Showing posts with the label History

Ernest Bazin: The Ship That Rolled on Wheels

Jan 23, 2024

Between 1892 and 1893, French inventor Ernest Bazin filed patent for an unusual ship design. Instead of gliding through water, which had hit...

Eulogy of The Dog: The Story of ‘Old Drum’

Jan 19, 2024

George Graham Vest spent twenty-four years in the United States Senate, serving from 1879 to 1903. However, his most notable legacy stems fr...

The L'Aigle Meteorite Shower And The Birth of Meteoritics

Jan 17, 2024

Prior to the 1800s, scientists were skeptical about the existence of meteorites. Despite historical reports of meteorite sightings dating ba...

The Ill-fated Jeannette Expedition to The Arctic

Jan 13, 2024

In the mid-19th century, explorers and geographers were seized by an idea that was first floated in the 16th century by the English cartogra...

Pratt And Smith: The Last Men To Be Executed For Sodomy in England

Jan 8, 2024

On the morning of November 27, 1835, two men—James Pratt and John Smith—were publicly hanged in front of Newgate Prison in London. Just thre...

Paul-Félix Armand-Delille: Europe’s Rabbit Killer

Jan 3, 2024

In the 1950s, Australian sheep and cattle farmers decided to tackle the country’s rabbit problem by unleashing a biological weapon—the myxom...

Mobro 4000: The Infamous Garbage Barge

Dec 22, 2023

Americans generate an enormous amount of trash. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA, the average U.S. residen...

Bottle Kicking in Hallaton

Dec 18, 2023

In the village of Hallaton in Leicestershire, England, a unique tradition unfolds every Easter Monday. The residents of Hallaton and the nea...

Bloody Island: Missouri’s Infamous Dueling Ground

Dec 14, 2023

In the late 1790s, a large sandy island emerged in the middle of the Mississippi River, across from St. Louis, Missouri, as a result of the ...

Talking Gravestones of Amrum and Föhr

Dec 11, 2023

About 60 km north of Heligoland in the North Sea, off the western coast of Germany, lies the islands of Amrun and Föhr. Part of the North F...

Dejima: The Island That Was Once Japan’s Only Connection To The Outside World

Dec 7, 2023

For over two centuries, spanning from the 16th to the 19th centuries, Japan adopted a strict policy that prohibited foreigners, particularly...

The Mysterious Jerome of Sandy Cove

Nov 24, 2023

The story of a legless mystery man known as “Jerome” who turned up one day in 1863 in Sandy Cove is well-known in Nova Scotia. He was found ...

TÅ· Unnos: The One Night House

Nov 22, 2023

Near the village of Llanycefn, in Pembrokeshire, in south-west Wales, stands a small stone cottage. Legend has it that the cottage was built...

The Potsdam Giants

Nov 20, 2023

During his 27-year-reign, King Frederick William I of Prussia greatly expanded the size of the Prussian Army, turning it into the largest an...

Louis Le Prince, The Father of Cinematography

Nov 15, 2023

In any casual conversation regarding the history of film, the name of Louis Le Prince seldom arises. Yet, this legendary French artist and i...

The Leicester Balloon Riot of 1864

Nov 13, 2023

During the latter part of the 18th century and most of the 19th century, there was a notable surge in public fascination with ballooning. Th...

The Sinking of U-boat 864

Nov 9, 2023

During World War II, German U-boats wrought havoc upon Allied supply lines and commercial shipping inflicting heavy losses on merchant convo...

The Building That Gave Its Residents Leukemia

Nov 1, 2023

Building number 7 on Gvardeytsiv Kantemirovtsiv street (now known as Mariyi Pryimachenko Street) in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, was the most recent...

The Singapore Stone

Oct 31, 2023

At the mouth of the Singapore River, at a promontory known variously as Rocky Point and Artillery Point, there once stood a massive boulder ...

How A Dog Saved Darwin From Bombing

Oct 19, 2023

Throughout history, animals have held significant roles in wars and conflicts. Cavalry horses were deployed to charge the enemy, pigeons con...