Strange BUT TRUE THE WEIRD HISTORY OF GRAVES, CATACOMBS & CEMETERIES: Graveyards With Ghost Problems, Floating Coffins, Bone Churches, Safety Lost Tombs, and Other Stories: 50

Rest in peace? History apparently missed the memo. Coffins have floated out of cemeteries. Grave robbers have treated burial grounds like business opportunities. Inventors have fitted coffins with bells so the occupants could ring for help. And one English king spent centuries beneath a parking lot, waiting for somebody to investigate more than the parking situation.STRANGE BUT TRUE: THE WEIRD HISTORY OF GRAVES, CATACOMBS & CEMETERIES opens the gates to a world where the final resting place was frequently neither final nor particularly restful. Step inside Rome's rooms decorated with human bones, descend into the Paris Catacombs, and meet the Victorians who gave the dead their own railway service. Discover why some graves needed iron cages, how thieves tried to steal Abraham Lincoln's body, and what happened when floodwater decided to rearrange an entire cemetery. Eternal rest, it turns out, has involved a surprising amount of engineering, security, and transportation.Along the way, explore skulls painted with flowers, lost tombs that still frustrate searchers, and a little cemetery where beloved pets received remarkably grand farewells. Visit a graveyard famous for its ghost stories, with documented history kept distinct from the legends that grew around it. Then meet the people who used their epitaphs to get the last laugh, permanently. These are stories of human ingenuity, affection, fear, ambition, and occasionally spectacularly bad judgment, all hiding behind the cemetery gate.Packed with strange history and cheeky humor, this SparkTrail Press book is for curious readers who love unusual places, bizarre inventions, historical mysteries, and facts worth interrupting someone to share. You do not need to believe in ghosts to discover that cemeteries have extraordinary stories. You just need to look beyond the headstones. Open the book and find out why six feet under was so often the beginning of the trouble.