Breakfast Links: Week of February 12, 2018

Breakfast Links are served - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, articles, blogs, and images via Twitter.
• Archaeologists think this spinning disk - at least 14,000 years old - may have been a child's toy. More about ancient toys and children here.
• Tulipmania: the classic story of a 17thc Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong.
• A grand piano bought by Queen Victoria as a gift to Prince Albert in 1854.
• The bloody world of Georgian female boxing.
• Filling in the 19thc history of pregnancy and dress.
• Image: Believed to be the earliest identified sampler by an African American, this rare work from 1793 carries a beautiful message.
• Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley: the real story.
• The earliest photographs of the Henry Clay Frick mansion before it became an art museum.
• Image: A delicate mourning bonnet, c1870.
• The beautiful chaos of improvisational quilts: jazz with a needle.
• For author Mark Twain, it was love at first sight..
• Seven black nurses who changed medical history.
• Image: The contents of President Abraham Lincoln's pockets the night he was assassinated.
• Video: The only artifact in the collection of Fort Ticonderoga certain to have been used by a woman.
• Get your quills ready: a short guide to making a medieval manuscript.
• Now on-line: the commonplace books of Lady Augusta Murray, who married George III's son, the Duke of Sussex, and had his children, but then saw their marriage ruled invalid.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection