I’ll admit I was quite tired and disgruntled when I started finalizing this week’s historical highlights, but they turned out to be interesting enough to get me out of my slump. Leave me a comment if any of them lifted your mood!

If I had to recommend one must-read article this weekend it would be this account of the work of Norwegian smell expert Sissel Tolaas. She has recreated the smell of mustard gas from World War I and made a wheel of cheese using a molecule from one of David Beckham’s football boots. Completely fascinating.

Check this out! “Mapping Emotions in Victorian London is a crowdsourcing project designed to expand possibilities for research in the humanities. The project has invited anonymous participants to annotate whether passages drawn from novels, published mainly in the Victorian era, represented London places in a fearful, happy, or unemotional manner. This data from the crowd allowed us to generate the maps you find here, revealing a previously unseen emotional geography of Victorian London.”

Read the first in a series of posts about medieval women from the British Library’s “Medieval Manuscripts Blog.”

How could I not read a post entitled “America’s Most Prodigious Eater”? Then, to burst the bubble, I had to look at this article, which shows that Diamond Jim Brady could not possibly have eaten as much as people claim.

A former mayor of Charleston, South Carolina wants to construct an International African American Museum to portray slave experience.

This myth-busting article is a few years old, but it’s timely for the season. Mmm, now I want a hot cross bun!

A new Shakespeare exhibition focuses on documents, like the real estate agreement below.

If you have the time for some longer readings, you might be interested in Canada’s History‘s latest articles on law and order (and if you’re interested in picture books about the Mounties, click over to this post):

• “Fine Chemistry”: Arsenic and no trace. But that all changed when forensic chemist Henry Holmes Croft made Canadian legal history with a pickling jar’s gruesome contents.
• “Rigorous Science”: A priest suspected of murder. A scientist who can solve the puzzle using ballistics evidence — precise proof never before used in a Canadian court. This would be no ordinary murder trial.
• “Inspector Cruickshank & The Case of the Beryl G“: The boat was adrift. The crew was missing. But the blood and the bullet holes told a tale.
• “Women on the Force”: Canada’s first female Mounties had a tough time fitting in – and you won’t find their stories in the RCMP’s official histories.
• “‘Noble, Daring, & Dashing’: The Image of the Mounties”: The RCMP has become a national icon, largely due to the popular media of the times extolling the virtues of the men in scarlet. But this popular image, so beloved by the public, has also shielded the Force from public scrutiny.

Canadian history buffs and other educators might also be interested in the free webinars put on by Canada’s History between March 31 and July 7. (I’m going to look into the ones on using primary sources.) Register here.

Enjoy the long weekend, everyone!