Itacolumite: The Flexible Rock
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 6, 2021
Ever seen a piece of rock bend? Itacolumite is unique kind of sandstone that does when cut into thin strips. If a foot-long piece, a few cen...
Tripitaka Koreana
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 6, 2021
The Tripiṭaka Koreana is the oldest surviving version of the Buddhist canon and the most complete collection of Buddhist texts, laws and tre...
The Chain Boats of Europe
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 4, 2021
In his travelogue, A Tramp Abroad , Mark Twain describes an encounter with a curious boat on the River Neckar in Germany. We ra...
Otto von Guericke's Magdeburg Hemisphere Experiment
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 2, 2021
The Magdeburg Hemispheres is a classic physics experiment that demonstrates the incredible pressure the atmosphere around us exerts on our b...
Horatio Phillips’s Extreme Multiplanes
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 30, 2021
British engineer and aviator Sir George Cayley suggested, as early as 1843, that an airplane with multiple wings will generate more uplift a...
Hackney Borough Disinfection Station
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 28, 2021
When you came down with an infectious disease in the early 1900s in London, not only were you whisked away in a horse-drawn cart to the hosp...
The Madaba Mosaic Map
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 27, 2021
In 1884, an Orthodox Christian community that had recently moved to Madaba, a city in western Jordan, began the construction of a new Church...
The Soviet Moon Prank
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 24, 2021
In December 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, became the first men to fly around the moon and return to earth. But they ...
Viktor Belenko: The Pilot Who Stole a Secret Soviet Aircraft
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 22, 2021
Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko woke up early in the morning as he had done everyday for the past four weeks, to watch the approaching d...
The World's Largest Log Cabin
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 20, 2021
At the turn of the 20th century, the city of Portland, in Oregon, United States, was a major economic center, with a flourishing wheat and f...
Typhoid Mary: The Most Infamous Typhoid Carrier Who Ever Lived
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 16, 2021
We have been hearing about “asymptomatic carrier” quite a lot in the past few months. It scares us to death that there are people carrying c...
The Lighthouse at The End of The World
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 14, 2021
The San Juan de Salvamento lighthouse is located at the very end of the island of states, in Patagonia of Argentina, in the province of Tier...
The Pantai Remis Landslide
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 9, 2021
Tin mining is one of the oldest industries in Malaysia, having been mined for centuries along the river banks. These mines were small and th...
The Great Meteor of 1783
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 8, 2021
On the night of 18 August 1783, four gentlemen and their two lady companions were on the terrace of the Windsor Castle, enjoying the warm su...
The Great Vine of Hampton Court Palace
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 6, 2021
The Great Vine of Hampton Court Palace, on the River Thames in London, is the largest and the oldest vine in the world, having being planted...
Why The Romans Punished Dogs And Honored Geese
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 6, 2021
On a warm summer day in August in ancient Rome, a brilliantly decorated litter is carried solemnly in the direction of Circus Maximum. Its o...
Ida Lewis: The Bravest Woman in America
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 3, 2021
In the Newport harbor in Rhode Island, America’s smallest state, stands a small, squat lighthouse named after Ida Lewis, the fearless lighth...
Paper Railway Wheels
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 2, 2021
Paper has multitude of uses—from the newspaper that we read in the morning to the teabags that infuses our morning cup, from the toilet pape...
Daniel Lambert: England’s Most Famous Fat Man
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 31, 2021
For most of human history, mankind struggled with food scarcity. The poor and the working class were seldom well fed, and only the wealthy a...
Mansa Musa: The Richest Man in History
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 26, 2021
In 1324, Mansa Musa, the legendary ruler of the vast West African empire of Mali, set off for a pilgrimage to Mecca. Like many other devout ...
