Showing posts with the label France

Horizontal Collaboration: Sleeping With The Enemy

Mar 7, 2024

The historic D-Day landing by Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, marked the beginning of a crucial phase in World War...

Olivier Levasseur’s Lost Treasure

Feb 20, 2024

On the 7th of July 1730, the notorious French pirate, Olivier Levasseur, faced his final moments on the scaffold. His crimes, which had inst...

Ernest Bazin: The Ship That Rolled on Wheels

Jan 23, 2024

Between 1892 and 1893, French inventor Ernest Bazin filed patent for an unusual ship design. Instead of gliding through water, which had hit...

The L'Aigle Meteorite Shower And The Birth of Meteoritics

Jan 17, 2024

Prior to the 1800s, scientists were skeptical about the existence of meteorites. Despite historical reports of meteorite sightings dating ba...

Musée des Plans-Reliefs

Jan 9, 2024

In the Hôtel des Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, is a museum dedicated to detailed military models of important towns ...

Paul-Félix Armand-Delille: Europe’s Rabbit Killer

Jan 3, 2024

In the 1950s, Australian sheep and cattle farmers decided to tackle the country’s rabbit problem by unleashing a biological weapon—the myxom...

Louis Le Prince, The Father of Cinematography

Nov 15, 2023

In any casual conversation regarding the history of film, the name of Louis Le Prince seldom arises. Yet, this legendary French artist and i...

The Red Ball Express

Sep 21, 2023

During World War II, one of the most significant logistical challenges faced by the Allied forces during their invasion of Europe was ensuri...

The Tragic Death of Sophie Blanchard, The First Woman Balloon Pilot

May 30, 2023

Ever since Sophie Blanchard stepped into the basket with her husband, the famous balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard, she knew she belonged to ...

The World’s Oldest Optical Illusion

May 10, 2023

In the October 1892 issue of Fliegende Blätter , a German humor magazine, there appeared an image depicting an optical illusion. The image w...

How The Beast Of Gévaudan Terrorized 18th-Century France

May 1, 2023

For three years in the mid-1760s, inhabitants of Gévaudan in Southern France were terrorized by a mysterious beast. The creature preyed most...

Marching Soldiers And Collapsing Bridges

Apr 19, 2023

All suspension bridges are prone to vibration and swaying caused by moving traffic and wind. These vibration are not a problem as long as th...

Eugène Vidocq: A Criminal Who Became The World’s First Modern Detective

Apr 18, 2023

It is paradoxical that a former delinquent with a colorful life ends up being the creator and director of the French police; even more so if...

Jacques Charles And The First Hydrogen Balloon

Jan 19, 2023

On June 4, 1783, the Montgolfier brothers gave the first public demonstration of a hot-air balloon in southern France. The balloon, made of ...

Serge Voronoff: The Doctor Who Transplanted Monkey Testicles Into Men to Rejuvenate Them

Jan 7, 2023

One of the most sensational presentations at the 1923 International Congress of Surgeons in London was made by the Russia-born French surgeo...

How The Pressure Cooker Inspired The Steam Engine

Dec 12, 2022

For nearly 200 years, the steam engine powered the world’s machineries, but its origins were very humble. It began with the pressure cooker,...

The Forgeries of Denis Vrain-Lucas

Dec 2, 2022

One Monday morning in July 1867, eminent French mathematician Michel Chasles stormed into the building of the French Academy of Sciences in ...

Marie Lafarge: The Arsenic Poisoner

Nov 26, 2022

In the early 19th century, arsenic was most widely used to kill rats and insufferable husbands alike. The chemical element was odorless and ...

Claude Ambroise Seurat: The Living Skeleton

Oct 20, 2022

Freak shows were a very popular medium of entertainment in Europe and the United States of America for the major part of the 19th century. T...

Pierre Picaud: The Real Count of Monte Cristo

Sep 30, 2022

Alexandre Dumas’s literary classic The Count of Monte Cristo is one of Dumas’s most famous and beloved novels, but this satisfying tale of ...