HeyJaredHistories | Andrew Chapman
Regular stories from the hidden corners of history. Histories uses the words of those who were there; The History of Things explores aspects of everyday life.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 10
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- Sep 25, 2026
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- Jul 24, 2026
Latest issues
Be on your guard, 1791 (opens the original)
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Look, between ourselves, guys – and I know you’re smart enough to know a good deal when you hear one – a very wealthy and important person I know has got into difficulties while on holiday in Spain. Thing is, they’ve been mistakenly imprisoned and they now can’t access their Bitcoin wallet. If you could be super kind and lend some money towards their legal fees, we can get all this cleared up – and they have offered to give you a huge cash reward!OK, no, obviously not. And you know a Nigerian pr
A history of… sandwiches (opens the original)
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The other afternoon, returning from a walk, I remembered that I hadn’t yet had lunch, so I picked up a sandwich from Marks and Spencer at Oxford station to eat when I got home. An inconsequential act, buying a sandwich, but one that millions of Britons do each day. That act, as is often the case with me, led me to wonder how this repast became so ubiquitous, so today I will be exploring its history.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uuDC!,f
The elephant in the room, 1826 (opens the original)
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I’ll be honest: this isn’t a very happy story.It begins in 1810, with the voyage of a recently commissioned East Indiaman merchant ship, the Astell, under Captain Robert Hay. The ship sailed to both Chennai (then Madras) in India and Bengal. And at some point in its adventures, it acquired a large, youngish elephant, who was given the name Chunee (sometimes spelled Chuny). Accounts disagree on the exact date, but in July of 1810 or 1811, Chunee arrived in London – and this is his story, even if
A history of… air conditioning (Part 2) (opens the original)
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In my previous piece I explored how humans had chilled things prior to the invention of mechanical cooling – often with incredible ingenuity and stunning feats of engineering. Today I’ll be digging into how modern cooling came about.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XRJ5!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4cea3a36-9899-4e28-82df-
Dirty eructations, 1793 (opens the original)
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A couple of months ago I wrote about the travel writer Thomas Pennant, marking his 300th birthday and quoting from one of his tours of Scotland. Now I’m just back from my own tour of that fantastic nation (I lived there 30 long years ago and have been aching to return to the Highlands).A highlight of my trip was visiting the Isle of Lewis and Harris1 in the Outer Hebrides for the first time. It rained. A lot. But was magical. I’ll probably write about some of t
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