User:Mikedash
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm an historian, making a living writing popular narrative non-fiction, introduced to Wikipedia by a friend who contributed the definitive article on the dew pond. Major interests are naval history (the subject in which I hold a PhD), sports history (especially football and baseball in the pre-World War I era) and Fortean phenomena (I worked for Fortean Times for 20 years).
I've written books on the history of the Batavia (ship), the Dutch tulip mania and Thuggee, and have made a couple of contributions to Wikipedia in those areas. I've just completed work on a book on police corruption in New York in the pre World War I era, so I'll try to chip in some more articles on topics relating to this area, too.
Most of my contributions are written as a sort of displacement activity when I get stuck with my current project.
For more information, see www.mikedash.com.
[edit] Selected contributions
Batenburgers Remarkably violent early Anabaptist sect.
Charles Becker The only American policeman (to date) to be executed for murder.
Charles Chapin Legendarily cruel US newspaperman turned wife-killer turned rose gardener.
"Nuts" Cobbold "Fossil footballer" from the early 1880s reputed to have the hardest shot in the world.
Early fires of London Great fires before the Great Fire.
Jeronimus Cornelisz Noted mutineer and mass murderer, responsible in 1629 for an episode that became a real-life 'Lord of the Flies'.
Death Wail Eerie, keening lament reported by explorers in nineteenth and early twentieth century Australia. (Includes link to 1898 wax cylinder recording of a Torres Strait death wail).
John Goff American hanging judge. From Fenian terrorist to terror of the New York bar.
Richard Honeck, American murderer paroled after serving 64 years in gaol – reputedly the longest term served by any convict terminating in the prisoner's release.
Howe and Hummel Famously corrupt New York lawyers.
John Kirkham Ship's steward who became a general in the Ethiopian army.
Alexander Morten Goalkeeper whose date of birth (1831) made him the earliest of all international footballers.
Cuthbert Ottaway Greatest all-round sportsman of the 1870s.
Leigh Richmond Roose Early Welsh international goalkeeper; a noted eccentric.
Ridderschap van Holland Dutch ship lost in the Indian Ocean in mysterious circumstances.
Philippa Schuyler New York prodigy, the most famous product of a mixed race marriage in the US of the 1930s and 1940s, raised in notably eccentric fashion and observed by the great Joseph Mitchell.
G.O. Smith Noted nineteenth century centre forward who refused, as a matter of principle, to head the ball.
Saartje Specx Young Dutch-Asian girl who came to grief in an early East Indies sex scandal.
