The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 1, 2021
The 1950s were exciting times. There was much enthusiasm and optimism around the use of atomic energy, which was seen as the solution to all...
Shoeburyness Boom: A Cold War Era Defense Across The Thames
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 28, 2021
At first glance, the concrete piles lying off the coast of southeast Essex, near the town of Shoeburyness, looks like the exposed columns of...
The Silver Tree of Karakorum
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 27, 2021
Of all the things described in William of Rubruck's account of his travels through 13th-century Asia, perhaps none is so striking as the...
Mäusebunker: Berlin’s Mouse Bunker
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 26, 2021
Sitting squarely in the middle of Berlin is a monstrous-looking building with façade of solid grey concrete, punctured by long ventilation t...
Spindletop: The Gusher That Launched The Oil Industry
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 25, 2021
Although the modern oil industry is said to have begun with the drilling of the first oil well by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania, it was the di...
The Helfaut-Wizernes Dome
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 22, 2021
In the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, close to the commune of Helfaut and Wizernes, lies a large Nazi bunker built during the ...
Why The Soviet Union Exchanged Warships For Pepsi
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 20, 2021
The American soft drink giant Pepsi has a long presence in Russia dating back to the early 1970s when Russia was still a part of the Soviet ...
San Francisco’s Hidden Cisterns
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 18, 2021
Scattered around San Francisco are a total of 177 large cisterns buried beneath the streets. Their presence is visible at many intersections...
The Cave of Swimmers
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 14, 2021
Thousands of years ago, the Sahara was surprisingly green with rich vegetation, trees and lakes that covered almost all of what is now sandy...
The Victorian Mail Order Business
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 12, 2021
In the beginning of the 19th century, a large Welsh town called Newtown on the River Severn became the center of the woolen industry. Like o...
Hells Bells
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 11, 2021
Deep down El Zapote cenote, a 50-meter-deep water-filled sinkhole in Quintana Roo, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula, stalactites take a diff...
Talakadu: The Temple City Devoured by Sand
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 8, 2021
The ancient city of Talakadu situated on the banks of the Kaveri river, about 45 km east of Mysore, was once the capital of the Western Gang...
Anderson Shelters: The Backyard Bunkers That Saved Britons From Luftwaffe Bombings
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 7, 2021
In 1938, before the Second World War had even begun, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain placed Sir John Anderson in charge of air ra...
The Granaries of Acorn Woodpecker
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 5, 2021
Woodpeckers are fascinating creatures. They hammer their bills into wood with force so ferocious that it would lead to concussion in any ani...
The Night The Moon Exploded
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 5, 2021
In the early evening of 18 June 1178, five monks from Canterbury in southern England, reported having witnessed an unusual phenomenon in the...
Why Julius Caesar Built a Bridge Over The Rhine And Destroyed it 18 Days Later
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 4, 2021
In the early summer of 55 BC Julius Caesar had already begun his conquest of Gaul three years earlier. At that time the eastern border of th...
Balmis Expedition: How Orphans Took The Smallpox Vaccine Around The World
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 29, 2020
The biggest hurdle to mass vaccination in the 19th century was keeping the virus alive out of the human body as the precious pus was being t...
The Barbegal Mills: The Largest Concentration of Mechanical Energy in Antiquity
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 21, 2020
About 12 kilometers north of the city of Arles, in the Provence region of southern France, is the small town of Fontvieille. It is a commune...
Medieval Russians Built Churches in One Day to Ward Off Epidemics
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 18, 2020
In the middle ages, many Russian communities, especially in the Novgorod and Pskov regions, believed in building churches as response to cal...
Pitch Drop Experiment: The World’s Longest Running Lab Experiment
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 17, 2020
The pitch drop experiment began in 1927 when Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, set out to dem...
