The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 16, 2025
In the late 19th century, a rare and highly unusual neuropsychiatric condition was observed among a group of French-Canadian lumberjacks li...
Showing posts with the label USA
Timothy Dexter’s Curious Business Ventures
Kaushik Patowary
May 30, 2025
Timothy Dexter was businessman, but he had few business sense. He attempted to sell coal to Newcastle and bed warmers to the tropics. Yet, d...
Paige Compositor: The Invention That Bankrupted Mark Twain
Kaushik Patowary
May 19, 2025
Movabale letter types in a type case. This centuries-old method of type setting, although largely displaced by newer technologies, is s...
The 1916 Jersey Shore Shark Attacks
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 22, 2025
Crowds throng the beach at Atlantic City, New Jersey. circa 1908. Photo credit: Detroit Publishing Company The town of Beach Haven, o...
That Time The US Tried to Make Rain By Shooting Explosives Into The Sky
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 15, 2025
The idea that humans could summon rain at will is historically rooted to superstition, until modern cloud-seeding techniques demonstrated it...
The Battle of Palmdale: How a Pilotless Drone Embarrassed The US Air Force
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 25, 2024
On the afternoon of August 16, 1956, 17-year-old Larry Kempton of Leona Valley was driving with his mother, Bernice, along Palmdale Boulevar...
The Largest Man-Made, Non-Nuclear Explosion in History
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 16, 2024
After the end of World War II in 1945, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was intense geopolitical tension between the...
How The Soviets Stole And Copied The American Sidewinder Missile
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 24, 2024
After the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which saw the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the banishment of the ...
The Nuclear Test That Vaporized an Island
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 16, 2024
On November 1, 1952, the U.S. detonated the world’s first hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Mike”, as part of Operation Ivy. It was the first full t...
Casimir Zeglen: The Priest Who Invented The Bulletproof Vest
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 14, 2024
On October 28, 1893, the tranquility of Chicago was shattered with the assassination of its mayor, Carter Harrison, who was shot on the door...
