Charles-Henri Sanson: The Prolific French Executioner
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 17, 2025
In the violent upheaval of the French Revolution, few figures stood closer to death than Charles-Henri Sanson. Kings, queens, nobles, priest...
Showing posts with the label France
Alain Bombard: The Biologist Who Shipwrecked Himself to Prove a Point
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 3, 2025
In the autumn of 1952, a small black rubber dinghy drifted out of the Canaries and into the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean. Its lone occupa...
Jean-Baptiste Denys and the First Blood Transfusion
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 25, 2025
In 1667, in a small Parisian chamber lit by oil lamps and crowded with curious observers, a young physician named Jean-Baptiste Denys carrie...
The Ball of The Burning Men
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 11, 2025
On a freezing January night in 1393, music and laughter filled the Hôtel Saint-Pol, a sprawling palace on the right bank of Paris. The Frenc...
Petrarch’s Ascent of Mont Ventoux And The Birth of Renaissance
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 30, 2025
In March 1923, when British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory was touring the United States to raise money for an expedition to Mount Everest...
The Church of Sainte-Mère-Église
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 24, 2025
The town of Sainte-Mère-Église in Normandy, northwestern France, was the first in Europe to be liberated by the Allies from German occupatio...
The Knife Makers of Thiers
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 31, 2025
In the Puy-de-Dôme department of Auvergne, in the heart of France, lies Thiers—a city renowned throughout the country as the historic capita...
Étienne Léopold Trouvelot: Ecological Villain And Astronomy Artist
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 1, 2025
Étienne Léopold Trouvelot left behind two legacies. One deserves admiration and respect, while the other earns him contempt and criticism. ...
Le Pétomane: The Man Who Could Fart Melodies
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 1, 2024
In the vibrant world of Parisian cabaret, where extravagant performances captivated audiences every night, few acts were as peculiar or as u...
Ernest Duchesne: The Forgotten Discoverer of Penicillin
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 19, 2024
In 1897, a young French medical student named Ernest Duchesne submitted a ground-breaking doctoral thesis titled Contribution to the Study o...
