Pierre Picaud: The Real Count of Monte Cristo

Sep 30, 2022

Alexandre Dumas’s literary classic The Count of Monte Cristo is one of Dumas’s most famous and beloved novels, but this satisfying tale of ...

Chung Ling Soo: The Magician Who Led a Double Life And Got Shot on Stage

Sep 29, 2022

One of the most dangerous and daring illusions that a magician can attempt is the famed bullet catch trick. There are several variation to t...

Why Two Prestigious American Universities Fight Over a Cannon

Sep 27, 2022

Most college rivalries revolve around academics or sports, but the rivalry between Princeton and Rutgers Universities is as much about sport...

Insectothopter: CIA’s Dragonfly-Shaped Bug

Sep 23, 2022

Is that buzz above your head an insect, or is it a miniature flying machine? With current technology and progress in mechanical miniaturiz...

Cross Writing: A Peculiar Way to Save Paper And Postage

Sep 22, 2022

Back in the 1800s, when both paper and postage were expensive (the cost of posting a letter depended on how many sheets of paper you used), ...

The Family That Sold Time

Sep 22, 2022

Mechanical clocks of the 19th century and earlier were not very accurate timekeepers and tended to drift over the course of a single day. Af...

The 1904 Olympic Marathon Was The Worst Race Ever

Sep 20, 2022

On a hot August afternoon in 1904, with temperatures hovering above the nineties (32 degree centigrade), thirty-two men dressed largely in w...

Vesna Vulovic’s 33,000 Feet Fall

Sep 15, 2022

On January 26, 1972, the JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 flying from Stockholm to Belgrade became the target of a terrorist attack. A suitc...

Amphitheater of Capua: The First Roman Amphitheater

Sep 13, 2022

Of all the amphitheaters built by the Romans, the Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheater in Rome is the largest of all in dimensions, followed by...

The Slaves of Tromelin Island

Sep 12, 2022

On the night of July 31, 1761, a frigate of the French East India Company named Utile , captained by Jean de La Fargue, and carrying a contr...