900 Years of Disappearances, Murders, and Ghost-encounters: Thundar visits the "Bloody" Tower of London

Throughout his travels in Europe, Thundar has immersed himself into some of the world's most naturally beautiful landscapes, he has visited museums and restaurants and has chatted with people from far corners of the world..yet this was his first haunted adventure.  There lies a historic castle in central London that puts shame to any tale of horror you have ever been told.  For this castle holds something sinister in itself, something that has deemed it the title of the most haunted place in all of Great Britain. The castle surrounding the Tower of London was built during Roman times.  The remains of this castle were used as the original fortress after William I successfully conquered England in 1066.  Construction of the Tower of London began in the early 1070s, but was not completed before William's death.  The tower was then used by proceeding Monarchs for protection.  Up until the 16th Century, the Tower of London was referred to as the Garden Tower, but then gained a reputation unlike any other castle in the world.  During the 14th century, two princes were sent to the tower and mysteriously disappeared.  In 1674, the skeletal remains of two boys matching these disappearances were found inside of a staircase in the Tower of London.  They showed signs of a brutal murder including both suffocation and stabbing.  Since this year, there have been thousands of sightings of two ghostly boys clinging to each other in complete dread and wandering the castle in the nightgowns they were last seen in alive.
             The "Bloody" tower, as it is now called, was also the prison of Sir Walter Raleigh for almost 13 years.  His ghost has also been reported here, in the room where he was held captive.  Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded in 1618.  A man named Henry Percy died here of mysterious circumstances in 1585.  A brutal hanging was the likely cause of death.  There is also a legend of a man named Thomas Overbury who was a victim of court intrigue in 1613 and later found to have been poisoned. Other sightings here include phantom funeral carriages with a lovely veiled lady that, upon closer look, proves to have a black void where her face should be.   Pretty interesting, huh?   Thundar sure thought so!  Unfortunately, he did not get to spend enough time here to search for paranormal activity...(and to be honest, he is a BIG chicken when it comes to ghost stories!) Believe it or not, this is just a summary of the true history behind this famous landmark in London.  Traveling with the Center for Global Initiatives at NDSU gives you opportunites to see sites like this, and many others, that you would not be able to experience on your own.  Thundar highly encourages it, he in fact hopes to come back to the Tower of London some day very soon...  how about you come along?

For more info on how you can get involved, visit http://www.ndsu.edu/cgi/ 

You don't know what you're missing. :)

-Krista