Showing posts with the label Featured

New Zealand’s Castaway Depots For Shipwrecked Sailors

Oct 9, 2018

An old castaway hut in the North of Antipodes Islands, New Zealand. Photo credit: LawrieM/Wikimedia Before the Suez and Panama Canals open...

Robert Peary’s Meteorite And Minik

Oct 8, 2018

Many historical figures are celebrated for achieving great things but conveniently forgotten of all the terrible things they did to other pe...

The Mountain That Japan Hid From The World

Oct 5, 2018

Photo credit: 663highland/Wikimedia Inside the Shikotsu-Toya National Park, in the island of Hokkaidō, not far from the active stratovolca...

Gliwice Radio Station, Where World War 2 Began

Oct 1, 2018

On the evening of August 31, 1939, as the last rays of the setting sun lingered on the top of the giant wooden mast towering over the then G...

The Bächle of Freiburg: The Mediaeval Gutters That Became Recreational Hotspots

Sep 29, 2018

The German city of Freiburg in the edge of Black Forest has a curious attraction—little streams of clear water flowing through the city in o...

Smith Mansion: The House That Killed its Builder

Sep 28, 2018

For over thirty years a five story rickety wooden structure with long undulating staircases and haphazardly protruding balconies have been s...

Thailand’s Aircraft-Less Aircraft Carrier

Sep 27, 2018

The aircraft carrier is the ultimate symbol of military strength. Enormously large and with a full fleet of combat aircrafts on its deck, th...

How War Marooned 15 Ships in The Suez Canal For Eight Years

Sep 25, 2018

The Arabs and the Jews have never got along. Since the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, the two gro...

Before The Internet, What People Asked New York Public Library's Librarians?

Jul 19, 2018

Before there was the Internet and Google, the only way to find answers to a pressing question was to visit the local library and ask the all...

What Soldiers Carried To Battlefield Through The Ages

Jul 16, 2018

Societies have been warring with each other since ancient times. Weapons were probably the first tools humans built, first to hunt animals f...

Broken Promises: The Wartime Evacuation of Imber And Tyneham

Jul 14, 2018

In the beginning of November 1943, all residents of Imber, a quiet little village at the heart of Salisbury Plain, were summoned to a meetin...

The Marsh Arabs of Iraq

Jul 12, 2018

The two great rivers of ancient Mesopotamia—Tigris and Euphrates—rises in the Taurus mountains in southern Turkey, and after flowing through...

Roger Babson: The Man Who Tried To Fight Gravity

Jul 11, 2018

Throughout history humans have learnt to live with gravity despite its innumerable inconveniences, accepting it as a physical fact of the un...

The Fuggerei: The World’s Oldest Housing Complex Where Rents Haven’t Gone Up For 500 Years

Jul 7, 2018

In the 15th and 16th centuries, a certain German family of merchants known as the Fuggers rose to become one of the richest and the most pow...

How A Single Cat Hunted to Extinction The Entire Species of Stephens Island Wren

Jul 6, 2018

David Lyall held his breath as he made the first incision straight down the belly of a little mouse-like olive brown bird that lay on his de...

America’s Doomsday Bunkers

Jun 29, 2018

Far into the unforeseeable future, when nuclear war and biological warfare had decimated the human population, killed most living beings and...

Mail Delivery By Rockets

Jun 28, 2018

The history of the postal system is inextricably tied to the history of transport. Advances in transportation technology have not only allow...

Britain’s User Worked Level Crossings

Jun 25, 2018

The United Kingdom has some 6,500 level crossings on their sprawling railway network, out of which an astounding number of them—5,000—are us...

America’s Last Log Flume

Jun 23, 2018

Log flume rides are staple for any amusement park, but before they became thrilling fun rides, log flumes were used in the lumber industry t...

The Sacred Crocodiles of Bazoule

Jun 22, 2018

Bazoule, in Burkina Faso, is a sprawling lakeside village around 30 kilometers from the capital Ouagadougou, with a very unique tradition—fo...