The Rocks That Give Birth
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 12, 2018
In the Freita mountain range in northern Portugal, close to a village called Castanheira, is a huge block of granite that periodically eject...
The Seaweed Houses of Læsø Island
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 9, 2018
On the island of Læsø, located off the coast of Denmark, there are houses with roofs made of seaweed. These roofs are up to a meter thick, a...
Why Are These Postage Stamps Cut in Half?
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 8, 2018
Would you cut a ten dollar bill in half and use as two five dollar bills? Of course not. It's silly to even suggest something like that....
Bank of Vernal: The Building That Was Mailed Through The Post
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 8, 2018
The inauguration of domestic parcel post service by the United States Postal Office in 1913 was an epochal event in the lives of thousands o...
Vinegar Valentines: The Victorian Tradition of Sending Anonymous Hate Mail
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 6, 2018
In the late 19th century, Valentine's Day was more than an occasion for lovers to express their love for each other by sending greetings...
The Basement Cemetery of The New Haven Green Church
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 5, 2018
The New Haven Green in downtown New Haven, a city in Connecticut, USA, is a small park of about 16 acres. Being surrounded by buildings of t...
The Magnificent Mudbrick Mosques of West Africa
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 3, 2018
All around the Muslim world, mosques have a typical architecture characterized by a minaret, a dome, arches and mosaics or stucco decoration...
Priest Holes: Secret Chambers That Hid Mediaeval Priests
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 1, 2018
In mediaeval England, when feuds were violent and justice swift and brutal, it was common for castles and mansions of the powerful and the w...
Yaodong: China’s Pit Houses
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 30, 2018
For more than four thousand years, on the Loess Plateau in northern China, people have been residing in caves known as yaodong, which is Chi...
Women Who Become Men: The Sworn Virgins of Albania
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 29, 2018
In the remote mountains of northern Albania are villages where there are women who live and act like men. They have short hair, wear baggy p...
Rainbow Colored Mountains
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 27, 2018
Soil is typically brown, but when mixed with the right minerals in right quantities, it can yield a fascinating range of colors. You can see...
Fore-edge Painting: Hidden Artworks on The Edges of Books
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 26, 2018
The following video created by an archivist at Cornell University’s Library, New York, shows a 1925 copy of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim...
The House That Was Moved Across The Atlantic
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 25, 2018
Sometimes a house just needs to be moved no matter what’s the cost. Usually, these are historic structures that are in danger of demolition ...
Tipu Sultan’s Mechanical Tiger
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 24, 2018
The sun is the hottest when the clock strikes one in the small town of Seringapatam, not far from the city of Mysore, in present day Karnata...
Stuckie The Mummified Dog
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 22, 2018
Fifty years ago a dog went up a tree chasing a racoon or something. He never came down. Fast forward twenty years. A group of loggers cut d...
The Negro of Banyoles
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 22, 2018
It’s one thing to keep the mummified body of a thousand year old pharaoh or a monk in a glass case in a museum, and another to stuff the dea...
Tianducheng: A Fake Paris in China
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 20, 2018
These two photographs of the Eiffel Tower look very similar, but they aren’t the same, which you can probably tell from their different surr...
Netherlandish Proverbs
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 18, 2018
Hanging at the Gemäldegalerie art museum in Berlin, Germany, is an unusual painting. Measuring 64 inches by 46 inches, this 16th century oil...
London Railings Made From World War 2 Stretchers
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 17, 2018
Many housing estates throughout London are surrounded by black steel and mesh railings with peculiar notches around the edges. Although at f...
The Legacy of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 16, 2018
A two-hour bumpy ride from Uyuni across Bolivia’s high plains will take you to the small town of San Vicente. At the entrance to this remote...
