Amusing Planet

High in the branches of trees, you may sometimes spot what looks like an abandoned bird’s nest—a dense, tangled mass of twigs clustered toge...

On the morning of 15 January 1857, residents of Hong Kong awoke to what seemed an ordinary day. As usual, loaves of fresh bread were deliver...

In the late 19th century, the British Empire wrapped the globe not only in pink on maps but in copper beneath the seas. This vast web of su...

Antarctica has always been a proving ground for survival. Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition saw twenty‑eight men endure shipwreck, d...

In the summer of 1946, residents of Sweden and Finland began reporting strange objects in the sky. They were described as rocket, or missile...

Two weeks before Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin rode Vostok 1 into space to become the first human to complete a full orbit around the Earth,...

In January 1887, a mild-mannered itinerant preacher named Ansel Bourne left his home in Greene, Rhode Island, to travel to nearby Providence...

In the late nineteenth century, modern surgery was still emerging from an era in which hygiene was, by today’s standards, startlingly poor. ...

On the evening of 26 July 1909, the SS Waratah sailed from Durban, South Africa, bound for Cape Town. A luxury passenger liner, she was coa...

In 1577, the Flemish cartographer Gerhard Mercator wrote a letter to his friend, the English scientist, occultist and royal advisor John Dee...