The Caprivi Strip
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 6, 2020
The country of Namibia has a sizeable landmass with an enviable coastline by the South Atlantic Ocean. Yet, a thin sliver of land, no more...
Nyepi: Bali’s Day of Silence
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 3, 2020
Every year, towards the end of March, the entire island of Bali in Indonesia, goes into standstill. Flights are grounded, shops remain close...
Digitally Reconstructed Medieval Castles
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 3, 2020
Europe is known for its magnificent castles and fortresses, but only a few survive in their original form. Since reconstructing them would b...
The Guillotine Haircut
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 1, 2020
Women traditionally wore their hair long. So when did short hair become the vogue? Some say it became fashionable only about hundred years...
Forgotten Jobs: Dog Whipper And Sluggard Waker
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 30, 2020
Photo: Nelson Antoine/Shutterstock.com In 16th-century England, stray dogs disrupting church service became such a big problem that many...
Joseph Bell, The Real Sherlock Holmes
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 28, 2020
An illustration of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson that appeared in a stamp printed in Alderney, circa 2009. Photo: Olga Popova/Shutterstoc...
The Quarantine Quarters of Dubrovnik
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 26, 2020
Social distancing and quarantine are not new concepts. During the Middle Ages, when Europe and Asia were devastated by deadly outbreaks of p...
Run Out of Toilet Paper? Use a Stick
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 25, 2020
Hoarding toilet paper. Photo: DigitalMammoth/Shutterstock.com Chances are, you’ve run out of toilet paper, unless you are the type who b...
Fatal Familial Insomnia: The Disease That Kills by Sleep Deprivation
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 25, 2020
Everybody suffers from a little insomnia once in a while, but what if you were unable to sleep for months? Early studies conducted on do...
How Coronavirus Emptied The World’s Streets
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 22, 2020
As millions of people around the world lock themselves indoors in order to prevent transmission of the dreaded coronavirus, the world outsid...
The Mulberry Harbours of Normandy
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 22, 2020
When the sea goes out in Arromanches-les-Bains, a small village on the coast of Normandy in northwestern France, the large concrete pontoons...
Barnacle Goose: The Bird That Was Believed to Grow on Trees
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 18, 2020
In the days before it was realized that birds migrate, ancient scholars struggled to explain why some species of birds appeared and disapp...
The Kettle War
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 17, 2020
Photo: B toy Anucha/Shutterstock.com The Kettle War of 1784 was a quintessential David versus Goliath story. A formidable naval fleet of...
The Earliest Depiction of Jesus Was a Mocking Tribute to Christianity
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 13, 2020
In the Palatine museum in Rome there is a collection of ancient graffiti etched on slabs of marble and limestone that once defaced the wal...
The Hanging Cages of St. Lambert's Church in Münster
Kaushik Patowary
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
Kaushik Patowary
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
Kaushik Patowary
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
Kaushik Patowary
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
Kaushik Patowary
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
Kaushik Patowary
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...
