HAistoric — Histories That Almost Were

— The true story of the Canterbury pilgrims and the holy laundries that cleansed England, one soul at a time. —

— One monk’s theological objections, fatally mistranslated as a savage critique of papal bathing. —

— A brief history of the rabbit that ate Tuscany, and the single misplaced dot that caused it. —

— Sometimes, heresy pays. Just not the people you expect. —

🎙 On the Phonograph

— A banking crisis in the Ilkhanate, prompted by a single mistranslated Persian participle. —

— One abbot’s plumbing innovations resulted in a 47% increase in papal laundry bills and a new theory of hydro-theology. —

— An argument for why European navigators should have checked their work, and against borrowing your rival’s homework. —

— 78% of Yuan Dynasty court astronomers agreed: the celestial river required immediate and vigorous dredging. —

— A Westphalian abbess’s well-intentioned liturgical experiment results in the world’s first truly buoyant bible. —

— 87% of Viking trade disputes were resolved by competitive churning, say sources. —

— 87% of disputed decapitations upheld on review, according to one Tetzcoco record. —

— An 8th-century Irish hermit’s quest for divine dampness accidentally invents the pilgrimage rave. —

— One empress’s tantrum over the colour purple spooled out into ecclesiastical schism, civil war, and, ultimately, the sack of Constantinople. —

— A 15th-century divination ritual goes horribly right, creating the world’s first and most confusing futures market. —

— Sometimes, the only thing standing between serfdom and a jacquerie is a really good hat. —