In my efforts to create a historical novel which will not cause informed readers to recoil in educated disgust, I have been looking into a number of different things. Most recently:
the death of the Romanovs (with a suspiciously heavy 17 lb. cushion)
naphthalene
Raffles (the gentleman thief, not the hotel)
Black Ascot
Pekinese (crossed with a poodle = a peekapoo)
IQ (disturbing eugenic history there)
and rubber ducks.