HMS Diamond Rock: The Stone Frigate
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 11, 2021
South of Martinique, an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, lies a small basalt island called Diamond Rock. With an imposing peak of 175 me...
Showing posts with the label France
What Happened to Napoleon’s Penis?
Kaushik Patowary
May 18, 2021
The diminutive French military leader Napoléon Bonaparte lies buried in a crypt under the dome at Les Invalides, in Paris, sans many vital b...
Pilâtre de Rozier And The World’s First Aviation Accident
Kaushik Patowary
May 13, 2021
In 1783, French professor Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier created history by becoming the first man to fly in a balloon untethered. Two year...
Gnomonic Blocks, or Multi-faceted Sundials
Kaushik Patowary
May 11, 2021
In the park of the Abbey of Epau, in Yvré-l'Evêque in France, you can admire a curious monument in the shape of an obelisk. Built by the...
Le Jamais Contente: The First Car To Go 100kmph
Kaushik Patowary
May 5, 2021
Imagine a metal cylinder less than 4 meters long, on four wheels, with the driver mounted on top like one rides a horse. No seat belts, no r...
Women And Children Last: The Infamous Sinking of La Bourgogne
Kaushik Patowary
May 3, 2021
The sinking of the French ocean liner SS La Bourgogne on the morning of 4 July 1898 was one of the most disgraceful of disasters in mariti...
Elephant of The Bastille
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 14, 2021
Between 1814 and 1846, there stood a colossal plaster elephant in the heart of Paris, at the site of the former Bastille prison. For much of...
The Mercy Dogs of World War 1
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 26, 2021
Dogs have accompanied men to war since ancient times, as scouts, sentries, trackers and messengers. But the most unique role they ever playe...
Heroic War Pigeons
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 16, 2021
World War One, and to some extent, the Second World War, was a strange blend of archaic and modern technology. The First World War, in parti...
How a Failed Dam Legalized Marrying The Dead
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 12, 2021
Sitting low among the hills, just north of the city of Frejus, in southern France, not far from the French Riviera coast, are the broken rem...
The Mad World of Hat Making
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 19, 2021
Hat-making in the 18th and 19th centuries was a hazardous business, because it involved the use of many chemicals, one of which was the toxi...
The Helfaut-Wizernes Dome
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 22, 2021
In the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, close to the commune of Helfaut and Wizernes, lies a large Nazi bunker built during the ...
The Barbegal Mills: The Largest Concentration of Mechanical Energy in Antiquity
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 21, 2020
About 12 kilometers north of the city of Arles, in the Provence region of southern France, is the small town of Fontvieille. It is a commune...
Franz Reichelt’s Fatal Jump
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 15, 2020
The British Pathé film archive has a chilling video of a man jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower. The man in the short video is shown...
Saint Guinefort: The Holy Greyhound
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 8, 2020
Around the second half of the 13th century, a Dominican friar known as Stephen of Bourbon, began travelling the width and breadth of souther...
The Spectacle of Death at The Paris Morgue
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 8, 2020
Throughout the 19th century, the Paris morgue attracted thousand of visitors every day. Eager tourists consumed by a morbid fascination with...
Pierre André Latreille: The Entomologist Who Escaped Death Because of a Beetle
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 29, 2020
Pierre André Latreille owed his life to a beetle. The French zoologist is often considered to be the father of modern entomology, having mad...
The Underground Fortress of Château de Brézé
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 23, 2020
Château de Brézé is a small castle by European standards. Occupying less than 2 acres, this modest U-shaped building surrounded by a dry moa...
Etienne Bottineau And The Lost Art of Nauscopie
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 16, 2020
Etienne Bottineau was a sailor and an employee of the French East India Company who possessed a remarkable skill. Bottineau could detect shi...
Désert de Retz
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 14, 2020
François Racine de Monville had at his disposal a large estate on the edge of a 2,000-hectare-forest, in the commune of Chambourcy, about 15...
