol and narcotics similarly concerned advocates for women’s rights and child welfare. Dispensing these goods and services were ‘organised crimes’ in so far as each required an illicit chain of suppliers, dealers and consumers. With the west in the lead, lawmakers around the world agreed to take more stringent steps to combat vice at home. As the world’s biggest economy and a country left largely unscarred by both the First and Second World Wars, America assumed a leading role in this movement. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-515170982webready-e7ec811-e1773656015480.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white portrait shows a person wearing a light fedora, dark overcoat with a velvet collar, white shirt, and striped tie, facing slightly to the right against a plain background" title="Gangsters such as Al Capone cashed in on the prohibition of drugs and alcohol (Image by Getty Images)" /> Domestically, attempts to clamp down on the use of alcohol and narcotics catalysed huge changes within the American underworld. Early beneficiaries of the Prohibition era were individuals who shared connections to the Mafia and Camorra traditions. They created a system of ‘families’ that held sway over bootleg liquor and vice across swathes of the country. Newspapers and newsreels captured their ascendency, as did early talkies such as Scarface (1932). Al Capone embodied this moment in his dress, cant, swagger and flair for publicity. Newspapermen loved him. “His whole demeanour,” one journalist noted, “is that of an overgrown child.” Capone could easily persuade a know-nothing stranger that he was as “harmless as a big St Bernard dog”. If the modern mafioso has a father, it would be him. Dope goes global It was only in retrospect, however, that American authorities conceived of bootleggers as a part of a distinctly American mafia. This crucial turn occurred after the Second World War, when peace brought a dramatic surge in narcotics trafficking. Heroin streamed across both the Atlantic and Pacific into a newly prosperous USA, a trade led by both old and new syndicates. Triad-linked groups traded in heroin cultivated in Burma and processed in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Corsican syndicates, as well as Sicilian mafiosi, exported even larger amounts of dope from Turkey and Lebanon. This latter ‘French Connection’ drew the attention of Washington’s top narcotics official, Harry Anslinger. In the 1950s, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) had long lived in the shadow of J Edgar Hoover’s FBI. This fact roiled Anslinger so much that he went on the offensive. Amid a climate of growing paranoia, Anslinger’s FBN seized the national spotlight with a series of fantastic revelations. Through televised senatorial hearings, government witnesses testified to a criminal conspiracy extending in and beyond the USA. At its heart were the rites and tradition of Sicily’s Mafia. American crime families, in coordination with syndicates abroad, dominated the global narcotics industry. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/0112042-2webready-35fd87a-e1773655091113.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="In a courtroom, two men talk beside a wooden barrier; one wears dark sunglasses. Behind them, several uniformed officers sit in rows, with more people visible in the background" title="Sicilian Mafia boss Luciano Leggio talks with his lawyer during a trial of mafiosi in 1969. “What made Sicily’s Mafia significant was the threat it posed to the government in Rome,” writes Ryan Gingeras (Image by Topfoto)" /> In 1963, Anslinger’s star witness, Joseph Valachi, added explosive touches to proceedings. Valachi, a one-time New York gangster, confirmed the existence of a singular criminal culture. Members, he claimed, called it ‘cosa nostra’, our thing. Valachi’s story reverberated worldwide. America, it seemed, had its own mafia, one that led the world in a host of nefarious dealings. Meanwhile, older mafias abroad were experiencing their own renaissance. The rise of fascism and the outbreak of war in 1939 inflicted devastating losses upon the gangsters of Naples and Sicily. Similarly, Triads and Yakuza gangs suffered at the hands of invading armies and collapsed governments. Yet with the restoration of peace, a new generation took advantage of the emerging postwar environment. Read more | The A-Z of British gangs and gangsters They formed partnerships with local politicians charged with organising reconstruction efforts. Yakuza and mafiosi found common cause with rightwing political parties that feared the growing popularity of leftist movements. Above all, Italian, Chinese and Japanese gangsters realised unprecedented opportunities to profit from the narcotics trade. This changed the character of these older criminal fraternities. Mafiosi of an earlier time, as one Sicilian don saw them, were “dignified people, gentlemanly and inherently good”. Narcotics trafficking, and the riches that came with it, often warped and diminished the character of those involved. Super Mario The idea of a life of crime impacting on gang members themselves was popularised in the work of the Italian-American novelist Mario Puzo. By his own account, Puzo had no particular affinity for crime stories but, when he was looking for a subject with wide appeal, he remembered Valachi’s testimony and began researching mob history. Puzo’s novel The Godfather (1969) sold millions of copies. A then ailing Paramount Studios bought the rights and head of production Bob Evans took a chance in hiring a young Francis Ford Coppola to direct the cinematic version. The film, released in 1972, took the Academy Award for Best Picture and racked up millions at the box office. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/3B5WNKGwebready-c054e86-e1773655386592.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two individuals stand outdoors with a red building and a green‑white‑red flag or banner blurred in the background. The person on the left, with short hair and glasses, wears a dark jacket over a sweater and collared shirt and stands with arms crossed. The person on the right, also wearing glasses, has longer hair and a full beard and wears a brown jacket over a striped shirt while looking slightly upward." title="Mario Puzo (left) and Francis Ford Coppola on the set of The Godfather Part II in 1973. Puzo was inspired to write his iconic crime novel by Joseph Valachi’s testimony (Image by Alamy)" /> At no point do characters in The Godfather utter the word ‘mafia’. Viewers and critics, however, understood the film offered a close dissection of the phenomenon. The movie fulfilled the audience’s expectations. “Consciously or not,” as one French critic said, “people are inclined to believe that the true princes who govern us are hidden masters, all-powerful [but] anonymous.” The Godfather and its 1974 sequel changed how gangsters talked and how they went about their work. Even before 1972, mafiosi in Sicily began to refer to their secret society as ‘La Cosa Nostra’. After The Godfather, they also began calling their betters ‘padrinos’, a term used in the film. Around the world, criminal groups started referring to their leaders as godfathers (or some translation of the word) and began to mimic the organisational structure from the film. Life imitated art. Coppola’s opus arrived in cinemas at a time when the international drug trade was growing rapidly. Heroin consumption began to peak in the US and started to rise in western Europe. Cocaine, previously a boutique drug, began to appear in greater amounts in US cities. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-1423176387webready-9c7c07f-e1773655583523.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An outdoor wedding reception takes place under a green‑and‑white striped canopy. A long table is set with flowers and a tiered cake, where the bride, groom, and other guests sit. In the foreground, a man in a dark suit warmly greets a man in a military uniform holding his hat. Behind them, elegantly dressed guests—including a woman in a red polka‑dot dress and wide‑brimmed hat—watch the exchange with smiles. Trees and hanging decorations create a festive atmosphere" title="Vito’s son and successor, Michael (Al Pacino), is greeted by his brother Sonny, played by James Caan. Such was the impact of The Godfather that, in its wake, real-life gangsters mimicked the Corleones’ organisational structure, changing how they talked and operated (Image by Getty Images)" /> Newer criminal groups emerged too. Before the end of the 1970s, two cocaine trafficking coalitions took shape in the Colombian cities of Medellín and Cali. Parallel developments in Mexico also gave birth to a similar alliance of drug smugglers run from Guadalajara. Some in the press initially referred to these groups as mafias. Law enforcement officials instead took to calling them cartels due to their perceived similarity to the petroleum consortium, OPEC. It was the latter name that took hold. A key figure was Pablo Escobar of Medellín. Having dabbled in smuggling as a youth, his reputation for violence sealed his close ties to landowners and drug runners. He drew inspiration from The Godfather and mimicked the “slow manners and long silences” of Marlon Brando’s performance. Escobar, however, was far more brutal than the fictitious Vito Corleone. His cartel murdered thousands, including some 200 judges and 700 police officers. Escobar’s death at the hands of Colombian security forces in 1993 marked the end of the Medellín Cartel. The cocaine trade, however, lived on. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-108556393webready-0846542-e1773655693174.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A close‑up portrait of a person with curly dark hair, a mustache, and light skin, wearing a light shirt and beige jacket against a dark, blurred background" title="Pablo Escobar took inspiration from the fictitious Vito Corleone. Yet, writes Ryan Gingeras, “he was far more brutal” (Image by Getty Images)" /> Cases across the Pacific spoke to increased activity among the Yakuza and Triads. In the wake of The Godfather, exposés in western media took particular interest in how Japanese and Chinese gangsters compared to western crime syndicates. For many journalists, Asia’s ‘mafias’ appeared more malevolent and exotic. The secret rites of the Yakuza and Triads made their involvement in the drug trade seem more difficult to police. No enquiry into the world of the Japanese gangster failed to mention their intricate tattoos, the katana swords with which they often fought or the severing of their pinkies as acts of contrition. The press made much of the supposed Triad penalties of “death by 5,000 thunderbolts” and the “flowing of blood from the body’s five openings”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-90768133webready-e58bc1e-e1773655170247.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="“Seen from behind, a person displays an elaborate traditional Japanese tattoo covering their back and upper arms, featuring a warrior figure. They stand against a wooden panel, with decorative floral motifs framing the image" title="A heavily tattooed Japanese man in c1895. Body art and rituals have both been associated with Yakuza culture over its long history (Image by Getty Images)" /> Meanwhile, the sheer number of supposed mafias surged during the 1980s and 1990s. Increased cocaine production in Latin America touched off upheaval in Colombia and Mexico, leading to unprecedented waves of violence and, as governments pushed back, the fragmentation of existing cartels. As smuggling routes grew more complex, Jamaican and Nigerian groups grew in influence. Street gangs such as the Bloods and Crips metastasised across the USA, specialising in the retail trade in drugs. Unholy alliances The dissolution of the eastern bloc had even more dramatic consequences. The sudden liquidation of state-owned industries across the former Soviet Union forged a series of unholy alliances between presumptive oligarchs and gangs. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-627229258webready-33cb468-e1773655825345.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two people in military uniform stand over a pile of leaves, burning a fire in the middle of the pile. Large clouds of smoke are billowing up from the fire" title="Soldiers burn coca leaves in 1989. A surge in heroin and cocaine consumption across the west fuelled the rise of South American cartels (Image by Getty Images)" /> Other syndicates comprising Chechens, Albanians, Kurds, Serbs and Turks came to cast a shadow over different parts of Europe. The emergence of these groups led political leaders across the world to see their collective security in a new light. As the new century dawned, the United Nations formally adopted a convention dedicated to combating transnational organised crime. To mark the occasion, signatories assembled for a ceremony in Corleone, the Italian birthplace of Puzo’s fictional Godfather. Throughout this period, ‘mafia’ became a byword for describing new groups emerging in the west. The ease with which commentators referred to Russian, Albanian, Nigerian or Turkish mafias obscured the fact that no single group anchored their creation. Popular culture helped cement the impression that mafias were a global phenomenon. Read more | The Victorians’ cocaine habit: why 19th-century Britain couldn't get enough of the 'miracle' drug During this process, the narrative around organised crime moved far beyond the four historic mafias. Indeed, you could plausibly argue that such terms as gangsters, organised crime and the mafia have become interchangeable. So does the term mafia still have a special meaning and power? Yes, in that it encompasses a world where gangsters don’t just operate in the criminal sphere, somehow separated from the rest of society, but influence politics, commerce, culture and even international affairs. Without mafias, history since the late 19th century would have been very different. Mafias may operate in the shadows, but shining light on them helps us to see the past more clearly. Ryan Gingeras is the author of Mafia: A Global History (Simon & Schuster, 2026) This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
"It wasn't very open about its queer connections": the hidden history of the National Trust
Michael Hall speaks to Charlotte Vosper about the long-hidden stories of LGBTQ people whose lives were connected to the properties owned by the National Trust
Charlotte Vosper: In A Queer Inheritance, you explore histories of sexual difference connected to the National Trust. What drew you to those historical figures and their stories? Michael Hall: That goes back a long way. For quite a few years I worked for Country Life magazine, and in that role I wrote articles about country houses. I actually began with one of those I mention in my book: Packwood House in Warwickshire. It was acquired in 1904 by an industrialist for his son, Graham Baron Ash, who spent years renovating and transforming the property. It struck me that he never got married – and the idea that a bachelor might do up a house and then give it to the National Trust to look after seemed quite intriguing. I didn’t really spot that it was part of a pattern until I wrote a similar article on Anglesey Abbey. That’s when I realised that there was a story about the National Trust that hadn’t really been told before. It’s important to mention that I’ve never worked for the Trust, and A Queer Inheritance isn’t an official National Trust book in any way. I don’t speak on the Trust’s behalf – and indeed they may very well disagree with a lot of what I say. The National Trust was founded in 1895, when homosexual acts of ‘gross indecency’ were still illegal in Britain – yet in your book you suggest that the Trust had queer connections from its very beginnings. Can you expand on this? That’s actually quite a complicated question. The origins of the National Trust were rooted in an anxiety about London’s urban poor and how they could be morally improved. Its founders thought that if the urban poor could be given access to architectural and natural beauty, this would do away with what they saw as their worrying vices – of which homosexuality was a rather prominent example. Yet several people on the Trust’s original council and executive committee were in fact queer. They included the 5th Earl of Rosebery, who was worried that he might be named in the Oscar Wilde trials of 1895, and Octavia Hill, who had a long and loving relationship with Harriot Yorke. Can you tell us about some queer landowners connected to the Trust’s estates? William John Bankes, who inherited the great estate of Kingston Lacy in Dorset, had to go into exile in 1841 after he was caught having sex with a guardsman in London’s Green Park. He then redecorated and remodelled the house remotely, while living in Venice. It’s a very interesting story about a gay man shaping a house even when away from home. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/2DYY3JXwebready-4a1b91d-e1772550724428.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large historic mansion stands behind a wide green lawn, with a central dome flying a flag, tall chimneys, and symmetrical stone façades. Mature trees frame the view, and a few people walk near the building alongside a small green tractor." title="Kingston Lacy in Dorset was redesigned as a classical palace in the 19th century by its owner William John Bankes, who was forced into exile after facing prosecution for a same-sex act. The house is home to his collections of art and Egyptian artefacts (Image by Alamy)" /> In the book I also talk about Clumber Park, site of a lost house that was demolished in 1938. Several generations of the Dukes of Newcastle were based there. One of the 5th Duke’s sons, Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton, enjoyed relationships with a famous pair of young Victorian men who cross-dressed as Fanny and Stella; later, the 7th Duke, ‘Linny’, was friends with Oscar Wilde. I should emphasise that the book is not primarily about country houses. The National Trust manages a wide range of buildings, one of which is Clouds Hill, a little cottage in Dorset that was home to TE Lawrence (of Arabia). His sexuality has been hugely debated, and I draw my own conclusions about this in the book. Read more | Challenging gender in the Victorian Age: the 'masculine' New Woman and 'effeminate' New Man A site that’s much less controversial is Smallhythe Place in Kent, home of the great 19th and early 20th-century actress Ellen Terry. Her daughter, Edith Craig, was a theatre director of considerable eminence who lived next to that early 16th-century house with two close lesbian friends. They welcomed lots of their likeminded friends there, so you can discover a lot of lesbian history in the 20th century just by visiting Smallhythe. How do we know that these people were queer? Would the historical figures you discuss have understood themselves in that way? Not particularly as queer, I don’t think. But as a historian, you have to look at the story and ask: how can I best interpret this? I think the advantage of the term ‘queer’ is that it avoids attaching very precise labels to people. The word itself goes back to the 16th century, when it just meant odd or unusual. Around the end of the 19th century, though, ‘queer’ was becoming a term of abuse, meaning homosexual. But by the 1980s, ‘queer’ was very much taken back by gay activists, particularly during the Aids crisis, as a way of reclaiming their identity. Today, ‘queer’ is the term preferred by most historians. One of the issues historians face is how to talk about people who didn’t have access to the terms we would use now, such as ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual’. I think ‘queer’ is quite useful because a modern audience knows what that means, but it’s also not imposing something on the past. I also think that the fact it’s clearly anachronistic is actually rather helpful, because it emphasises the difference between the past and the present. There is an amazing amount of argument about these terms, and you can debate these things forever, but as a historian you just have to get on and do the history. And when you do, there’s a lot of anxiety about finding evidence that people were gay – but I think the response must often be, well, what’s your evidence that they were heterosexual? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/2PAFXGXwebready-559b568-e1772551882888.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white portrait of a person with wavy, shoulder‑length hair looking slightly upward against a dark background. Soft lighting highlights their face, creating a dramatic, classic studio style." title="The writer and poet Vita Sackville-West’s same-sex relationships were not always acknowledged (Image by Alamy)" /> How have National Trust estates been influenced by the queer people who lived in them or were connected to them? I wanted to write about places that queer people had shaped in some way – by building them, decorating them, furnishing them or making them part of their life history. This isn’t always obvious. Today, lesbians visit Knole, a country house in Kent, because our contemporary perception of the building is shaped by our knowledge of the relationship between Vita Sackville-West, who lived there, and Virginia Woolf. Yet there’s almost no evidence of Vita’s influence that you can see on the property, other than the original manuscript of Woolf’s Orlando, which she inspired. Returning to TE Lawrence’s Dorset cottage, Clouds Hill, there are just two rooms upstairs, one of which he used as a guest bedroom. In the 1930s, he curiously lined that room with metal foil – a rather art deco look. I became intrigued by the fact that Siegfried Sassoon, a gay writer who was a friend of Lawrence, visited Clouds Hill with his lover, Stephen Tennant. Now, one of the best-known photographs of Stephen (shown above), by Cecil Beaton, shows him in his own bedroom – which he had lined with silver paper. I thought it was an interesting queer link which, as far as I’m aware, hasn’t been made before. It says something about Lawrence’s own sense of identity in terms of sexual orientation, and also about networks. Early on in my research, I began to realise that many of these houses and people linked up. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/0516118webready-d0bc43f-e1772550648873.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a young man wearing a collared shirt, tie and a coat with a large collar. He is looking directly at the camera with a serious look on his face and has a silver foil wallpaper behind him" title="This photo of the socialite Stephen Tennant in front of distinctive silver wallpaper helped piece together the story of TE Lawrence’s Clouds Hill (Image by Topfoto)" /> A lot of the queer people associated with the Trust’s properties were connected, and many came from a privileged background. Is there a relationship here between class and queerness? Yes, definitely – though I don’t write only about elite people in the book. The 5th Marquess of Anglesey, Henry Paget, who lived at the family seat of Plas Newydd on that island, is a good example of such privilege. On the death of his father in 1898 he inherited a huge fortune, which funded his love of dressing up. He liked to put on theatrical productions and go to fancy-dress parties in a very gender-bending way. This got him into the newspapers, and he was laughed at and ridiculed relentlessly. Eventually, he went bankrupt. In a sense, Paget was able to dress up and perform because he was very, very rich. But the downside of his wealth was that he attracted an enormous amount of public curiosity. Endless stories about him appeared in the press. He wouldn’t have suffered such a blow to his reputation if he had been an obscure commoner. Clearly, although privilege could facilitate queer experiences, it could also attract much unwanted attention and expose scandal. Read more | The new radicals: how the Bloomsbury Group transformed British culture When exploring past queer experiences, we are often dealing with the feelings and emotions of historical figures. What sources did you use to explore these? Sources pose a massive question for any historian, but queer topics have always been particularly hedged with problems. Prior to 1967, all homosexual acts between men were illegal in England and Wales [even then, they were permitted only between two consenting adults over the age of 21], and this creates obvious issues with the sources from before that period. But what struck me was that if you go back to the original sources – the contemporary biographies and letter compilations of these late 19th and early 20th-century figures – it seems that many people probably knew what was going on. The Victorians weren’t fools. You just have to tune in when reading the sources, and you’ll learn a lot. The National Trust has faced some backlash for trying to reclaim minority history more widely. How has its attitude towards queer people evolved? Traditionally, the Trust wasn’t very open about its queer connections – but then nobody was terribly open about these issues for many decades. Homophobia played a role in the modernisation of the National Trust. From the 1950s, it began trying to run its houses on a more professional basis, appointing curators. There was a bit of a standoff between the land agents – the traditional men in tweeds who dealt with forestry and estates – and the curators, who dealt with hanging the pictures and arranging the furniture. This division reflected an essential binary within the Trust: whether it should be concerned primarily with places of historic interest or of natural beauty. One of the ways that people who thought the National Trust wasn’t paying enough attention to nature directed criticism against the curators was through homophobia. This made life rather tricky for any gay men within the organisation, and by the 1960s and 70s the Trust attracted considerable criticism, accused of being run by queer aristocratic men. To be fair to the critics, there was considerable truth in that. Beyond its employees, the Trust remained coy about queer connections to the houses it acquired. For example – and it’s extraordinary to say now – it wasn’t until 2008 that any official publication by the National Trust about Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West’s later home, also in Kent, mentioned her same-sex relationships. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-182926080webready-82eb4db-e1772551730353.jpeg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A tall brick tower with two conical roofs rises above a landscaped garden of trimmed bushes, flowers, and a wide lawn. Climbing greenery covers part of the structure, and a flag flies from the top. Tree branches and a wrought‑iron gate frame the scene under a bright, partly cloudy sky." title="The Tower at Sissinghurst Castle is set in the gardens designed by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson (Image by Getty Images)" /> So it’s only pretty recently that the organisation has been open about this kind of history. In 2017, it made a big effort to catch up and tell these stories, and I think generally there was a feeling that this was going in the right direction. It did, however, bring up an interesting dilemma. Objections were raised by relatives and friends of some of the people who were being described as queer, criticising the National Trust for ‘outing’ them. Read more | From the ancient world to the 1969 Stonewall Riots: a brief guide to LGBT+ history I don’t think that it makes any sense to talk about historical figures in terms of ‘outing’ – because, really, if you object to somebody in the past being described as queer, or raising the question about whether or not they were what we would now call gay, that might imply that you find homosexuality shameful. It’s interesting that the controversy around ‘outing’ these historical figures hasn’t applied so much to queer women. I don’t think people find women’s sexuality as threatening as they find men’s sexuality. And it’s most often men who get upset about other men being described as gay. Look at Lawrence of Arabia: dozens of biographies have been written about him, almost all by men and almost all hostile to the idea that he was gay. What impact do you hope A Queer Inheritance will have? I hope that people will realise that queer history is a very rich subject, and that there’s a huge amount more that can be said about the queer lives connected to the National Trust. Everyone I’ve spoken to about my book says: “Oh, but you haven’t said anything about X.” So, there’s lots more to explore, and different approaches that could be taken. A woman or a young person would have written a completely different book, I think. This article was first published in the February 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
HistoryExtra's Isabel King explores the history of book censorship
HistoryExtra's Isabel King explores the history of book banning, and investigates the reasons behind this censorship – from inappropriate content, to political concerns View Green Video on the source website
He's the Victorian serial killer you've never heard of – and we may now know who he was
By 1889, Jack the Ripper’s grisly murders had sparked terror across London. So when a woman’s headless, mutilated body was found near the Thames, a coded alert was dispatched to police: “Another Whitechapel.” But her killer wasn’t Jack. Lucy Worsley investigates the horrifying crimes of the ‘Thames Torso Murderer’
In the final years of the 1880s, it truly wasn’t safe for women to venture out alone onto the streets of London. Extraordinary though it seems, there was not one but two serial killers on the loose in the same corner of the capital. We’ve all heard of Jack the Ripper, the notoriously brutal criminal who cut the throats of at least five women in and around Whitechapel – and, in doing so, triggered a firestorm of speculation over his identity that continues to rage to this day. But another murderer was plying his grisly trade along the banks of the Thames. He is the scariest Victorian serial killer you’ve probably never heard of – a man who became known as the ‘Thames Torso Murderer’. Because the Ripper slayings attract so much attention, that contemporary killer has been almost completely forgotten. There may be several reasons for this. The Ripper victims were all identified, the killings took place in a shorter time within a close community, and there were various ‘clues’ and ‘sightings’. In addition, the Ripper was clearly motivated by a hot rage against women. The Torso killer, much colder and better at planning, seems less knowable. Yet though he had a very different character and method, his crimes against women were every bit as shocking. In both cases, studying the evidence for their crimes and the lives of their victims reveals a wealth of information about life on the fringes of society in 1880s London, the most populous city in the world at the time. And now, nearly 140 years since the first of the Thames Torso Murders was committed, the culprit in this very cold case has – to my satisfaction, at least – at last been identified. The evidence I’ll lay out here, which I share in my new BBC Two series, would not stand up in a court of law. But researchers using modern techniques and, in particular, analysing large sets of data, have come up with a compelling theory. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/1362213-2webready-0141b36-e1771417616576.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Black-and-white Victorian newspaper illustration about the Whitechapel murders. At the center is a circular portrait of a curly-haired woman labeled “The Berner St. Victim.” Surrounding panels show scenes from the investigation: on the left, two men stand over a covered body on a table; below, a man discovers a woman’s body lying on a dark street. In the middle foreground, a uniformed police constable raises his arm to signal for assistance while two men crouch beside another woman’s body on the ground. On the right, small panels depict a police inspector in profile, a meeting of officials seated around a table, and a nighttime street scene marked as the “fatal spot” in Mitre Square, Aldgate. A bold headline across the center reads, “Two More Whitechapel Horrors. When Will the Murderer Be Captured?”" title="Jack the Ripper’s killing spree makes the front page of The Illustrated Police News, September 1888 (Image by Topfoto)" /> Gruesome discovery On 10 September 1889, a woman’s body was found by a police constable in Whitechapel, beneath railway arches bordering Pinchin Street, placed there in the early hours of the morning. Those arches are still there; in fact, you can still walk along many of the streets, riverbanks and water-stairs that form the backdrop for this story, which unfolded mainly in central London, along the Thames between Tower Bridge and Battersea Bridge. Distressingly, only the torso was discovered beneath the arches; the legs and head had been removed. Read more | Nell Darby's historical cold cases: murder in the year of the Ripper She was the fourth such mutilated victim to turn up. Three more, also women, had already been found in and around the Thames. Each had been dismembered, their severed limbs and other body parts being discovered piecemeal by horrified members of the public. There was a torso in the river at Rainham, Essex in 1887, followed by more remains left in the city. Then, in 1888, parts were dumped at spots around Whitehall. The torso of that victim was carefully placed for discovery in the unfinished new headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, which looks very much like jeering at authority: ‘catch me if you can.’ And in June 1889, various remains from another victim were found, mostly in and around Battersea. None of the women’s heads were located. Why did police conclude at the time that all were victims of one killer? As well as the strange disposal of body parts along the Thames, there was a common method to the way the bodies were cut up. The Irish pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy, one of our experts in the series, points out that such dismemberment was slow, skilled work that must have been done in a place of privacy, perhaps a house or workshop. But a new factor in the fourth case was the placing of the torso away from the river and – perhaps not coincidentally – on territory by then deemed to ‘belong’ to the Ripper. Perhaps the Thames Torso Murderer was jealous of the media attention that ‘Jack’ had attracted. Perhaps he even wanted to taunt the Ripper by working on ‘his’ patch. A recent Dockers’ Strike, which saw 75,000 workers walk off the job, had prompted the deployment of 2,000 extra policemen into the East End. So the torso in Pinchin Street must have been placed in the railway arches very quickly and precisely between half-hourly police patrols. Carrying a torso through the streets was risky: the killer must have had nerves of steel. But this was his pattern: he’d managed to place the torso of his second victim in the middle of a busy building site without being detected. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-1645164483webready-c056b98-e1771418656980.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of a large brown brick wall curving from the right to the left, with several arch imprints on it. There is a white road sign that reads PINCHIN STREET on the right hand side. Behind this large wall, there is a tall grey and brown tower block" title="The mutilated body of a woman was found near Pinchin Street. To do this, the killer must have carried the torso through busy streets patrolled by police (Image by Getty Images)" /> The fourth murder was a little different, though, maybe because the third hadn’t gone to plan. Clearly contrary to the killer’s intentions, that victim was identified. One of the body parts had been wrapped in fabric from a distinctively checked coat. The friends of a woman who’d gone missing came forward to say they’d recognised descriptions of the garment as one belonging to Elizabeth Jackson. Elizabeth’s life story demonstrates something that was probably true of the other victims, too: that women living precariously on the fringes of society were very vulnerable. Poor Elizabeth was pregnant without being married. She had left her job in domestic service and became estranged from her Catholic family, turning to the workhouse rather than asking them for support. In the last days of her life she had been sleeping rough by the river. She had a friend called ‘Ginger Nell,’ who was described at the time as “an unfortunate”, which means she probably sold sex. Ginger Nell warned Elizabeth to look out for bad men down by the river. It was wise advice that proved sadly prescient. Read more | These are four of the most brutal Victorian murders. Were women really the perpetrators? The identity of the person who’d killed Elizabeth and her unborn child, along with the three other unnamed victims, remained a mystery. The case stumped those investigating at the time. Modern analysis of the police surgeons’ reports shows that they didn’t do a bad job of seeking clues from the human remains, but they lacked two advantages we have today: the science of psychological profiling, and the ability to search large sets of data. A history of violence The person who I believe has identified the Thames Torso Murderer is researcher and author Sarah Bax Horton. She decided that the killer must have had a close connection to the Thames, where so many body parts were found. She also thought that he likely had a history of violent crimes against women. Her real act of genius, though, was to search the online database of British newspapers within the timeframe of the four murders, looking for crime stories containing mentions of the river Thames and violence against women. Among the names emerging from her search, one stood out: James Crick (1862–1907). Crick, Bax Horton’s research reveals, was a waterman, ferrying passengers across the Thames in his skiff. His boat could have provided the private place that the murderer required in which to kill and dismember his victims. Crick operated from Horselydown Old Stairs leading to the water near Butler’s Wharf. These water-stairs are now a hotspot for tourists and Instagrammers because they offer a wonderful view of Tower Bridge. At the time of the murders in the 1880s, the bridge was still under construction. Enabling rapid river crossings, it would eventually steal watermen’s livelihoods. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL2801843webready-8207f7d-e1771417994352.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white illustration depicting a man in a long black coat and a tall black hat, rowing a boat in a river. To the left are two other men in sitting in the boat. Behind them all are some sketches of tall buildings with lots of rectangular windows" title="An 1857 illustration of a London waterman ferrying passengers on the Thames. Might the killer have been such a man, using his boat to carry off, kill and dismember women? (Image by Bridgman Images)" /> Crick was first mentioned in the papers for an alleged assault against his wife, Rosina. He’d kicked her, causing her to scream loudly enough to bring the police to their house. Rosina said that her husband was often mysteriously missing at night. But he was not convicted of any crime. Basically, Rosina wasn’t believed. Next came a report that Crick had been accused of raping 31-year-old Jessie Miller. She had a low-skilled job folding paper for the book trade, she was separated from her husband, and she was short of money. On 1 July 1889, the Shah of Persia arrived in London aboard his yacht to visit Britain’s royal family, his progress up the Thames being observed by huge crowds. On this festive day, Crick tempted Jessie into his boat with the offer of a free ride. He then “did ravish and carnally know” Jessie in his boat, but she jumped into the water and escaped. Again she was not believed in court – and, again, Crick got off. Three of the Thames torsos had been discovered before Jessie’s ordeal. The fourth was discovered that September in Pinchin Street, across the river from Horselydown Old Stairs. That October, a 39-year-old named Sarah Warburton, whose poorly paid job was to sew fur trimmings onto clothes, had the misfortune to accept a lift in Crick’s boat. An illiterate mother of three, Sarah was, like Jessie before her, separated. On this occasion, though, Crick’s luck failed. To assault Sarah, he took his skiff to an out-of-the-way spot alongside a steamer moored underneath the half-finished Tower Bridge. But she hit him on the head with an iron bolt and fled, screaming, onto the ship’s deck. There she was heard by a passing police boat, and Crick was apprehended by Inspector Charles Ford as he tried to row away. At last, James Crick was convicted. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/dreamstimexxl150941857webready-75f4182-e1771418129790.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of Tower Bridge in London, lit up at night. Taken from below, there is a set of stone steps and a railing in the foreground, with the two towers of the bridge standing in the middle of the images. The bridge is lit up with yellow lights and the sky is a dark blue behind it." title="The remains of Horselydown Old Stairs leading to the river at Tower Bridge, which was being built at the time of the murders. It was from here that waterman James Crick worked – and perhaps picked up women to kill (Image by Dreamstime)" /> I suspect that was only because Sarah’s witness statement was backed up by that of a Metropolitan Police inspector. With his support, her testimony, so bravely given and so cleverly recovered by Sarah Bax Horton, was enough to put Crick behind bars. And once he was in prison, the bodies stopped appearing along the Thames. Chillingly, Sarah also reported something Crick had said to her during the attack: “I intend to settle you, as I have done other women that have been found in the Thames.” Was that a confession? I believe so. Read more | Hallie Rubenhold: “To most people, the women killed by the Ripper are just corpses. I want to tell a different story” Unmarked graves What became of the victims? Elizabeth Jackson was given a pauper’s burial in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, the largest graveyard in the world at the time. The torso found in Whitehall was also buried at Brookwood; neither grave is marked. The woman found in Pinchin Street was buried in the East London Cemetery, where she didn’t even get a funeral. Records do roughly indicate where their bodies lie, and these burial grounds are moving places to visit. In death, we can give these women the remembrance and respect they deserve. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-90748470webready-76d630c-e1771418795616.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white illustration showing an arched entrance to a train station, with ornate gates across the arch. Over the arch, the words CEMETERY STATION are written. At the top of the building, the word NECROPOLIS is written. To the left of the station entrance, there is a three storey building with four windows visible" title="The London terminus for the Necropolis Railway serving Brookwood Cemetery, where third victim Elizabeth Jackson was given a pauper’s burial (Image by Getty Images)" /> I believe that the Thames Torso Murderer claimed more victims than the four we know. If he truly was James Crick, then his abused wife, Rosina, and his rape targets Jessie and Sarah were also his victims. Rosina and Sarah managed to get on with their lives. The unfortunate Jessie did not. After a spell in the workhouse, she died at the age of 43 as “a drunkard and an unfortunate under the wheels of an omnibus”. She was a casualty not only of a terrible man but also of a society offering no safety net for women who fell on hard times. Three in the frame Which of these men might have committed the Thames Torso Murders? Jack Fairclough was a one-time partner of Elizabeth Jackson, and possibly the father of her child. They lived an itinerant life together, building up debts, and witnesses report that Jack had “unnaturally used” her. The police were obviously interested in this itinerant stonemason and army deserter, but Jack could prove that, at the time of Elizabeth’s death, he’d been away from London looking for work. James Hardiman was a cats’ meat man, a door-to-door pet-food salesman who worked with a barrow that would have been ideal for transporting a torso through London’s streets. The body of Ripper victim Annie Chapman was found in his mother’s backyard in Hanbury Street, Whitechapel, leading some to speculate that Hardiman was both Jack and the Thames Torso Murderer. However, their methods of killing seem too different. James Crick was a waterman who rowed passengers on the Thames in his boat Ally Sloper. Crick had the physical strength to commit the crimes. He also had the perfect means of distributing the body parts by water, and his boat could have provided a place where he could have dismembered the bodies out of sight. He had a history of violence against women, too. After Sarah Warburton, the target of his final identifiable rape attempt, gave testimony at trial, he was convicted and imprisoned – and the killings on the river ceased. (He was released in 1902, and died in 1907.) Crick, then, must be considered the prime suspect. This article was first published in the February 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
At a time when the royal family is under significant strain, historians shine a spotlight on some of the biggest crises to have enveloped the British monarchy over the past three centuries
The prince, the brothel and a culture war Katie Hindmarch-Watson describes a sex scandal that consumed Queen Victoria’s grandson On 7 July 1889, a policeman arrested a sometime telegraph boy, Henry Newlove, at his mother’s house in Camden Town. Newlove had been recruiting younger telegraph boys at London’s Central Telegraph Office to provide sexual services for affluent male clients at a brothel on Cleveland Street. Defiant, Newlove said that he thought it “very hard that I should get into trouble while men in high position are allowed to walk around free… Why, Lord Arthur Somerset goes regularly to the house at Cleveland Street; so does the Earl of Euston and Colonel Jervois.” Within months, Newlove was in prison and Somerset was in exile. Yet Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, triumphed in a libel suit that exonerated him from any “gross indecency”, and Colonel Jervois received no further mention in police records or the press. However, another man in high position became the focus of speculation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL11686324webready-dfc0737-e1770036564257.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A newspaper depicting several scenes of men in top hats and young boys standing in the street" title="The Cleveland Street Scandal, as reported in The Illustrated Police News on 25 January 1890. The affair – which embroiled Prince Albert Victor – “evolved into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices” (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> We still don’t really know why Prince Albert Victor – or ‘Eddy’, grandson of Queen Victoria and oldest son of the Prince of Wales – became linked to the story. Arthur Somerset had been his father’s equerry, but there is no evidence that the two men associated with one another, and no proof has emerged one way or another about Eddy’s propensity for sex with teenage telegraph boys. The Cleveland Street Scandal evolved from Newlove’s revelations into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices, unequal treatment before the law, and the public’s right to private revelations. Prince Eddy was a potent symbol in a class culture war that pitted aristocratic privilege against aspiring youths in a modernising city. The rumours were enough to spark royal intervention. The Prince of Wales instructed courtiers to keep his son’s name out of the British press, and crown prosecutors used coded language to discuss the persistent suggestion that Eddy was involved. Eddy’s death of pneumonia in 1892 quashed any further need to protect his reputation – but something shady still clings to his memory. Katie Hindmarch-Watson is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University Did Queen Victoria marry her servant? When the widowed monarch fell for the son of a farmer, the nation was scandalised, says Fern Riddell Just a few years after Prince Albert died, the widowed Victoria found herself in the middle of a huge scandal. She was accused of falling in love – and even marrying – her Highland servant, John Brown. For the Victorians, the idea that their monarch might be having a passionate love affair with the son of an Aberdeenshire farmer was truly shocking. Their society was ruled by class, and John was very clearly outside Victoria’s. Her court despised John for his ordinary background, and her government was convinced that he was a threat to both her security and that of the crown. Rumours filled the newspapers that Victoria was mad, and that John was her keeper. Meanwhile, gossips insinuated that he was using supernatural powers to control her and make her fall in love with him. Read more | How I uncovered Victoria's secret love: historian Fern Riddell explains all For 20 years, John stood at Victoria’s side in silence, enduring personal attacks in the press and the threat of violence from Victoria’s public, who believed that he was the reason she was living in seclusion. But Victoria refused to listen to the criticism. She didn’t care who hated John – her family, her court, her government or her people. She refused to be parted from him. By the time John died in 1883, many were convinced that they had privately married. When Victoria attempted to publish a manuscript exposing their life together, the papers were seized and burned by her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, to avoid another terrible scandal. Twenty years later, when Victoria left private instructions for her own burial, she directed that she should be buried with John’s mother’s wedding ring on her finger, and with a lock of his hair and his photograph in her hand. For the next 150 years, John’s family kept a secret archive of Victoria’s letters, jewellery and artefacts about their relationship. They believed that it was too dangerous to expose the truth of their love for one another – until today. Luckily for us, what was scandalous for the Victorians has now been revealed as the greatest love affair of Victoria’s reign. Fern Riddell’s latest book is Victoria’s Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen (Ebury, 2025) Edward VIII puts love before duty The king’s insistence on marrying Wallis Simpson caused a constitutional crisis, writes Alexander Larman The expulsion of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew) from the royal family has undoubtedly been the most scandalous story that ‘the Firm’ has weathered in decades. But it does not even come close to 1936 in constitutional significance. Andrew is, after all, the second son of the late Elizabeth II, whereas Edward VIII was king – albeit a reluctant one. After ascending to the throne following the death of his father, George V, he made it clear that ruling was of secondary importance to his love affair with the married American socialite Wallis Simpson. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-141556826webready-4b8a928-e1770036748150.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="The former Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on their wedding day, 3 June 1937. The monarchy’s current woes don’t “even come close” to Edward’s abdication in constitutional significance, writes Alexander Larman (Image by Getty Images)" title="The former Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on their wedding day, 3 June 1937. The monarchy’s current woes don’t “even come close” to Edward’s abdication in constitutional significance, writes Alexander Larman (Image by Getty Images)" /> It was a sign of the respect in which the monarchy was held at the time that no mention of that relationship was ever made in the British papers, despite it being common knowledge (and freely speculated upon in the European and American media). Had the king been content to keep Wallis as his mistress, the press magnates Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere would have continued to keep the potentially embarrassing story quiet. Yet Edward would not agree to be crowned king in 1937 unless Wallis could become queen. This was impossible for both religious and social reasons, so he announced his intention of abdicating. Constitutionally, this was more difficult than he had imagined, because of the settlement following the deposition of James II & VII, which ensured that the king ruled by consent of parliament. Only the interventions of the king’s lawyer, Walter Monckton, and prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, allowed Edward to quit the throne, assume the title of Duke of Windsor, and marry Wallis. He left England still well regarded by his subjects, but later revelations about his alleged support for the Nazis irrevocably tarnished this affection. The Duke of Windsor is today regarded as one of Britain’s least popular – if most consequential – monarchs. I suspect that Edward and the abdication will be remembered long after Andrew has become a footnote in royal history. Alexander Larman is a historian, journalist and author of books including The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication (W&N, 2020) The Prince Regent’s marital misery Few royal marriages can have been more hellish than that of Caroline of Brunswick and the wastrel Prince Regent, writes Nigel Jones Thanks to the brilliantly illustrated scandal sheets of Regency Britain, the disastrous marriage of the Prince Regent, later King George IV, to Princess Caroline of Brunswick kept the country entertained and outraged for a quarter of a century. George, a spendthrift wastrel, was hopelessly in debt. Though secretly married to the Roman Catholic Maria Fitzherbert, in 1795 the prince reluctantly took (sight unseen) a legitimate, Protestant bride – his first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick – in the hope that her money would pay off his creditors. It was hate at first sight. George told Lord Malmesbury, who had brought his bride from Germany, “Harris, I am not well: pray get me a glass of brandy.” Equally unimpressed, Caroline found her husband fatter than she’d been led to believe. Meanwhile, Malmesbury noted her poor personal hygiene. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-464476543webready-588f5c4-e1770036889924.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A colourful cartoon showing a couple in the centre, each being dragged in opposite directions by other couples" title="An 1820 cartoon pokes fun at George IV’s attempt to dissolve his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. The disastrous union “kept the country entertained and outraged for a quarter of a century”, says Nigel Jones (Image by Getty Images)" /> Despite drinking for three days before their wedding, George performed his marital duties: nine months later Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Charlotte. But he made his wife’s life so hellish that she soon went into exile in Europe. She settled in a lakeside villa near Como, met (and joked about having sex with) the pope, and reportedly threw parties at which she danced topless. Read more | The illness and decline of King George III George sent spies to report on her misdeeds, hoping to obtain evidence for a divorce. Caroline’s lovers reputedly included a young Italian and – more scandalously still – Marshal Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law and ruler of Naples, at a time when Britain was at war with France. When George III died in 1820, Caroline returned to claim her place as queen. But not only did the new king have her tried by the House of Lords for adultery, he had the doors of Westminster Abbey barred when she tried to attend his coronation. The hypocritical adultery accusations having been dropped, Caroline was cheered by the London mob, who saw her as a symbol of opposition to the king. Broken by her humiliation, though, she died three weeks later. Nigel Jones is a historian and writer. His books include Kitty’s Salon (John Blake, 2023) Georgian Britain’s disobedient rake The disreputable Duke of Cumberland caused no end of trouble, writes Felicity Day George III started his reign with noble ambitions: to be a moral leader, faithful to his wife and head of a united royal family. Regrettably, not all of his clan got the memo. George’s younger brother Henry, Duke of Cumberland was notionally a naval officer but in reality a rake-about-town. A dispute with a courtesan had already dragged him into the newspapers before he hit the headlines in 1769 over a more scandalous affair with Lady Grosvenor. The couple were caught by her husband’s servants in a bedchamber in a coaching inn in St Albans, their clothing in disarray. Henry was hauled into court to account for his ‘criminal conversation’ with another man’s wife. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL416311webready-df88fb0-e1770036955185.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting showing a young woman in a gold dress, with a high, grey hairdo" title="In 1771, George III’s younger brother Henry secretly married widow and commoner Anne Horton (shown in a c1777 portrait). Henry’s spirited antics strained the public’s tolerance for the monarchy (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> With revelations ranging from the disguises he donned for secret trysts to the inarticulate and ungrammatical style of his love letters, the duke was made to look ridiculous. A £13,000 bill for damages and costs had to be covered from the Civil List – and, to the king’s further shame, the press was filled with comment about un-princely conduct dragging the nation into disrepute. Then, in 1771, it emerged that Henry had secretly married. His bride was the widow Anne Horton – a commoner, and daughter of a notorious libertine. Furious, the king exiled them from court, and refused to provide financial support. In an attempt to prevent any further such disobedience, he pushed his government into passing the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which made it illegal for royals under the age of 25 to wed without the monarch’s consent. Read more | Charlotte and Diana: the parallel lives of two Princesses of Wales whose deaths sent the nation into mourning It didn’t stop the outcast couple causing trouble. The Cumberlands set up a lively rival court, consorting with opposition politicians and befriending the future George IV and his eldest brothers – who followed their uncle into lives of gambling, womanising and general extravagance, causing countless more PR crises and pushing public support for the royals to the brink. The determined respectability of Victoria’s court was without doubt a direct reaction to their steady drumbeat of scandals. Felicity Day is a journalist and author of The Game of Hearts: True Stories of Regency Romance (Blink Publishing, 2024) Elizabeth II misreads the public mood When the Queen seemed to stay silent in the wake of Princess Diana’s death, she was seen as out of touch, says Shrabani Basu It was meant to be a lazy Sunday at the end of the summer holidays. But on 31 August 1997, Britons woke to the shocking news that Diana, Princess of Wales had died following a car crash in a Paris tunnel. Her friend Dodi Fayed and the car’s driver Henri Paul had also lost their lives. Diana had rarely been away from the headlines. From the Panorama interview in which she famously said that “there were three of us in this marriage”, to the latest round of holiday photos with Dodi Fayed, the end of her fairy-tale wedding to Prince Charles had fuelled tabloid sales for years. Now a pall of gloom descended over Britain. Within hours of the crash, Kensington Palace had turned into a shrine for the late princess. Everyone from Mother Teresa to heads of state was expressing their grief. But though a short statement expressing shock and distress was issued from Buckingham Palace, Diana’s former mother-in-law remained at Balmoral Castle, 500 miles from London, seemingly unmoved. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-73389657webready-1d8b4e5-e1770037044850.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing lots of flowers and written tributes along a spiked metal fence. To the right, a young boy ties something around one of the fence posts" title="A boy attaches a tribute to the railings of Kensington Palace following the death of Princess Diana, 1997. This would “become one of the most trying moments in Elizabeth II’s reign”, writes Shrabani Basu (Image by Getty Images)" /> The Queen was following the rule book – Diana was technically no longer a royal. But the press reflected public sentiment. “Where is our Queen?” screamed The Sun. “Show us you care,” demanded The Express. For once, Elizabeth had not read the national mood. Speculation mounted in the vacuum, with some blaming Charles for his infidelity and for driving Diana into Dodi’s arms. All in all, it would become one of the most trying moments in Elizabeth II’s reign, when the monarchy seemed to have lost the plot. Eventually, an intervention by the newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair, convinced the Queen that she needed to be heard. Four days later Elizabeth appeared at the gates of Balmoral and looked at the wreaths. Five days after Diana’s death, she finally made a live broadcast from Buckingham Palace, speaking as a “Queen and as a grandmother”. The people forgave her, and faith in the monarchy was restored. Shrabani Basu is author of Victoria & Abdul: The Extraordinary True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant (The History Press, 2010) This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
From maniacal horses to bat-men on the moon: 14 strange newspaper headlines from history
Muckraking journalists and money-hungry editors have been publishing sensational stories since newspapers first began. Hilary Mitchell flicks through the archives and reveals some of the weirdest press cuttings of all time
1. "German ghouls: corpses converted to soap and explosives” Yorkshire Telegraph and Star, April 1917 If you think that ‘fake news’ is a new phenomenon, think again. One of the most notorious pieces of misinformation actually dates to the First World War. During the conflict, a gruesome rumour spread that German leaders were using “Kadaververwertungsanstalten” – ‘corpse factories’ – to turn the dead bodies of their own soldiers into products such as soap, candles, and even bombs. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/German-Ghouls-0741ad1-e1769765897344.jpg" width="620" height="411" alt="A newspaper clipping with the headline GERMAN GHOULS across the top" title="German leaders were creating soap and explosives out of corpses, claimed this 1917 newspaper article. In reality, they were victims of a deliberately shocking propaganda campaign (Image by the Newspaper Archive)" /> The lurid story unsurprisingly sparked widespread outrage, but it wasn’t true. It was a purposefully shocking piece of war propaganda, and the German government protested in the strongest terms against the “loathsome and ridiculous” claims. However, that didn’t stop the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star gleefully reporting on the hoax in April 1917, in an article that claimed the Germans were making “dividends from death” by distilling glycerine from dead bodies “and so obtaining some portion of their explosives.” 2. "O Dammit wants his name changed" The Richmond Climax, 6 June 1913 Orlando Dammit was featured in the 6 June issue of the equally curiously named Richmond Climax newspaper. The short article explained that the man wanted to change his name from “O. Dammit” because he “can’t tell whether people are calling him or merely venting injured feelings when they say ‘O, dammit.’” It’s not clear what he wanted to change his name to, or if he was successful in his attempts to change it, but presumably he would have been happy with anything that didn’t begin with the letter ‘O’. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Vampires-in-Rhode-Island-Public-Domain-3e1421d-e1769766218331.jpeg" width="620" height="413" alt="A newspaper clipping with the headline BELIEVE IN VAMPIRES across the top" title="Rhode Islanders were convinced the undead were sucking the blood of their own relatives and causing consumption – sparking ‘vampire hysteria’ throughout the state" /> 3. "Vampires in Rhode Island" Boston Evening Transcript, 18 January 1896 On 18 January 1896, a particularly strange story ran in the Boston Evening Transcript. The headline was ‘Vampires in Rhode Island’, and the story went on to explain: “Respectable people [are] digging up the bodies of defunct relatives… The belief is that persons dead of consumption leave their graves and suck the blood of members of their own families.” This outbreak of ‘vampire panic’ was sparked by a wave of tuberculosis (then known as consumption) in New England. Some rural communities decided that the often-fatal illness was the work of the undead and began exhuming bodies, looking for what they believed were signs of vampirism, such as fresh blood in the heart. The most famous case occurred in 1892 in Exeter, Rhode Island, when the body of a young woman called Mercy Brown was exhumed. Her heart was reduced to ashes and given to her sick brother as a remedy for his own illness. He died anyway – after all, burned organs aren’t a cure for TB – but the story became a lasting symbol of the panic. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Ouija-boardPublic-Domain-7d2ac73-e1769766295767.png" width="904" height="1000" alt="A newspaper clipping with the headline CONSTANT USE OF OUIJA BOARD DRIVES SEVEN PEOPLE INSANE across the top" title="Rooted in the Victorian obsession with spiritualism, encounters with ouija boards were common. The story of Adeline Bottini, featuring an alleged séance in the nude, was particularly dramatic" /> 4. "Constant use of ouija board drives seven people insane" The Long Beach Telegram and The Long Beach Daily News, 4 March 1920 In 1920, Long Beach newspapers reported that a 15-year-old girl in California had introduced “the [ouija board] and convinced other six [people] of its spiritual power”. The story went on to claim that all seven of the people involved were now under observation in the “insane ward”. The girl at the heart of the scandal was one Adeline Bottini, who police alleged was performing séances in a state of undress, “the better to communicate with the spirits”. Ouija boards were first commercialised in 1890 by a businessman from Baltimore, towards the tail end of the Victorian obsession with spiritualism: the belief that the living could communicate with the spirits of the dead. The craze began in 1848 with the Fox sisters in New York state, whose séances drew wide attention, and it didn’t take long before copycat socialites started to host similar gatherings. At these, participants were – unlike poor Adeline Bottini – always fully clothed. Read more | Fake news and the Dreyfus affair: the media-fuelled scandal that divided France <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Boy-Eats-BibleGettyImages-164563808-960838d-e1769766508270.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A cartoon of a boy wearing a pink T shirt, green trousers, a blue backwards cap on his head, and blue shoes, eating a blue Bible" title="In one of the more trivial stories from rural 1920s Hilton, Mellzo McCoy munched on the family Bible, resulting in an appearance in the newspaper – and a stomach ache" /> 5. "Boy eats Bible" The Hilton Record, 17 June 1926 “Unknown to his parents, Mellzo McCoy ate the family Bible with the exception of the covers and a few pages. The loss was only discovered when Mellzo complained of a stomach ache.” This 1926 snippet in The Hilton Record – the weekly community newspaper for the village of Hilton in Monroe County, New York – definitely won’t win any awards for the most detailed news article of all time. This is probably why it was buried on page eight of the publication, alongside another article (‘Bee Causes Wreck’) about a man losing control of his vehicle after a bee got into it. When it comes to stories like this, it’s important to understand how local papers worked at the time. Rural weeklies like the Record often had unpaid neighbourhood correspondents who contacted them with (fairly trivial) stories about what had happened in their neck of the woods. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Terrified-by-Donkey-f14e9ba-e1769766740393.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="A black and white illustration shows a woman falling to the floor in front of a donkey" title="Scared to death by the sound of a donkey’s footsteps behind her, a young woman’s sad demise ended up in the Illustrated Police News, known for its lurid coverage (Image by The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive)" /> 6. "Trampled to death by a donkey" Illustrated Police News, 21 July 1883 The Illustrated Police News was a sensationalist Victorian weekly newspaper published in Britain, infamous for its lurid crime coverage and emotive illustrations. It launched in 1864 and this rather sad story ran in their 21 July 1883 edition. It recounts the final hours in the life of a young woman who had set off to visit her grandparents and heard footsteps behind her. She ran for her life. Her grandfather found her body the next day, noticed his donkey standing close by and concluded that she’d been frightened by the sound of the animal following her home. Although the stories featured in the Illustrated Police News were reported in a very melodramatic way, they were, unlike the German ‘corpse factory’ article above, completely true. The publication’s content, though bombastic, was based on police reports, coroners’ inquests and court reporting. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Children-Not-Fish-Public-Domain-889d371.jpg" width="299" height="258" alt="A newspaper clipping with the headline CHILDREN NOT "FISH" SO CAN'T BE MAILED across the top" title="After at least two separate attempts to send children via mail, the postal department had to step in. Children, they said in 1920, were not “harmless animals” so couldn’t be mailed" /> 7. "Children not 'fish' so can't be mailed" Des Moines Tribune, 16 June 1920 “Children do not come within the classification of ‘harmless animals’, and therefore are not mailable,” the Des Moines Tribune reported the postal department as saying in 1920, apparently prompted by two applications to ship children around the country inside packages. Parcel post was still a relatively new phenomenon in 1920, having been introduced in 1913. Some inventive parents realised that the cost of sending a package was often cheaper than a train ticket and news reports of the time carried stories about attempts to mail children: for example, in St Louis in 1913, a mother allegedly tried to mail her eight-year-old to relatives a few hundred miles away and in 1914, a 10-year-old-boy was purportedly mailed as a parcel to his grandmother. 8. "Battle with a bald eagle" San Francisco Call, 9 October 1891 The San Francisco Call was known for its flamboyant coverage, and this thrilling tale of a balloonist’s high-altitude encounter with an eagle, published in 1891, is a great example. The article describes the ascent of a 24-year-old named Arthur Cleveland in a hot air balloon. Once he had climbed to 3,000 feet, “he saw a huge bird flying swiftly toward him” and became aware it was a bald eagle. The article goes on to describe Cleveland’s daring – and victorious – battle with the rogue bird. He later retrieved the dead eagle, only to discover the local constable wasn’t too impressed; he suggested Cleveland be fined $550 for killing a protected species. Read more | A Victorian-era journalist snuck into an infamous asylum, and what she exposed shocked New York <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Real-Puppy-Love-Public-Domain.jpg-f48d0e7-e1769767410147.png" width="620" height="413" alt="A newspaper clipping with the headline REAL PUPPY LOVE HERE AS DOGS GO ELOPING across the top" title="Canines under the spell of Cupid were the news of the day in 1910s Minneapolis – showing the sensationalism of early 20th-century press" /> 9. "Real puppy love here as dogs go eloping" The Minneapolis Morning Tribune, 2 March 1911 It must have been a slow news day in Minneapolis on 2 March 1911, as one of the headlines in the Tribune appears to have been about dogs having sex. The rest of the headline reads: ‘Canines Fall Under Shafts of Cupid and Kennel Society is Stirred, Four Hundred of Dogdom Buzzes over Scandals Among Young Set, Irate Husband of French Poodle on Warpath after His Rival.’ Although the full details of the story are lost in the mists of time, it’s another good example of early 20th-century press sensationalism, one which also documents the rise of pet culture we still have today. The early 1900s saw a rise in the popularity of organised dog breeding, which in turn led to the formation of kennel clubs; these sometimes became embroiled in controversies and rivalries, which were equally good tabloid-fodder. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Bat-Men-GettyImages-1397982878-a7ec22c-e1769767491349.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white illustration of large winged creatures flying around a mountainous area with a river running through it" title="A lithograph depicts the lunar civilisation that New York newspaper The Sun claimed had been found on the moon (Image by Getty Images)" /> 10. ”Bat-men on the moon” The Sun, New York, 1835 In August 1835, New York newspaper The Sun published a series of six articles claiming that life had been discovered on the moon. Not only life, in fact, but an entire lunar civilisation. The stories, credited to the famous astronomer Sir John Herschel and supposedly sourced from a (non-existent) Edinburgh paper, detailed lunar landscapes populated by bison, goats, unicorns, tail-less beavers, and bat-like humanoids called ‘Vespertilio-homo’ who built temples. The articles claimed that discoveries had been made using a revolutionary new telescope. It turned out that the hoax was the work of one of The Sun’s reporters who later admitted to inventing the stories to boost sales. However, The Sun never issued a formal retraction, making the ‘Great Moon Hoax’ one of the most famous examples of 19th-century ‘fake news’. 11. "Man doesn't trust horses" Amador Ledger, 3 October 1902 Letters to the editor aren’t a new phenomenon, as this extract from the Amador Ledger, itself lifted from Harper’s Weekly, shows. In this example, a man from Kentucky wrote into Harper’s to share his opinion that, in his long experience, “every horse at some time in his life develops into a homicidal maniac… I have driven one commonplace horse every other day for six years over the same road and then had him go crazy and try to kill himself and me because a leaf fluttered down in front of him.” The entry had the subheading: ‘Part maniac and part idiot, is what one man calls them’, which many present-day horse owners will no doubt relate to. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/TypistGettyImages-97226313-cb961e1-e1769767620435.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white cartoon of a woman sitting at a typewriter" title="In an eerie ‘true ghost’ story, a woman reportedly saw a ghost fall from a building in Aldwych, London – the same building from which a woman had previously fallen to her death (Image by Getty Images)" /> 12. "Girl typist saw a ghost fall in city street" Sunday Mirror, 29 July 1934 In July 1934, the Sunday Mirror reported the case of a typist who claimed to have seen a ghost fall from a building in Aldwych, London. She fainted and was carried into a nearby chemist’s shop. When she regained consciousness, she told reporters she’d seen a girl fall from a high window and land at her feet. Interestingly, 18 months earlier, a young woman had actually fallen from an upper storey at that very location and was killed. The typist claimed she had no prior knowledge of the tragedy – whether you believe her is entirely up to you. As noted above, the mid-19th century saw a rise in spiritualism and séances. As a result, papers often reported ‘true ghost’ stories or mysterious happenings. However, by the 1920s and 30s these stories had begun to decline in mainstream tabloids, so this 1934 Mirror story is a bit of a (spooky) outlier. Read more | Did he photograph the ghost of a president? Meet the scheming Victorian who exploited a grieving America <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Devil-WorshipGettyImages-1387752195-62248fc-e1769767805608.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Seven people are standing in a line with their heads bowed slightly forward. Each is wearing a black hooded gown and a red devil mask on their faces" title="The global ‘satanic panic’ of the 1980s led to many stories of witches and ritualistic practices. In Utah, a 12-part series in the Provo Daily Herald was dedicated to devil worship (Image by Getty Images)" /> 13. "Satan worship in Zion" Provo Daily Herald, July–August 1985 No, this isn’t a particularly far-fetched plot from hit Netflix series Stranger Things: the US newspaper Provo Daily Herald really did publish a series of 12 articles in 1985 alleging widespread devil worship in Utah Valley. The articles were written by two reporters, Patrick Christian and Vicki Barker, who claimed to have interviewed “dozens” of psychologists, therapists and law-enforcement officers so they could “educate readers about the prevalence of Satanic worship in this area”. Subjects of the articles included a teenager who, it was claimed, drank animal blood after meeting a Satanist in seventh grade. Also, two Utah County Sheriff's deputies reported on “covens of witches” operating in abandoned buildings. Proof of these claims was lacking, to say the least, and the Provo Daily Herald faced criticism for adding fuel to the global ‘satanic panic’ that gripped the media in the 1980s. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/Tiger-WoodsGettyImages-1097899790-f941754-e1769767906185.jpg" width="620" height="747" alt="A man wearing a black Nike sports jacket and black Nike cap stands holding multiple white golf balls in his hand" title="Tiger Woods holding his custom-made golf balls, which caused a stir following his endorsement of Nike Tour Accuracy ones (Image by Getty Images)" /> 14. "Tiger Woods plays with own balls" Associated Press wire story, 2000 The editor of this news story by journalist David Kravets was either very naive or purposefully channelling their inner Carry On scriptwriter when they crafted this saucy headline in the year 2000. The story is about the fact that pro golfer Tiger Woods had endorsed Nike Tour Accuracy golf balls in adverts, when (shock horror!) he actually played with custom-made balls unavailable to amateur players. Nike was eventually forced to confess that the balls Woods played with had a slightly harder inner and outer core than the balls sold to the public. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting story of all time, which is possibly why it was given such a cheeky, Barbara Windsor-esque headline.
The MILLION pound forgery | Mrs Rudd vs the Perreaus
In 1775, a respectable lady, a mild-mannered apothecary and his fast-living identical twin stood accused of pulling off a scam that had earned them a grand fortune of £7,500 – roughly £1.5m in today's money
In 1775, a respectable lady, a mild-mannered apothecary and his fast-living identical twin stood accused of pulling off a scam that had earned them a grand fortune of £7,500 – roughly £1.5m in today's money. But as the trial of Mrs Rudd and the Perreaus unfolded, the defendants turned on one another, and the plot thickened – who was the real orchestrator of the scheme, and who would hang for it? In this episode of History’s Greatest Scandals, Professor Hannah Greig and Ellie Cawthorne revisit this sensational courtroom drama, and consider what it can tell us about the Georgian age. Watch the full episode, or listen ad-free at the link below: View Green Video on the source website