The Goiânia Radiological Accident
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 24, 2019
A radiation therapy unit in a hospital. Photo credit: Thomas Hecker/Shutterstock.com Radioactive isotopes have a very niche use in medicin...
Showing posts with the label Not Amusing
Fanny Burney’s Gruesome Mastectomy
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 26, 2019
In the days before anesthesia, the prospect of having to go under the knife was far more horrific than the affliction the procedure was supp...
The Other Anne Franks: 10 Holocaust Diaries You Haven’t Read
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 29, 2019
Anne Frank wasn’t the only teenager who lost her childhood to war. Thousands of children and teenagers across Europe found their freedoms c...
Kyshtym: The Nuclear Disaster That Was Kept Secret For 30 Years
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 4, 2019
Thirty years before the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, in what became one of the most devastating nuclear accidents in history, ther...
Stolpersteine: The ‘Stumbling Stones’ of Holocaust Victims
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 8, 2019
With hundreds of things to see in Berlin, few tourists pay attention to what lies under their feet. The barely four inch by four inch blocks...
Yasukuni Shrine, Where War Criminals Are Revered
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 15, 2019
The Imperial Shrine of Yasukuni, in Chiyoda, Tokyo, is a beautiful spiritual place for remembering those who died in service for Japan. As m...
Shin's Tricycle
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 13, 2019
Behind a glass case at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is a battered and rusted tricycle. The seat is missing, and so are the pedals an...
RMS Tayleur: The Other Titanic
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 31, 2019
The sinking of the Titanic is one of the best remembered maritime disasters in history. A grand luxury ship touted as the safest vessel aflo...
China’s Misguided War Against Sparrows
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 8, 2019
These panel of images from the late 1950s China, depicting young boys hunting sparrows for sport, were taken from a poster aimed at school ...
The Photographers Who Braved Mount St. Helens
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 3, 2019
When Mount St. Helens erupted in the morning of May 18, 1980, a freelance photographer named Robert Landsberg was within four miles of the s...
Demon Core: How The Third Nuclear Bomb Destined For Japan Killed a Bunch of American Scientists
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 14, 2018
President Harry S. Truman knew that one bomb would not be enough to force Japan to surrender, so he ordered two. What many don’t know is tha...
The Scientists Who Starved to Death Surrounded By Food
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 15, 2018
The 900-day Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War was perhaps one of the most gruesome sieges in modern history. Hitler’s diabolic ...
The Dust Bowl of The 1930s
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 26, 2017
The 1930s were some of the driest years in American history. Eight long years of drought, preceded by inappropriate cultivation technique, a...
The Bullet-Scarred ‘Operation Anthropoid’ Church in Prague
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 12, 2017
The Saints Cyril and Methodius Church on Resslova Street, in Prague, may look like any other Baroque church in the Czech capital, but turn r...
Who Put Bella In The Wych Elm?
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 4, 2017
This question, which appears in the form of a graffiti on a towering brick obelisk in Hagley in Worcestershire, England, has been haunting t...
Chaiten: The Town Buried By A Volcano
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 7, 2017
Early in the morning of May 2, 2008, a volcano located about 10 km to the north of the town of Chaitén, near the Gulf of Corcovado in southe...
The House Where Hitler Was Born
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 23, 2017
Braunau am Inn, on the south bank of the Inn river, close to the border with Germany, is a charming little town in Austria. But it carries a...
The Infamous Mauthausen Stairs of Death
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 16, 2017
The Mauthausen concentration camp, situated about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz in Upper Austria, was the hub of one of the largest...
The Plague Village Of Eyam And Its Great Sacrifice
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 12, 2016
The Great Plague of London affected many places across England, but one small village in Derbyshire called Eyam, will always be remembered f...
The Toxic White Beaches of Rosignano Solvay
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 5, 2016
The dazzling white sand of “Spiagge Bianche”, or “white beaches”, in the town of Rosignano Solvay, in southern Tuscany, has been luring tour...
