Exercise Tiger: The Disastrous D-Day Rehearsal That Cost 800 Lives
Kaushik Patowary
May 10, 2018
In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied soldiers stormed into the beaches of northern France in what became the larg...
World War II’s Other Iconic Photo: Raising A Flag Over The Reichstag
Kaushik Patowary
May 8, 2018
When photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped the picture of five US marines and a Navy sailor raising the American flag over the battle-scarred J...
Richardson Olmsted Complex: A Historic Insane Asylum Turned Hotel
Kaushik Patowary
May 7, 2018
The Richardson Olmsted Complex in Buffalo, the United States, is a modern name for the Buffalo State Hospital, which itself was originally c...
The Longest Straight Line Land And Sea Route
Kaushik Patowary
May 7, 2018
The red line on this world map looks all curvy, but in reality is a perfectly straight line. Remember, the earth is spherical, so any strai...
The Lost City of Cahokia
Kaushik Patowary
May 5, 2018
A thousand years before Columbus's men would land on the shores of America, a new city was sprouting on the floodplains of modern-day St...
China’s Bicycle Graveyards
Kaushik Patowary
May 4, 2018
Over the last few years, the bicycle-sharing phenomenon has taken the world by storm, especially in China, where—according to one report —th...
Pop Culture Dystopia
Kaushik Patowary
May 4, 2018
Dystopian future is a favorite trope among movie directors, writers and artists alike. Decaying landscape, overgrown bushes, and crumbling r...
Toxic Art: The Almaden Mercury Fountain
Kaushik Patowary
May 3, 2018
At the Joan Miró Foundation, a contemporary museum on Montjuïc hill in Barcelona, is a fascinatingly deadly piece of art—a fountain of mercu...
Strings And Knots: Inca’s Cryptic Writing System
Kaushik Patowary
May 2, 2018
While Geoffrey Chaucer was writing The Canterbury Tales in late 14th century, the Inca scholars high up in the Andes were struggling to put...
The Soccer Stadium Lying On Two Hemispheres
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 30, 2018
This Friday, two local Brazilian football clubs—Santos FC and Macapá—will face each other at the Estádio Milton Corrêa, a multi-purpose sta...
River of Blood: The Memorial to a Civil War Battle That Never Took Place
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 30, 2018
In the greens overlooking the Potomac river, between the 14th hole and the 15th tee at the Trump National Golf Club in Lowes Island, Norther...
Nightingale Floor: An Ancient Japanese Intruder Detection System
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 27, 2018
Squeaky floors are annoying, which is why when you search for “squeaky floors” in Google, you get hundreds of articles offering you tips and...
The Ice Caves That Never Melt, Even In Summer
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 26, 2018
In the mountains of the Shanxi province in China, is the country’s biggest ice cave—an 85-meter deep bowling pin shaped subterranean structu...
The Pigeons Who Took Photos
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 25, 2018
At the turn of the last century, when aviation was still in its infancy, a German named Julius Neubronner submitted a patent for a new inven...
Shanghaiing: How Trickery And Deception Turned Thousands of Unwilling Men Into Sailors
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 23, 2018
Underneath Portland’s Old Town is a network of tunnel passages connecting the basements of many downtown bars and hotels to the Willamette R...
How to Get Away With Murder in Yellowstone National Park
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 20, 2018
In 2005, a Michigan State law professor published a paper in a law journal where he described a way to commit the perfect crime and get away...
The Theater That Shakespeare Stole
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 19, 2018
On a cold, snowy December night in 1598, about a dozen men armed with swords, daggers and axes quietly broke into a recently vacated theater...
Unalaska: The Town Full of Bald Eagles
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 17, 2018
The bald eagle may be America’s national bird, but for the small Alaskan town of Unalaska, this majestic bird is little more than a pest. Th...
Peary Land, The Land of Extremities
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 17, 2018
The northern tip of Greenland, despite being situated a little over 700 km from the north pole, is entirely ice free and has been for the la...
Why Do Many Historic Buildings in The UK Have Bricked Up Windows?
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 16, 2018
There was a time in Great Britain when having windows in homes and buildings were prohibitively expensive. That time began in 1696 with the...
