Gnomonic Blocks, or Multi-faceted Sundials

May 11, 2021

In the park of the Abbey of Epau, in Yvré-l'Evêque in France, you can admire a curious monument in the shape of an obelisk. Built by the...

The Great Seal Bug: How The Soviets Spied The US For 7 Years Via a Children’s Gift

May 10, 2021

In 1946, a group of Soviet school children from the Young Pioneer organization presented to the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, Wil...

Fonthill Abbey And Its Eccentric Creators

May 7, 2021

At Fonthill Gifford in Wiltshire, England, where now stands a small four-story tower with an attached two-story wing, there once stood one o...

Le Jamais Contente: The First Car To Go 100kmph

May 5, 2021

Imagine a metal cylinder less than 4 meters long, on four wheels, with the driver mounted on top like one rides a horse. No seat belts, no r...

The Duck-less Statue of Sir Nigel Gresley

May 4, 2021

There is a bronze statue of British railway engineer Sir Nigel Gresley towering over passengers as they pass through London King's Cross...

Women And Children Last: The Infamous Sinking of La Bourgogne

May 3, 2021

The sinking of the French ocean liner SS La Bourgogne on the morning of 4 July 1898 was one of the most disgraceful of disasters in mariti...

High Arctic Relocation: When The Canadian Govt Forcibly Relocated Inuit to Claim Sovereignty in The High Arctic

Apr 30, 2021

In the summer of 1953, the Canadian government uprooted seven Inuit families from their homes in Northern Quebec, and dropped them high in t...

Nazi Amphitheaters

Apr 28, 2021

Near the summit of a large wooded hill overlooking the town of Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, stands an open-air theater called a...

The World’s Loudest Plane Was So Loud It Caused Seizures

Apr 27, 2021

The aviation industry’s transition from propellers to jet engines saw the emergence of a new kind of engine called the turboprop. A turbopro...

Istanbul’s Cast Iron Church

Apr 23, 2021

Although it looks like stone, the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church with its richly ornamented façade on the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbu...