Turlough: Ireland’s Disappearing Lakes
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 2, 2020
Many lakes whose existence depends wholly on rainwater runoffs are seasonal. The phenomenon is not particularly mysterious—the lake forms wh...
The Erfurt Latrine Disaster
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 1, 2020
Deaths are always unfortunate and even more so if they occur as a result of an accident. But sometimes there are incidents that have particu...
Medieval Rabbit Warrens
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 31, 2020
Back in medieval England rabbits were not bred in cages but in specially crafted earthen burrows called warrens, or pillow mounds. These wer...
The Uranium Cubes From a Nazi Nuclear Reactor
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 31, 2020
In the summer of 2013, Physicist Timothy Koeth of University of Maryland received an unexpected gift from one of his friends. It was a small...
Bull Running in Britain
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 28, 2020
Bull running as a sport is mostly associated with the city of Pamplona, in northern Spain. But until the 19th century, Britain had a similar...
The Very First Image on The Internet
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 27, 2020
Back in the early nineties, when the World Wide Web was still young, a group of geeky girls hailing from the European Organization for Nucle...
The Ruins of Gleno Dam
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 27, 2020
In a small valley, among the mountains of Lombardy, in northern Italy, stands a dam, or rather, half a dam. Built on the Gleno Creek, the Gl...
The B-17 That Flew With Its Tail Sliced Off
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 26, 2020
This famous photograph of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, with its tail section severed but still flying was taken during Word War 2, towar...
Battle of Surfaces: The Epic Nadal Vs Federer Match
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 25, 2020
In the spring of 2007, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were two of the best tennis players in the world. But they excelled on different surfa...
Sway Tower, The 14-Story Folly And The World Tallest Unreinforced Concrete Structure
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 25, 2020
On the outskirts of Sway, a village near Lymington, on Britain’s south coast, stands a peculiar Victorian tower. Visible for miles around, t...
Arrhichion, The Olympic Champion Who Won After His Death
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 25, 2020
Pankration was a violet sport. Practiced in ancient Greece, this brutal combination of boxing and wrestling had virtually no rules. The obje...
Slip Coach: Trains That Split
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 24, 2020
In the middle of the 19th century, British railway engineers realized that journey times could be appreciably shortened if trains didn’t hav...
Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 21, 2020
Killing someone takes a lot of wickedness backed by an equal amount of temerity, none of which was lacking in Tony Marino, Joseph "Red...
Middleton, The World’s Oldest Operating Railway
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 19, 2020
The Middleton Railway in Leeds has been chugging along for the past 260 years, longer than any other railways in the world. It was establish...
Of Mice, Men And Moon: A Short History of Animals in Space
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 18, 2020
More animals have flown to space than human beings. In the early years of space flight, all kinds of living beings from rodents to apes were...
London Bridge’s Nonsuch House
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 17, 2020
The Old London Bridge that stood for 600 years over Thames was the river’s key crossing point, as well as the city’s prime real estate area....
A Racing Horse Named Potoooooooo
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 15, 2020
There was once a great racehorse in 18th-century Britain named Potoooooooo, who was famed for his endurance and speed. He won over 30 races ...
Thames Tunnel: The World’s First Tunnel Under a River
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 13, 2020
At the beginning of the 19th century, London was one of the busiest river ports in the world, and the 600-year old stone bridge over Thames ...
Why Britain Lost 11 Days in September 1752
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 11, 2020
Do you know how many British people were born between September 3 and September 13 in the year 1752? None. Absolutely no one was born, nobod...
Schuttberg: Germany’s Rubble Mountains
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 7, 2020
Scores of hills dot the edges of many German cities, but these are not natural. They are known as Schuttberg, or “debris hill”. Schuttberg...
