How Kate Shelley Saved a Train

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...