The Telescope That Got Shot
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 4, 2023
In the early 1960s, as NASA geared up towards space exploration, engineers and astronomers at the federal organization felt the need for a l...
The 1956 Olympic Flame Hoax
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 31, 2023
The 1956 Summer Olympics was held in Australia. As was the custom, the Olympic flame was lighted in Olympia, months before the games started...
Dorothy Lawrence: The Woman Who Posed as a Soldier to be a War Correspondent
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 29, 2023
The First World War was reported from an almost exclusively male perspective, because few female war correspondents were given access to the...
The Ice Palace of Anna Ioannovna
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 28, 2023
The winter of 1739-40 was incredibly harsh all over Europe and especially brutal in Russia. Temperatures plummeted to forty degrees below ze...
Limes Arabicus, The Chain of Fortifications That Protected The Roman Territory From Desert Tribes
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 23, 2023
When we talk about "limes", we usually think of the limits of the Roman Empire in northern Europe, in Germania or Britain. But in ...
The Fishman of Liérganes
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 22, 2023
In the small town of Liérganes, in Cantabria, northern Spain, a legend has been around since the late 17th century about a young man who dro...
Edward Dando: The Celebrated Oyster Eater
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 21, 2023
There was time in 1820s London when the name of Edward Dando sent panic through the hearts of tavern and oyster shop owners. This young man,...
The 1967 Experiment That Proved Anyone Can Design a Nuclear Weapon
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 17, 2023
On 16 October 1964, China detonated a 22-kiloton nuclear weapon device at the Lop Nur test site, becoming the fifth nuclear power state in t...
George Spencer Millet: Death by Kisses
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 15, 2023
George Spencer Millet must be rolling in his grave for his family chose to include this nugget of information in his gravestone: “Lost life ...
The Grave of Harry Potter in Ramle, Israel
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 15, 2023
In the British Commonwealth war cemetery in Ramle, Israel, is a grave that has been receiving quite a lot of footfall from tourists in the p...
Operation Sandblast: The First Submarine Circumnavigation
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 14, 2023
In the early 16th century, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan embarked on a historic expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific, ...
William And Mary Bryant’s Heroic Escape From Australia
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 10, 2023
The penal colonies that the British established in Australia during the 18th and the 19th centuries were nearly impossible to escape from. S...
Jack Ketch’s Botched Executions
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 8, 2023
The job of an executioner in medieval England was detestable. Nobody invited them to their homes. They were not allowed to go to the church,...
Douglas Crofut: Suicide by Radiation
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 6, 2023
On January 22, 1981, a 38-year-old industrial radiographer named Douglas Crofut was admitted to a hospital in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, the United...
Danube Sinkhole: Where a River Vanishes
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 2, 2023
The European river system is complex and extensive. Two of its main rivers, the Rhine and the Danube, despite not having their sources relat...
Escape From Colditz Castle
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 1, 2023
On a rocky outcrop high above the Mulde River in the small town of Colditz in Saxony, Germany, sits the massive Colditz Castle. Once the for...
St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line: The World’s First Airline
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 27, 2023
Barely a decade after the pioneering flight of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, the world’s first scheduled passenger airline service bega...
Daniel Sickles's Leg
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2023
One of the most visited exhibits at Washington's National Museum of Health and Medicine is the shattered leg bones of an American Civil ...
The Case of The Exploding Teeth
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2023
In the January 1861 issue of The Dental Cosmos , the first major journal of American dentistry, a Pennsylvania dentist named WH Atkinson doc...
Joseph Samuel: The Man Who Couldn’t be Hanged
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 16, 2023
Joseph Samuel was a petty criminal who broke into homes and stole stuff. There is nothing remarkable about his crimes, or about his life. Ho...
