Out of Place Ski Jumps
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 25, 2019
Competitive skiing as a sport developed in Norway in the later part of the 19th century. Sondre Norheim, who is recognized as the “Father of...
Star Jelly: The Mysterious Phenomenon That Inspired ‘The Blob’
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 22, 2019
For hundreds of years, people have reported blobs of strange gelatinous substances on the ground that they presumed had fallen from the skie...
Hameau de la Reine: Marie Antoinette’s Pretend Village
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 21, 2019
Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France, is often portrayed as a frivolous, selfish, and immoral woman whose decadent lifestyle emptied t...
Rod Stewart’s Model Railway
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 20, 2019
For the past 26 years British rock star Rod Stewart has been secretly building a massive model railway in the attic of his Los Angles home....
Richard Trevithick And The Steam Circus
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 20, 2019
Twenty five years before Robert Stephenson decisively proved the superiority of steam locomotives over horse drawn carriages during the Rain...
The Zeppelin Spy Basket
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 19, 2019
One of the most perilous positions in the crew of a German Zeppelin during the First World War was that of the aerial lookout, whose job was...
Caligula’s Pleasure Ships of Lake Nemi
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 18, 2019
Two thousand years ago, the debauched Roman emperor Caligula ordered the construction of two large floating pleasure barges on the relativel...
Cinder Lake Crater Field: The Simulated Moon NASA Created to Train Astronauts
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 15, 2019
Two Apollo 15 crew members, riding a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) simulator, participate in geology training at the Cinder Lake crater field ...
The Rainhill Trials
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 13, 2019
Nearly two centuries ago, a small hamlet lying between Liverpool and Manchester became host to one of the strangest competitions ever held. ...
Communal Coffins And Burial Clubs
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 12, 2019
The St John and All Saints Church in the town of Easingwold, in North Yorkshire, England, dates to the 13th century, or perhaps even earlier...
The Last Victim of Smallpox
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 12, 2019
In the summer of 1978, the World Health Organization stood on the brink of a remarkable achievement—smallpox, the disease that terrorized pe...
Kongo Gumi: The 1,400-Year-Old Company
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 9, 2019
Less than two months ago, the renowned British travel agency Thomas Cook laid off more than 21,000 employees the world over and liquidated i...
The Historic Hanford Reactor That Made Plutonium For The Nagasaki Bomb
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 7, 2019
Sitting squarely in the middle of the now decommissioned Hanford Site, a nuclear production complex on the Columbia River near Richland, Was...
The Century Old ‘Dream Mine’ That’s Yet to Produce Gold
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 6, 2019
On the foothills of Wasatch Mountains, east of Salem, in the US state of Utah, is a mine waiting for a miracle. The mine was first excavate...
Bridges With Buildings—Part 2
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 5, 2019
During the Middle Ages, it was common to have buildings built on top of bridges. These spaces were rented out to shopkeepers and merchants, ...
The Legend of The Lost Cement Mine
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 5, 2019
Gold mining in California. Lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1871. Image courtesy: Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com Hundreds of million...
Why Mediaeval Europeans Slept Inside Boxes
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 1, 2019
For much of human history, privacy during bedtime was an alien concept. Many poor families lived in small houses, where there was only one o...
The Berlin Candy Bomber
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 31, 2019
Following the end of World War 2, Germany was broken up and divided among the Allies as one divides war booty. The western half was occupie...
That Time When Britain Had Its Own Rocket
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 30, 2019
For a country as technological advanced as Great Britain, it sounds almost implausible when you say that the British do not have a space pr...
The Abandoned Mansions of Bishops Avenue
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 29, 2019
Bishops Avenue, in North London, dubbed the “Billionaire's Row” is one of the wealthiest streets in the world. The average value of a pr...
