Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov’s Two-Headed Dog
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 5, 2020
In 1955, at a meeting of the Moscow Surgical Society, a sensational exhibit was presented to the assembled guests. On the platform close t...
LlÃvia: A Curious Spanish Enclave in France
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 3, 2020
A welcome sign on the road to LlÃvia, a landlock state of Spain inside France. Photo: LMspencer/Shutterstock.com Deep in the Pyrenees, s...
The War Rubble of Crosby Beach
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 2, 2020
Photo: pshab/Flickr Just beyond the coastguard station at the end of the promenade at Crosby Beach, in Liverpool, is a flat stretch of s...
The Unknown Martyrs Who Became Catacomb Saints
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 1, 2020
Relics of saint and holy people have always been an integral part of Christianity. There was a time when bones, skins, fingernails, severe...
Clever Hans: The Horse Who Could Do Math
Kaushik Patowary
May 29, 2020
In a paved courtyard surrounded by high apartment houses in the northern part of Berlin, a small crowd had gathered to watch an old high s...
Stanley Kubrick’s Rejected Monolith
Kaushik Patowary
May 27, 2020
The iconic Monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was originally not a mysterious black slab. The director wanted it t...
Waterloopbos: Where Dutch Engineers Learned to Play With The Sea
Kaushik Patowary
May 27, 2020
A quarter of Netherlands lie below the sea level. Most of these low-lying areas are land reclaimed from the sea. The region was originally o...
Pervitin: The Wonder Drug That Fueled Nazi Germany
Kaushik Patowary
May 25, 2020
When Heinrich Böll, the German writer and Nobel laureate, was a young man in his twenties, like many able-bodied youths of his time, he jo...
Draining of Fucine Lake
Kaushik Patowary
May 21, 2020
In western Abruzzo, in central Italy, about 80 kilometers east of Rome, lies one of Italy's most fertile plains. The vegetables that a...
Tsar Tank
Kaushik Patowary
May 20, 2020
Before World War I, military tanks were a mere concept. Leonardo da Vinci made sketches of a human-powered armored vehicle, with canons all ...
Aerotrain: The High-Speed Train That Almost Revolutionized Transport
Kaushik Patowary
May 19, 2020
Some of the fastest trains in service today have a top speed in excess of 200 miles per hour. With the exception of Shanghai maglev, all o...
Remembering Epidemics With Plague Columns
Kaushik Patowary
May 15, 2020
Military victories are much celebrated, but a victory against a common enemy, such as a disease, is as important, especially in older times ...
Vennbahn: The Railway That Created a Peculiar Border Problem
Kaushik Patowary
May 14, 2020
Germany and Belgium’s border problem. Photo: gunnsteinlye/Flickr Along the German-Belgian border runs an old disused railway track, the ...
Turnspit Dogs
Kaushik Patowary
May 12, 2020
Observe the scene above depicting the inside of an inn at Newcastle, Wales, in the late 19th century. Men and women are sitting around the...
The Pearl Rush of Caddo Lake
Kaushik Patowary
May 11, 2020
Caddo Lake. Photo: Maciej Kraus/Flickr Natural pearls are a rarity today, but a hundred years ago, before British biologist William Savi...
Kruger Shalati: The Train Hotel Over Sabie Bridge
Kaushik Patowary
May 9, 2020
For several years, it was possible to hop into a train at Komatipoort, on the South Africa-Mozambique border, and ride through the wildern...
The Bayeux Tapestry
Kaushik Patowary
May 7, 2020
History is not always written. Sometimes it’s carved . Sometimes it’s embroidered. In a museum in Bayeux, in Normandy, is such a piece o...
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
Kaushik Patowary
May 6, 2020
When cotton first came to Europe from Central Asia during the Middle ages, people were fascinated by the fluffy, fibrous balls that resemb...
Black Weddings: Marrying in The Time of Cholera
Kaushik Patowary
May 5, 2020
Last month, a peculiar wedding ceremony took place at a cemetery in Bnei Brak, a city in Israel, just east of Tel Aviv. With government re...
Cosmos 954: The Nuke That Fell From Space
Kaushik Patowary
May 1, 2020
What goes up must eventually come down, including satellites that are currently orbiting the earth. After their work is done, they will be...
