May 7

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Better Than News

Are You Sure

• ... that Gerard van Swieten (7 May 1700 – 18 June 1772) was a Dutch physician who from 1745 was the personal physician of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and transformed the Austrian health service and medical university education; and that in 1755, the Empress sent van Swieten to Moravia to investigate the situation relating to vampires; and that van Swieten intended to eradicate the vampire myth as a "barbarism of ignorance"; and that his report, Abhandlung des Daseyns der Gespenster ("Discourse on the Existence of Ghosts") offered an entirely natural explanation for the belief in vampires; and that Empress Maria Theresa consequently issued a decree that banned all traditional justification for executing alleged vampires?

• ... that the 2019 psychological thriller family drama film Jocasta is loosely based on the tragic play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

Topic of the Day

Dune