The Talking Statues of Rome
Kaushik Patowary
May 15, 2019
For the past five hundred years, the people of Rome have voiced their resentment against the authorities through a unique medium—short compo...
Showing posts with the label Featured
The Ice Block Expedition of 1959
Kaushik Patowary
May 13, 2019
In the autumn of 1959, a 3-ton block of ice made an 8,500 kilometer journey on the back of a pickup truck from the edge of the Arctic Circl...
The Cranes of River Clyde
Kaushik Patowary
May 10, 2019
A giant cantilever crane looms over a car park adjacent to the Hilton Garden Inn at Glasgow City. During its heydays, this crane used to lo...
The Lost Tomb of Genghis Khan
Kaushik Patowary
May 7, 2019
The death of Genghis Khan is shrouded in secrecy. The Great Khan died in the summer of 1227, during a campaign against the Tanguts, along t...
Trümmerfrauen: The Women Who Helped Rebuild Germany After World War 2
Kaushik Patowary
May 6, 2019
After the end of World War 2, one of the main tasks was to clear the urban areas of ruin and start rebuilding Europe—Germany in particular, ...
The Rockets of Mysore
Kaushik Patowary
May 3, 2019
Rockets were originally invented not to send things into space, but to shoot enemies with. Their effectiveness in warfare was demonstrated ...
Human Decomposition in Japanese Artwork
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 29, 2019
In traditional Buddhist teachings, contemplating about death is an integral part of meditation. Buddha himself said that death is “the gre...
Why Victorian People Loved Posing Next to Aspidistra Plants
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 26, 2019
Potted plants have been a part of households for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all kept houseplants in thei...
The Adorable Custom of ‘Telling The Bees’
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 23, 2019
The bee friend, a painting by Hans Thoma (1839–1924) There was a time when almost every rural British family who kept bees followed a stra...
Luna 15: The Soviet Probe That Tried to Gatecrash America’s First Moon Landing
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 19, 2019
Two hours before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were scheduled to leave the surface of the moon after their historic moonwalk, an unmanned ...
Fake Tree Observation Posts of WW1
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 16, 2019
Camouflaging has always been a part of warfare, but it was only during the two world wars that things got really creative. During the First...
Why Batman’s Gotham City is Named After a Nottinghamshire Village
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 15, 2019
Gotham is a fictional city in the DC Universe but its namesake is not. Located across the Atlantic in South Nottinghamshire, this quiet, lit...
Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 11, 2019
Few traffic jams are as organized and coordinated as the ones that took place nationwide in the morning of September 3, 1967, on the streets...
Nasoni: Rome’s Ubiquitous Water Fountains
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 9, 2019
Drinking fountains in Rome are as quintessential as the city’s many Roman monuments. Standing about three feet high, these 200-pound cylind...
How War Drove to Extinction The Wake Island Rail
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 9, 2019
The day Japan bombed Pear Harbor, many American outposts in the Pacific, such as Philippines, Guam, Midway, Wake Island, Malaya, Thailand,...
People Once Downloaded Games From The Radio
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 6, 2019
The year 1977 was an important year in the history of home computing. That year, the world’s first microprocessor-driven personal computer ...
Voder: The World’s First Talking Machine
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 3, 2019
That voice in your GPS navigator, the virtual assistant in your smartphone, and the automated responses you get when you dial a company hel...
Vardo: The Opulent Caravans of The Gypsies
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 29, 2019
Living in trailer homes is largely an American culture , but the history of mobile homes originated in Europe. The first trailer home owne...
Mimizuka: The Burial Site of Thousands of Noses
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 28, 2019
In the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood in the suburb of Kyoto, Japan, is a 30-foot-high, grass-covered hillock within which are b...
Quaker Guns of The American Civil War
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 25, 2019
“All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War , an ancient Chinese military treatise, often regarded as one of the m...
