The History Gossip
A Slice of Ye Olde Scandal for Every Day of the Year
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
In this exclusive book, Katie Kennedy of the hugely popular TikTok account @TheHistoryGossip delivers fascinating, witty, and salacious historical facts for every day of the year, proving that our shared histories are anything but boring.
Sexy. Scandalous. Dodgy. If you were of the mind that history is boring, you haven’t been paying attention. Meet Katie Kennedy, aka The History Gossip. Incorporating British slang and pop culture references and infused with her signature deadpan humor, Katie offers a delightful fusion of Drunk History and Horrible Histories, making learning about the past an absolute riot.
From royals embroiled in love triangles to Victorians eating tapeworms for the banter, Katie carefully researches the past and delivers shocking and salacious historical facts for each day of the year. Just as informative as it is funny and entertaining, The History Gossip follows an “on this day in history” format with historical events arranged by month and date, and with quirky reference illustrations to help readers visualize the past.
This compelling and raunchy read covers topics that range from Mary, Queen of Scots getting the chop (she was beheaded after she was found to be complicit in a plot to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I) to the curse surrounding King Tut’s tomb (Lord Carnarvon died from an infected mosquito bite two months after visiting). So make yourself a cuppa if you fancy, and get ready to dive into the tales and stories that have made history so very absorbing and a lot outrageous.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Henry VIII marries a teenager, an 11-year-old sends unsolicited beauty tips to Abraham Lincoln, and a surgeon performs Britain's first nose job in this witty debut. Kennedy adapts her popular TikTok account of the same name into a calendar commemorating sensational historical events on every day of the year, including scandalous births and deaths, posthumous beheadings, and drunken disasters like the man who in 1845 threw "a sculpted stone exhibit at a glass cabinet" containing a Roman vase at the British Museum ("He spends the next two months in prison with a severe hangover"). Kennedy's overview not only reaches back to ancient times with incidents like Cleopatra's suicide but delves into more recent episodes, including Liz Truss's 2022 stint as "the shortest-serving prime minister of the UK." Kennedy combines bizarre facts—the ancient Greeks used "shards of pottery" as toilet paper—with droll and occasionally fabulist asides, such as Henry VIII calling "Pope Clement VII slurs on Playstation" after being forbidden to remarry. Some of the most laugh out loud sections depart from the book's overarching structure with playful lists like "beauty tips for the modern flapper" that include such lethal advice as "spic up that mud mask with some radium-based Kemolite mud." It makes for a joyful journey through some of history's most cringeworthy moments.
