Null Island: The Fictional Place Created by Digital Mapping Error
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 20, 2018
A few hundred miles off the west coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea, a lonely weather buoy bobs up and down the ocean waves. Code named...
The Collyer Brothers: History’s Worst Hoarders
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 19, 2018
In the heart of Harlem, in New York City, at the northwest corner of 128th Street and 5th Avenue, lies a small rectangular lot. A sign from ...
The Horseback Fishermen of Oostduinkerke
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 18, 2018
On the western end of Belgium’s short coastline, about 20 km east of Dunkirk, France, is a place called Oostduinkerke (meaning “East Dunkirk...
The Cave-Dwelling Crocodiles of Gabon
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 15, 2018
Ten years ago, a team of scientists went exploring into the rainforest of Gabon, and ventured into a cave. In the pitch-black, bat-infested...
Queen Elizabeth’s Childhood Playhouse
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 14, 2018
In the garden of Windsor’s Royal Lodge in Berkshire, England, tucked away from public view stands a miniature thatched cottage with white-wa...
How The Soviets Put Out Oil Well Fires by Using Nuclear Bombs
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 14, 2018
In the early 1960s, the two nuclear superpowers of the world—the United States of America and the Soviet Union—began looking for ways to uti...
Diolkos: An Ancient Trackway That Carried Ships Over Land
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 12, 2018
In ancient times, Greek merchants sailed all around the Mediterranean Sea carrying goods from Spain to Phoenicia and from Carthage to Egypt ...
The War of The Bucket
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 11, 2018
In a way, all wars are stupid—but none was stupider than the Battle of Zappolino that was waged over a silly wooden bucket. The War of the ...
The Glass Fishing Floats of Japan And Norway
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 10, 2018
Every year, Oregon’s Lincoln City, on the west coast of the United States, organizes a treasure hunt where more than 3,000 handcrafted glass...
Guillame Legros’s Ephemeral Landart
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 8, 2018
These gigantic graffiti artworks spray-painted over the fields and the hillside were made by Swiss artist Guillame Legros, who goes by the n...
Inemuri, The Japanese Art of Sleeping at Work
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 8, 2018
In most countries sleeping at work is not only embarrassing, it might even cost one’s job. But in Japan, sleeping in the office is common an...
Dr. Charles Campbell And His Malaria-Fighting Bat Towers
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 7, 2018
Sixty years ago the United States took upon itself a challenge—eradicate malaria from the entire country, all 3.8 million square miles of it...
Moldova’s Underground Wine City
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 6, 2018
The tiny landlocked country of Moldova in Eastern Europe is one of Europe’s poorest. “The roads are a bone-shaking ordeal. Horses haul carts...
The Miniature Coffins of Arthur’s Seat
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 5, 2018
At the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh are a set of eight miniature coffins carved in wood and decorated with tinned iron. Each cof...
Xiaohe: A 4000-Year-Old Desert Cemetery
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 5, 2018
In the far eastern edge of the desolate Taklamakan Desert, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest settlement, a clump of dense wooden stake...
The Most Kissed Girl in The World: The Mona Lisa of The Seine
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 1, 2018
Sometime in the late 19th century, the body of a young woman was fished out of the Seine River in Paris. Because there was no evidence of vi...
The Mail That Was Smuggled to The Moon
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 30, 2018
A lot of objects flew to the moon and back aboard NASA’s Saturn rocket. During the Apollo missions and those before that, astronauts were al...
Hungary’s Hyperinflation: The Worst Case of Inflation in History
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 29, 2018
The amount of Bolivars needed to buy 2.4 kg of chicken in Venezuela today. Photo credit: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters The economic situa...
Alberta’s War on Rats
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 28, 2018
The brown rat is an extremely invasive species—a pest, that survive on human-produced garbage, usually, but often times this nasty rodent ...
The Hunger Stones of The Elbe River
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 27, 2018
A record drought in Europe this year has exposed over a dozen boulders along the Elbe River, that usually stays below the water line, in an...
