Thiess of Kaltenbrun, The Benevolent Werewolf
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 23, 2026
In the year 1692, an 86-year-old man who lived in the town of Mālpils in Latvia stood before a judge and calmly proclaimed that he was a wer...
Showing posts with the label History
The Fertility Drug Derived From Nuns' Urine
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 21, 2026
Many medical therapies, from cancer treatments to the management of infertility, are now so routine that their origins are easily overlooked...
Filles du Roi: The King's Daughters
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 18, 2026
In the mid-17th century, the French colony of New France faced a crisis that threatened its very survival. Despite fertile land and a steady...
Winfried Freudenberg: The Berlin Wall's Last Victim
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 14, 2026
During the years the Berlin Wall stood, roughly 5,000 people managed to escape across it into West Berlin. Before the wall was constructed, ...
OGAS: The Soviet Internet That Failed
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 9, 2026
In the early 1960s, a Soviet mathematician and cyberneticist named Viktor Glushkov floated a remarkable idea. He proposed that the Soviet Un...
The Burning of The Parliament, 1834
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 6, 2026
On the evening of 16 October 1834, the ancient Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament for centuries, was consumed by one ...
How Dorando Pietri Turned an Olympic Defeat Into Success
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 3, 2026
While most athletes competing at the Olympic Games are remembered for their triumphs, victory is not always the reason they endure. At the 1...
Covering of The Senne
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 28, 2026
In the mid-19th century, the river Senne, which was once the lifeblood of Brussels, had become its greatest liability. It had become pollute...
The Gloucester Sea Serpent
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 25, 2026
In the summer of 1817, a mysterious creature was seen swimming in the harbor of Gloucester and along the coast of Cape Ann. Eyewitnesses des...
Las Médulas: The Wrecking of Mountains
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 24, 2026
In the rugged hills of north western Spain, amid green forests of chestnut and oak, rises an otherworldly landscape of jagged red cliffs, ho...
Mutiny of The Trout
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 18, 2026
Many violent riots have begun over matters that seem almost absurd. In 1325, the rival cities of Modena and Bologna went to war over a woode...
Craven Heifer: England's Legendary Cow
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 11, 2026
In the early 19th century, England produced an animal so enormous that it became a national curiosity. Named the Craven Heifer, this extraor...
Japan's Forbidden Colours
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 9, 2026
Before the modern period, in Japan, certain colours were strictly regulated by law and custom, and wearing them without permission could be ...
Thomas Selfridge: The First Airplane Fatality
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 5, 2026
On the evening of 17 September 1908, a young American officer named Thomas Selfridge climbed into a fragile wooden aircraft at Fort Myer, Vi...
The Tsunami That Saved a Greek City From Persian Invasion
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 3, 2026
In 480 BC, Xerxes the Great, the fourth king of the Achaemenid Empire, launched the largest invasion the Greek world had yet faced. Xerxes’s...
Tessarakonteres: An Ancient Supership
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 27, 2026
In the 3rd century BCE, at the height of the Hellenistic age’s appetite for spectacle and scale, a ship was built so vast that even ancient ...
Frederic Tudor: The Ice King of Boston
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 26, 2026
In the early 19th century, the idea of exporting ice to the tropics sounded like a joke. Ice was heavy, fragile, and melted. Yet one Boston ...
Fernando Pessoa: The Poet With 72 Alter Egos
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 24, 2026
Few writers have multiplied themselves as radically, or as deliberately, as Fernando Pessoa. The Portuguese poet did not merely use pen name...
Siberian River Reversal by Nuclear Explosions
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 17, 2026
High in the Ural Mountains, in the south-eastern corner of the Komi Republic, the Pechora River rises. It descends from the slopes, flows br...
The Esing Bakery Poisoning of 1857
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 11, 2026
On the morning of 15 January 1857, residents of Hong Kong awoke to what seemed an ordinary day. As usual, loaves of fresh bread were deliver...
