In the 1960s, London Bridge was really falling down — or, to be more accurate, sinking into the mud under the weight of cars and buses it wasn't built to carry. So the city of London sold it at auction to a man named Robert McCulloch. @AtlasObscura explain who he was, how he dismantled the bridge and put it back together, where it is now, and why a voodoo doll was buried underneath it.
It's like a scene from "The Antiques Roadshow." In 1946, Harvard Law School paid $27.50 for what it believed to be an unofficial copy of the Magna Carta. Two medieval history experts analyzed it and have concluded that it's actually the real deal: A rare, lost original Magna Carta from 1300 (the reign of King Edward I) that could be worth millions. Here's more from @BBCNews.
Anybody following UK news at the moment will know that the Church of England's Archbishop of Canterbury is under pressure to resign following a report describing church inaction over John Smyth's years of sadistic child abuse.
This scandal, however, should not be considered as
solely of concern to the Church of England. As this article makes clear, Smyth was a major figure in the 1970s crusade by British social conservatives against "the permissive society", a crusade which helped prepare the way for the triumph of Margaret Thatcher and her melding of "Victorian values" with militant neoliberalism.
Smyth's story is more than the history of one depraved individual. It calls for further investigation into his shielding and consideration of the ideological roots of rightwingers' readiness to close their eyes to such horrors.
John Smyth: the go-to barrister for Mary Whitehouse | Christianity | The Guardian