Amusing Planet

Showing posts with the label History

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...

During the years the Berlin Wall stood, roughly 5,000 people managed to escape across it into West Berlin. Before the wall was constructed, ...

In the early 1960s, a Soviet mathematician and cyberneticist named Viktor Glushkov floated a remarkable idea. He proposed that the Soviet Un...

On the evening of 16 October 1834, the ancient Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament for centuries, was consumed by one ...

While most athletes competing at the Olympic Games are remembered for their triumphs, victory is not always the reason they endure. At the 1...

In the mid-19th century, the river Senne, which was once the lifeblood of Brussels, had become its greatest liability. It had become pollute...

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...

In the rugged hills of north western Spain, amid green forests of chestnut and oak, rises an otherworldly landscape of jagged red cliffs, ho...

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...

In the early 19th century, England produced an animal so enormous that it became a national curiosity. Named the Craven Heifer, this extraor...