The Soviet Census Debacle of 1937
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 26, 2020
In 1937, the Soviet Union conducted its first population census in eleven years. Soviet leaders, especially Stalin, had great expectations...
Showing posts with the label Featured
Where is Ground Zero in Nagasaki?
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 24, 2020
On the morning of August 9, 1945, six B29 bombers took off from Mariana Islands, located more than 2,100 kilometers north of Tokyo. One of t...
Hessy Levinsons Taft: The Jewish Woman Who Was Hitler’s “Perfect Aryan Baby”
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 24, 2020
Hessy Levinsons Taft, a retired chemistry professor at St. John's University, New York, has an amusing story to tell. When she was only ...
The Pomological Watercolor Collection
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2020
Before the days of photography, documenting anything accurately was a task that could only be undertaken by an artist or a model maker. So, ...
The Great Hedge of India
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 20, 2020
Back in the 19th century, eastern India was separated from the west by an impenetrable belt of trees made up of mostly thorny plants such as...
Nicholas Senn: The Doctor Who Blew Hydrogen Gas Up His Patient's Asses
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 19, 2020
Say, you get shot in the stomach. You go to a doctor. The doctor pulls down your pants and starts pumping hydrogen gas up your ass. Then he ...
The Mysterious Sky Battle Over Nuremberg in 1561
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 18, 2020
Throughout history, many observers have reported seeing strange things in the sky. Some of these sightings were, in all probability, natur...
When Dead Whales Toured The Country
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 17, 2020
For almost three decades, from the 1950s though the 1970s, three gargantuan, smelly, whale carcasses toured the length and breadth of Europe...
Anatoli Bugorski: The Man Who Stuck His Head Inside a Particle Accelerator
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 14, 2020
Out of all places to stick your head into, a particle accelerator would rank among the worst. Yet, on that fateful day of 13 July 1978, thir...
Cynthia, The Celebrity Mannequin
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 11, 2020
The story of Pygmalion, from ancient Greek mythology, is well known. Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with his own creation, which ...
The Znamya Space Mirror
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 6, 2020
For a few hours just before dawn on the night of 4 February 1993, a giant spotlight, 5 kilometers in diameter, raced across Europe from we...
That Time When Computer Memory Was Handwoven by Women
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 4, 2020
Computer technology from yesteryears look comically primitive and bulky. One popular image frequently shared in social media sites show a ...
The Murders Written in Stone
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 3, 2020
The Ardwell House East Lodge sits right on the edge of A716 that runs along the east coast of the Rhins of Galloway, in southern Scotland. L...
Brighton And Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 31, 2020
Two children looking up at the car of the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway. Photo: Hemmings Motor News For five years...
Scuttling at Scapa Flow: When The German Navy Sank its Own Ships
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 27, 2020
The Armistice of 11 November 1918, that ended hostiles between the Allied and the Allies, left little for negotiation. The Germans were give...
The Last German Surrender
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 24, 2020
The weather station where 11 German soldiers were trapped, forgotten by the fallen Nazis. Weather played an important role during the Se...
The Locomotive That Walked: William Brunton’s Steam Horse
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 20, 2020
Railway engineering has come a long way from Richard Trevithick’s first steam locomotive to today’s high speed Maglev trains. Throughout th...
The Cottbus MiG-21 Crash of 1975
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 18, 2020
On Schmellwitzer Street in Cottbus, in northeast Germany, stands an old five-story apartment building. High up on the face of the building...
The Sad Tale of The Dionne Quintuplets
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 16, 2020
Nobody could have known, not even Elzire Dionne, that she was going to give birth to quintuplets. Already a mother of five, the shock of giv...
The Shipwreck That Gave Birth to South Africa
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 15, 2020
On 16 January 1647, a fleet of three Dutch ships—the Nieuwe Haerlem, the Olifant and the Schiedam—left Batavia, which is now Jakarta, for th...
