The Turf Mazes of Britain
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 3, 2022
Turf mazes are labyrinths made by cutting a convoluted path in an area of short grass or lawn, and were once a common feature of the English...
Tarrare: The Man Who Ate Too Much
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 1, 2022
If gluttony is a sin, then perhaps the worst offender was a man named Tarrare who lived in 18th century France. He had such an insatiable ap...
Mensur And Bragging Scars
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 25, 2022
This is Otto Skorzeny, often regarded as Hitler’s deadliest general. An Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) in the SS during World W...
Giuseppe Fieschi’s Infernal Machine
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 24, 2022
On July 28, 1835, Giuseppe Marco Fieschi positioned himself in front of an open window on the third floor of N. 50 Boulevard du Temple in Pa...
The Eagle Made Out of Lincoln's Hair
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 23, 2022
In a small dimly lit back room of the Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse, New York, is a unique and priceless treasure—a civil-war ...
The Clink: England’s Oldest Prison
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2022
The oldest prison in England and the country’s most notorious was owned not by the reigning monarch but the Bishop of Winchester. Now why wo...
The First Airmail Was Delivered During The Siege of Paris
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2022
When Prussian forces had Paris under siege during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the beleaguered Parisians had only one hope to get messag...
Thomas Harriot: The Scientific Genius Who Eschewed Fame
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2022
Four hundred years ago, on July 2 1621, a remarkable Englishman named Thomas Harriot died in London. He left behind some 8,000 pages of scie...
Ashford v Thornton: The Last Challenge to Trial by Battle
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 18, 2022
Many personal disputes in the past have been settled by one-to-one combat. When a crime was committed, or a complainant accused a person of ...
The Donkey Wheel of Carisbrooke Castle
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 16, 2022
After King Charles I of England surrendered to Scottish forces following his defeat in the English Civil War (1642–1651), he was captured an...
