The Hanging Cages of St. Lambert's Church in Münster

Mar 12, 2020

If you crane your neck and look up while standing in front of St Lambert's Church in Münster, Germany, you can make out three iron cages...

Cold War Era Bunkers Under Corsham

Mar 11, 2020

The fear of nuclear apocalypse immediately after the end of the Second World War, caused many westerns countries to invest heavily on underg...

Sweating Sickness: The Forgotten Epidemic

Mar 10, 2020

The Sleeping Beauty, by John Collier During medieval times, diseases were a constant threat to people’s health, brought about by lack of...

Celles, The Village That Didn’t Drown

Mar 9, 2020

In the late 1950s, residents of Celles, a small village in the Salagou valley in southern France, received notices for evacuation. Their nei...

Terrible National Park Reviews Illustrated

Mar 9, 2020

The wonderful thing about online reviews is that you will find both five-star and one-star reviews for the exact same product, and this incl...

Bathysphere: The World’s First Deep-Sea Exploration Vessel

Mar 7, 2020

On the afternoon of September 22, 1932, listeners across America and the UK tuned their radio sets to an extraordinary live broadcast that w...

Scalae Gemoniae: The Stairs of Death

Mar 5, 2020

Not too far from Tarpeian Rock , a cliff on Capitoline Hill in the center of Rome, where convicted criminals were once flung to their deaths...

The Indian Perfume That Smells Like Rain

Mar 3, 2020

Rainwater flows down a roof. Photo: Anna Nikonorova/Shutterstock.com Love that musky, fresh smell of earth that permeates the air when t...

The Newspaper That is Published Only on 29th February

Mar 2, 2020

The French newspaper, La Bougie du Sapeur, has been publishing for the last 40 years. Yet, there has been only eleven issues so far. Why? ...

Cornfield Bomber: The Fighter Plane That Landed Without Its Pilot

Mar 2, 2020

One of the strangest aviation mishaps that ended happily happened on February 2, 1970. That morning, three F-106 Delta Darts took off from t...

Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort

Feb 27, 2020

The Wallabi Group of islands in the Abrolhos archipelago, off the west coast of Australia, contains two distinct sets of islands. The easter...

The Soviet Census Debacle of 1937

Feb 26, 2020

In 1937, the Soviet Union conducted its first population census in eleven years. Soviet leaders, especially Stalin, had great expectations...

The World’s Oldest Dock at Lothal

Feb 25, 2020

The dockyard at Lothal. Photo: DARSHAN KUMAR/Shutterstock.com This large rectangular, water-filled structure may look like a reservoir, ...

The Doodles Hidden Inside Swiss Maps

Feb 25, 2020

For centuries mapmakers have been including small, deliberate flaws in their maps—a fake street, a fantasy town—imperceptible to anyone o...

Where is Ground Zero in Nagasaki?

Feb 24, 2020

On the morning of August 9, 1945, six B29 bombers took off from Mariana Islands, located more than 2,100 kilometers north of Tokyo. One of t...

Hessy Levinsons Taft: The Jewish Woman Who Was Hitler’s “Perfect Aryan Baby”

Feb 24, 2020

Hessy Levinsons Taft, a retired chemistry professor at St. John's University, New York, has an amusing story to tell. When she was only ...

The Pomological Watercolor Collection

Feb 22, 2020

Before the days of photography, documenting anything accurately was a task that could only be undertaken by an artist or a model maker. So, ...

The Langweil Model of Prague

Feb 21, 2020

At Prague’s City Museum there is a large, unfinished paper and carboard model of Prague depicting how the ancient city appeared in the early...

The Great Hedge of India

Feb 20, 2020

Back in the 19th century, eastern India was separated from the west by an impenetrable belt of trees made up of mostly thorny plants such as...

Nicholas Senn: The Doctor Who Blew Hydrogen Gas Up His Patient's Asses

Feb 19, 2020

Say, you get shot in the stomach. You go to a doctor. The doctor pulls down your pants and starts pumping hydrogen gas up your ass. Then he ...