Pecunia Non Olet: The Urine Tax of Ancient Rome
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 7, 2025
A Roman-era latrine in Timgad in Algeria . Credit: Wikimedia Commons Throughout history, governments have found creative ways to raise...
Showing posts with the label Italy
Aqua Tofana: The 17th Century Husband Killer
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 1, 2025
Sometime in the summer of 1791, or perhaps even earlier, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fell ill. His biographer, Franz Niemetschek, described him ...
Santorio Santori And Insensible Perspiration
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 18, 2024
Some people become obsessed with tracking their weight, carefully counting every calorie they eat and burn through exercise. They even weigh...
The Delft Tower Experiment
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 7, 2024
In 1654, twelve years after the death of the brilliant Italian astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, Prince Leopold de' Medici, brot...
Claude Ruggieri: Master of Pyrotechnic Brilliance
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 27, 2024
Fireworks have accompanied celebrations and festivities for at least a thousand years. They were first used in China during the Song dynasty...
Ponte dei Trepponti: A Unique 5-Way Bridge
Kaushik Patowary
May 12, 2023
The Ponte dei Trepponti or Trepponti bridge is a rare five-way bridge located in Comacchio, Italy. Although the name “Trepponti”, originatin...
Girolamo Segato’s Mysterious Petrified Mummies
Kaushik Patowary
May 9, 2023
For thousands of years, different cultures across continents have successfully preserved bodies of their ancestors. For the Egyptians, mummi...
Amphitheater of Capua: The First Roman Amphitheater
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 13, 2022
Of all the amphitheaters built by the Romans, the Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheater in Rome is the largest of all in dimensions, followed by...
Frog Battery
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 1, 2022
The term ‘battery’ was first used by Benjamin Franklin in 1749 to describe an apparatus he had designed to produce electricity. Franklin lin...
What is Galvanism, And How Did it Inspire Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 16, 2022
On 18 January 1803, George Foster was hanged by the neck. The jury had found him guilty of murdering his wife and child by drowning them in ...
