The Story Behind Sydney’s ‘Eternity’ Graffiti
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 20, 2018
For over twenty five years, from 1930 to 1956, the people of Sydney woke up each day to a one-word sermon—”Eternity”—handwritten in yellow c...
Before The Internet, What People Asked New York Public Library's Librarians?
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 19, 2018
Before there was the Internet and Google, the only way to find answers to a pressing question was to visit the local library and ask the all...
Tura Coo: The Cow That Led A Town To Riots
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 19, 2018
A hundred years ago, a small farming community called Turriff in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, became the unlikely stage for one of the most biza...
Broken Promises: The Wartime Evacuation of Imber And Tyneham
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 14, 2018
In the beginning of November 1943, all residents of Imber, a quiet little village at the heart of Salisbury Plain, were summoned to a meetin...
Kryptos: The Mystery Sculpture At CIA’s Headquarters
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 13, 2018
For the past 17 years, a cryptographic puzzle has stood on the grounds of the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, taunting cryptograph...
The Marsh Arabs of Iraq
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 12, 2018
The two great rivers of ancient Mesopotamia—Tigris and Euphrates—rises in the Taurus mountains in southern Turkey, and after flowing through...
Roger Babson: The Man Who Tried To Fight Gravity
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 11, 2018
Throughout history humans have learnt to live with gravity despite its innumerable inconveniences, accepting it as a physical fact of the un...
Trinity Bridge: The Orphaned Bridge of Crowland
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 9, 2018
In the heart of Crowland, a small town in Lincolnshire, England, is a unique attraction—a 14th century stone arch bridge standing by the sid...
Hallsands: The Village That Fell Into The Sea
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 9, 2018
The island of Great Britain is shrinking. Every year several feet of land is washed away by the pounding waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Every ...
The Fuggerei: The World’s Oldest Housing Complex Where Rents Haven’t Gone Up For 500 Years
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 7, 2018
In the 15th and 16th centuries, a certain German family of merchants known as the Fuggers rose to become one of the richest and the most pow...
How A Single Cat Hunted to Extinction The Entire Species of Stephens Island Wren
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 6, 2018
David Lyall held his breath as he made the first incision straight down the belly of a little mouse-like olive brown bird that lay on his de...
The Dogon Villages of Bandiagara Escarpment
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 5, 2018
In central Mali, about 90 km to the east of Mopti, rises a dramatic sandstone cliff with a high plateau above and sandy semi-desert plains b...
Bullfrog County: How an Empty County Tried to Prevent Nevada From Becoming The Nation’s Nuclear Waste Dump
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 2, 2018
Deep in southern Nevada’s Nye County, in the harsh, sun-drenched desert, there was once a small county named Bullfrog. It was one of the mos...
America’s Doomsday Bunkers
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 29, 2018
Far into the unforeseeable future, when nuclear war and biological warfare had decimated the human population, killed most living beings and...
Mail Delivery By Rockets
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 28, 2018
The history of the postal system is inextricably tied to the history of transport. Advances in transportation technology have not only allow...
The House Built From Tombstones
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 26, 2018
This humble two-storied marble-clad house in Petersburg, in the US state of Virginia, has more than 150 years of Civil War history embedded ...
The Japanese Museum With The Most Flexible Opening Times
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 26, 2018
Ichimura Mamoru stands in front of his museum in Kyoto. Photo credit: thornet_/Flickr In a quiet residential street in Kyoto, Japan, just ...
Britain’s User Worked Level Crossings
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 25, 2018
The United Kingdom has some 6,500 level crossings on their sprawling railway network, out of which an astounding number of them—5,000—are us...
Dubai’s Encroaching Sandstorms
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 23, 2018
Living in the UAE is a constant battle with dust, sand and sandstorms, especially during summer, but they can occur in any seasons of the ye...
America’s Last Log Flume
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 23, 2018
Log flume rides are staple for any amusement park, but before they became thrilling fun rides, log flumes were used in the lumber industry t...
