Britain's K-Class Submarines And The Battle of May Island
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 9, 2025
In the years leading up to the First World War, Britain’s Royal Navy faced an existential challenge. Germany’s naval expansion, and especial...
Ambrose Channel Pilot Cable
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 4, 2025
The Ambrose Channel pilot cable was an early 20th-century navigational aid installed on the seabed of New York Harbor’s Ambrose Channel, the...
Alain Bombard: The Biologist Who Shipwrecked Himself to Prove a Point
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 3, 2025
In the autumn of 1952, a small black rubber dinghy drifted out of the Canaries and into the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean. Its lone occupa...
Wilhelm Voigt: The Amiable Scoundrel
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 1, 2025
On a crisp October morning in 1906, a man in an immaculate Prussian captain’s uniform marched into the Berlin suburb of Köpenick and coolly ...
Dicran Hadjy Kabakjian’s Radium House
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 28, 2025
In the early decades of the twentieth century, as radium fever gripped scientists and entrepreneurs alike, one Philadelphia businessman join...
Jean-Baptiste Denys and the First Blood Transfusion
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 25, 2025
In 1667, in a small Parisian chamber lit by oil lamps and crowded with curious observers, a young physician named Jean-Baptiste Denys carrie...
The Niland Geyser: California's Wandering Mud Pot
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 18, 2025
In California’s Imperial Valley—an expanse of desert where geothermal energy, agriculture, and quiet rural towns coexist—lies one of the mos...
Tektite Habitat: The Pioneering Undersea Laboratory
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 17, 2025
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States conducted one of the most ambitious experiments in human undersea habitation: Project ...
The 1938 Yellow River Flood
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 14, 2025
Few rivers in human history have been so closely tied to a nation’s destiny as the Yellow River— Huang He , the “Mother of China.” Rising in...
The Golden Letter of King Alaungpaya
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 12, 2025
In 1756, King Alaungpaya of Burma sent an extraordinary diplomatic letter to King George II of Great Britain and Hanover. The missive was en...
The Ball of The Burning Men
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 11, 2025
On a freezing January night in 1393, music and laughter filled the Hôtel Saint-Pol, a sprawling palace on the right bank of Paris. The Frenc...
Popigai: The Crater of Diamonds
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 6, 2025
The Earth is bombarded by thousands of micrometeorites every day, but only once in tens of millions of years does an asteroid large enough a...
Yossele The Holy Miser
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 4, 2025
In the Jewish quarter of Kraków in the 17th century lived a man named Yossele, who was both infamous and pitied. He was a miser, so the town...
Penny Sit-up, Two-Penny Hangover And Four-Penny Coffin
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 3, 2025
In the slums of Victorian England, poverty was so pervasive that even sleep came with a price tag. Among the poorest of the poor, including ...
Petrarch’s Ascent of Mont Ventoux And The Birth of Renaissance
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 30, 2025
In March 1923, when British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory was touring the United States to raise money for an expedition to Mount Everest...
The First Caesarean Section on a Living Woman
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 27, 2025
In the early years of the sixteenth century, in the small Swiss village of Siegershausen, a man named Jacob Nufer faced a situation of unima...
Rhizanthella Gardneri: The Underground Orchid
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 24, 2025
Rhizanthella gardneri , often called the Western underground orchid, is one of the most remarkable plants in the world because it spends its...
Yaoya Oshichi: The Girl Who Tried to Burn Down Tokyo For Love
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 23, 2025
In the winter of 1682, a massive fire swept through Edo, present-day Tokyo. Known as the “Great Tenna Fire” it raged through the city’s crow...
John Elwes: The Miser Who Inspired Dickens
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 21, 2025
You may not recognize the name John Elwes, but you almost certainly know his literary and cartoon heirs— Ebenezer Scrooge (the cold-hearted ...
Oyster Shell Houses of Guangdong
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 16, 2025
Along the southern coast of China, particularly in Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta, a curious architectural tradition took shape during the la...
