Hannah Lindqvist

Hannah covers the films, music, books, photographs, fashion and food through which people actually lived their history. If it was in a kitchen, a cinema or on a record sleeve, it is her beat.

Black and white photograph of the stone Cenotaph in Whitehall draped in Union flags before its unveiling on 11 November 1920, with troops and crowds around it

The Cenotaph Was Built in Plaster for One Parade and Never Taken Down

Hannah Lindqvist · November 9, 2026

Photograph of a wedding party in India, taken between 1909 and 1919, with the seated couple garlanded and guests standing around them

Periyar's 1928 Weddings Had No Priests. A DMK Leader Has Just Apologised

Hannah Lindqvist · November 8, 2026

Black and white photograph of Thomas Sully's painted portrait of an elderly Thomas Jefferson in a fur-collared coat

Jefferson Bought a Quran in 1765. Congress Has Owned It Since 1815

Hannah Lindqvist · November 7, 2026

Indian miniature painting of Hanuman offering healing herbs to Rama and Lakshmana on a green hillside, surrounded by an army of monkeys and bears

Before Ranbir Kapoor's Ramayana, a TV Show Stopped India Every Sunday

Hannah Lindqvist · November 6, 2026

Engraving after Hogarth of Guards soldiers, women and children crowding a road outside an inn on the march to Finchley in 1745

The Bank of England Survived a Run in 1745 by Paying Out in Sixpences

Hannah Lindqvist · November 4, 2026

Photograph of a Greenlandic dog team pulling a sled across sea ice near Thule, with a flat-topped mountain behind

Denmark Moved 116 Inughuit in 1953 to Clear Space for a US Greenland Base

Hannah Lindqvist · November 4, 2026

Postcard photograph of the finish of the 1905 Melbourne Cup at Flemington, with the crowd in the foreground

The First Melbourne Cup Had 4,000 People, a Gold Watch and a Horse Who Came by Boat

Hannah Lindqvist · October 30, 2026

Photo of Patrick Stewart on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2013

Patrick Stewart Was the Captain Star Trek's Creator Refused to Have

Hannah Lindqvist · October 30, 2026

Woodblock print by Kawanabe Kyōsai, about 1863, showing two long-necked goblins frightening a customer at a noodle stall

Instant Noodles Began in an Osaka Shed. Last Year the World Ate 124 Billion

Hannah Lindqvist · October 28, 2026

The Cloisters Playing Cards, a complete hand-painted deck of 52 made in the Burgundian Netherlands around 1475 to 1480, laid out in four rows

Why a Jack Is a Jack: The Deck in Your Drawer Is a 1480s French Design

Hannah Lindqvist · October 28, 2026

Lithograph of 1835 showing winged bat-people, unicorns and other animals beside a lake and waterfall on the moon, sold by the New York Sun as a view of Herschel's discoveries

Strange History

The New York Sun Found Bat-Men on the Moon in 1835 and Sold Out Every Day

Hannah Lindqvist · October 27, 2026

Black-and-white night photograph of three children on a New York street at Halloween in 1964, two of them in moulded plastic masks, one a grinning space monster and one a blonde woman's face

Halloween (1978) Cost $300,000 and Its Killer Wore a $2 Captain Kirk Mask

Hannah Lindqvist · October 27, 2026

A baker in white overalls cutting up a pumpkin for pies on a stool in a bakery back room, with pumpkin halves and a bucket of peeled pieces, 1939 photograph

Nearly All US Canned Pumpkin Comes From One Illinois Town

Hannah Lindqvist · October 26, 2026

Albrecht Dürer's 1514 engraving of a peasant couple dancing, arms flung out and feet kicking

Strange History

Strasbourg's 1518 Dancing Plague: The Council Hired a Band

Hannah Lindqvist · October 26, 2026

Behind-the-scenes photograph from the making of Godzilla in 1954: two crew members adjust the monster suit on a miniature set of electricity pylons

Godzilla Was Born From a Tuna Boat Caught Under an H-Bomb in 1954

Hannah Lindqvist · October 25, 2026

Satirical print titled The Hobby Horse, 1819, showing young men in top hats riding and falling off two-wheeled running machines in a park

Strange History

The Summer That Never Came in 1816 Produced Frankenstein and the Bicycle

Hannah Lindqvist · October 25, 2026

Scene from the Bayeux Tapestry showing Harold enthroned as king of the English with Archbishop Stigand beside him

The Bayeux Tapestry Is in London at Last, and It Was Never a Tapestry

Hannah Lindqvist · October 24, 2026

Engraved portrait of Benjamin Franklin in a fur cap and spectacles, after a 1777 drawing by Charles-Nicolas Cochin

Franklin Sailed for France 250 Years Ago and Conquered Paris in a Fur Hat

Hannah Lindqvist · October 24, 2026

Printed broadside of the 29 September 1690 order by the Governor and Council of Massachusetts suppressing the newspaper Publick Occurrences

America's First Newspaper Lasted Four Days Before Boston Shut It Down

Hannah Lindqvist · October 23, 2026

Woodblock print of a huge blue wave with clawed white foam curling over three boats, with a small Mount Fuji in the distance

The Great Wave Cost About as Much as a Double Helping of Noodles in 1831

Hannah Lindqvist · October 23, 2026

Close-up photograph of a torn strip of ancient papyrus with lines of Greek handwriting, a third-century BC fragment of Homer's Odyssey

How Sappho Survived on Rubbish-Dump Scraps and Reached Anne Carson's Nobel

Hannah Lindqvist · October 22, 2026

Four Halloween guisers in skull and wrestling masks, one holding a toy guitar, sitting on a sofa in Baltasound, Shetland

How Trick-or-Treating Began, From Soul Cakes to a 1927 Alberta Newspaper

Hannah Lindqvist · October 21, 2026

Annie Edson Taylor standing beside her oak barrel, which is labelled 'Annie Edson Taylor / Heroine of Niagara Falls / Oct 24 1901', in a formal black dress

Strange History

The Schoolteacher Who Went Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel on Her 63rd Birthday

Hannah Lindqvist · October 20, 2026

The crowd at the Woodstock festival in August 1969

Woodstock 1969: The Farm Festival That Ran Out of Everything but People

Hannah Lindqvist · Updated October 20, 2026