Charles Boycott: The Man Who Became a Verb
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 12, 2023
The act of boycotting an organization or a person dates back to centuries, but the word “boycott” itself is relatively new. It entered Engli...
How Kate Shelley Saved a Train
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 9, 2023
In 1901, the Chicago & North Western Railway erected a new bridge over Des Moines River in Boone, Iowa, the United States. The bridge wa...
Serge Voronoff: The Doctor Who Transplanted Monkey Testicles Into Men to Rejuvenate Them
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 7, 2023
One of the most sensational presentations at the 1923 International Congress of Surgeons in London was made by the Russia-born French surgeo...
Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings: The Building That Changed The World’s Skyline
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 3, 2023
In 1797, an extraordinary building went up in Shropshire that would change the skylines of our cities forever. Described as “the grandfather...
Our Favorite Stories of 2022
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 22, 2022
With the year drawing towards the end, let us look at some of the best stories we published in the past 12 months. Thomas Midgley Jr.: The...
Helen Duncan: The Last Witch of Britain
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 20, 2022
The Witchcraft Act of 1735 was a landmark act for Britain. Unlike the earlier Witchcraft Acts which legalized witch-hunting and the executio...
Project HARP: The Space Cannon
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 16, 2022
When Jules Verne sent three men to the moon in his 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon , he did so in a projectile fired from a massive gu...
The Curse of King Casimir IV Jagiellonian
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 13, 2022
Casimir IV Andrew Jagiellonian was one of the most successful rulers of Poland, who, having defeated the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Ye...
How The Pressure Cooker Inspired The Steam Engine
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 12, 2022
For nearly 200 years, the steam engine powered the world’s machineries, but its origins were very humble. It began with the pressure cooker,...
The Gimli Glider
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 8, 2022
The American system of measurement and its units—feet, miles, pounds, and gallons—are quite bizarre. They are random, unintuitive and have n...
Khian Sea: The Wandering Garbage Barge
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 6, 2022
Every year, millions of tons of garbage are shipped out by wealthy countries to poorer countries in Africa, Asia and South America to be rec...
The Forgeries of Denis Vrain-Lucas
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 2, 2022
One Monday morning in July 1867, eminent French mathematician Michel Chasles stormed into the building of the French Academy of Sciences in ...
Thomas Parr, The Man Who Lived to 152 Years
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 30, 2022
On 15 November 1635, Thomas Parr was laid to rest at a grave in old Westminster Abbey. Tradition insist that this man was born around the ye...
The Mechanical Turk: An 18th Century Chess Playing Robot
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 29, 2022
In the late 18th century, a Hungarian inventor named Wolfgang von Kempelen presented to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria a sensational mecha...
Marie Lafarge: The Arsenic Poisoner
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 26, 2022
In the early 19th century, arsenic was most widely used to kill rats and insufferable husbands alike. The chemical element was odorless and ...
Biertan’s Matrimonial Prison
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 22, 2022
Tucked away in the church grounds of a quiet village in Romania, there is a small cottage known as the ‘matrimonial prison’. It was here tha...
The Miraculous Resurrection of Anne Greene
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 21, 2022
Anne Greene is one of the reasons why some people used to have a morbid fear of premature burial . In December 1650, Anne Green, an English ...
Charles Domery, The Glutton
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 19, 2022
In 1799, Doctor Thomas Cochrane, a surgeon at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, found in his care a man with the most unusual ea...
Stompie The Tank
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 17, 2022
For the 1995 movie Richard III , director Richard Loncraine towed an old Soviet T-34 tank to the center of London and had it drive through a...
Elephant Memorial in Teluk Intan
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 16, 2022
Elephants are reputed to have a great memory. They are also reputed to never forgive. There have been tales where elephants have sought re...
