Hello, you sputacular people. Welcome to this 643rd episode of the History Ghostbump podcast. Ghost Tours for the Theater of the Mind. I'm your host, Diane. And this is Kelly. Kelly on this episode, we're going to a town in Connecticut. It's in the middle. So it's called Middletown. Okay. Well, that makes sense then. This had popped up because I was looking

through our location suggestions from listeners, and somebody had suggested Wesleyan University,

the one in Nebraska, not the one in Connecticut. And so when I put Wesleyan University in there,

I quickly realized, oh, we'd already done that because we did Haunted Lincoln, and the place that's there that I think it's a CC White building or something had come up on that. But then I went, wait, this one has a haunted location too, the Samuel Russell House. So I was like, well, is anything else haunted here? So I found a couple other things. So that's what we're going to be talking about on this episode. Awesome.

History tells the story of the world and of our lives. Sometimes that history goes bump in the night.

Broadcasting from the center of oddity and the Supernatural in Central Florida.

It's the History Goes Bump podcast.

And now this month in history.

Music In the month of June on the 28th in 1577,

Lemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens was born.

He was born to his Antwerp refugee parents in modern day Germany.

His family was of the well-to-do bourgeoisie class with many members owning and operating grocery shops and pharmacies.

Artistic as a child, Rubens began formal training at the age of 14 through apprenticeships under established Antwerp Masters, Tobias Verhack, Adam Van Nort, and Otto Van B.

At the age of 21, Peter was accepted into the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master.

By the age of 23, Rubens had traveled to Italy to hone his craft by studying

classical antiquities and Renaissance masters. He quickly became the court painter for the Duke of Mantua.

While in Italy, he studied artists like Tichian, Caravago, and Michelangelo, and in the process,

was introduced to rich color palettes and dramatic renderings.

By his return to Antwerp in 1609, Rubens had begun developing his signature Flemish Baroque style.

Peter Paul Rubens does not have a single painting that he is most famous for, but instead is known for his multiple celebrated masterpieces

that include a variety of religious,

mythological, and historical pieces of art.

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