Showing posts with the label History

Watch 1505: The World's First Watch

Mar 19, 2024

In 1987, during a school trip to London, a watchmaker apprentice stumbled upon a rare find at an antique flea market. Concealed within a box...

Dhunge Dhara: Nepal’s 1,600-Year-Old Drinking Water Fountains

Mar 16, 2024

The tiny country of Nepal, nestled between India and Tibet, boasts of a very robust drinking water supply system that dates back to at least...

The Osoaviakhim-1 Disaster

Mar 13, 2024

Between 1930 and 1932, Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard made more than two dozen trips to the upper atmosphere using a balloon of his design...

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...

John Stringfellow And The World's First Powered Flight

Mar 5, 2024

In 1842, British engineers William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow received a patent for a flying machine. Unlike previous attempts made...

Antimony Pill: The Everlasting Pill

Feb 29, 2024

Antimony—the soft, lustrous gray metal—has many industrial uses such as in the preparation of flame-retarding compounds and in the manufactu...

The Killer Whales of Eden

Feb 26, 2024

The Thaua people, who reside around Twofold Bay on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia, share a special bond with killer whales or...

Xerxes Canal

Feb 21, 2024

The Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece, that juts into the Aegean Sea for some 50 kilometers, was once bisected by a canal a hundred fee...

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...

Casimir Zeglen: The Priest Who Invented The Bulletproof Vest

Feb 14, 2024

On October 28, 1893, the tranquility of Chicago was shattered with the assassination of its mayor, Carter Harrison, who was shot on the door...

The Ransom Room

Feb 9, 2024

In the northern highlands of Peru lies the historic city of Cajamarca, where the great Inca empire met its demise. It was on this soil that ...

Bedford Level Experiment: The 19th Century Experiment That Laid The Foundation of The Flat Earth Society

Jan 31, 2024

In 1838, English writer and socialist, Samuel Rowbotham, set out to disprove what the ancient Greeks as well as modern scientists had long e...

Bob The Railway Dog

Jan 29, 2024

In the heart of South Australia's railway history, a charming and loyal canine companion left an indelible paw print on the tracks – Bob...

The Braamfontein Explosion

Jan 25, 2024

The city of Johannesburg in South Africa was founded on gold after the precious metal was discovered on the Witwatersrand by Jan Gerrit Bant...

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...

Eulogy of The Dog: The Story of ‘Old Drum’

Jan 19, 2024

George Graham Vest spent twenty-four years in the United States Senate, serving from 1879 to 1903. However, his most notable legacy stems fr...

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...

The Ill-fated Jeannette Expedition to The Arctic

Jan 13, 2024

In the mid-19th century, explorers and geographers were seized by an idea that was first floated in the 16th century by the English cartogra...

Pratt And Smith: The Last Men To Be Executed For Sodomy in England

Jan 8, 2024

On the morning of November 27, 1835, two men—James Pratt and John Smith—were publicly hanged in front of Newgate Prison in London. Just thre...

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...