Queen Victoria’s Chimney Stalker and Other Creepy Moments From History

1. A Dead Ringer For a  Dead Wife

Thomas Jefferson’s child concubine was also his dead wife’s sister and lookalike. Sally Hemings was the daughter of a slave woman and John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law. That made her the biological half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748 – 1782). Sally, who was nine when her half-sister died, bore a striking resemblance to the deceased Martha, and the resemblance only increased as she grew. Jefferson missed his dead wife, so when her lookalike sister was thirteen or fourteen, he began sleeping with raping her.

In short, Thomas Jefferson having sex with Sally Hemings would be an epic scandal if it had happened today, hitting just about every icky button there is. Pedophilia? Check. Incest? Check. Violence, coercion, and rape? Check, check, and check. Adding another layer to it all is that Jefferson fathered six children upon Sally, and kept them as slaves. He eventually got around to freeing his children, but he never freed his concubine: Sally Hemings was still Thomas Jefferson’s slave when he died in 1826.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

All That Is Interesting – Idi Amin, the Murderous Cannibal Who Ruled Uganda

BBC – Shoichi Yokoi, the Japanese Soldier Who Held Out in Guam

Bondeson, Jan – Queen Victoria’s Stalker: The Strange Story of the Boy Jones (2012)

Cracked – 5 Creepy Moments From History You Never Learned in School

Encyclopedia Britannica – Dancing Plague of 1518

Encyclopedia Britannica – Zhengde, Emperor of Ming China

Guardian, The, January 22^nd, 2018 – Why Lyndon Johnson, a Truly Awful Man, Is My Political Hero

History Things – History’s Nutcases: The Zhengde Emperor

Local, The, Germany’s News in English, February 8^th, 2019 – Why Germany Will Never Forget the Stasi Era of Mass Surveillance

Murderpedia – Sada Abe

New Republic, March 4^th, 2016 – The Presidential Penis: A Short History

New York Times, September 26^th, 1997 – Shoichi Yokoi is Dead; Japan Soldier Hid 28 Years

Past Medical History – The Dancing Plague of 1518

Shadows and Satin – The Life and Death of Albert Dekker

Timeline – This Teen Stalker Stole Queen Victoria’s Panties and Lived in Buckingham Palace Chimneys For a Year

Vox – Thomas Jefferson Spent Years Raping His Slave Sally Hemings

Wanpela – Matsudo Linsoki

Washington Post, July 7^th, 2017 – Sally Hemings Wasn’t Thomas Jefferson’s Mistress, She Was His Property

Wikipedia – Frances Cleveland

Wikipedia – Sada Abe