The Mad World of Hat Making
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 19, 2021
Hat-making in the 18th and 19th centuries was a hazardous business, because it involved the use of many chemicals, one of which was the toxi...
Showing posts with the label Featured
The Ingenuity of The ‘Ha-Ha’
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 17, 2021
What’s in a wall but a simple structure to keep intruders out, you might say. But a surprising amount of thought goes behind the constructio...
Flettner Rotor: Sailing Ships Without Sails
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 16, 2021
In 1926, a 2,000-ton steel-hulled schooner named Buckau made an extraordinary crossing across the Atlantic. Although the Buckau was techni...
The Curious Tale of The Laocoön And His Sons’ Missing Arm
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 12, 2021
The story of Laocoön, the Trojan priest who was attacked and killed along with his two sons by giant serpents for attempting to expose the r...
The Largest War Memorial in The World is a 243 Kilometer Highway
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 11, 2021
When the First World War ended, the soldiers who had participated in it and were lucky enough to survive, returned to their homes. As in all...
When Israel Erased Color From Television Broadcasts
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 10, 2021
The first television broadcast in Israel was black and white, but unlike most nations, it wasn’t due to the lack of technology to broadcast ...
London’s Protected Views
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 8, 2021
Many prominent landmarks in London, such as St Paul's Cathedral, the Monument to the Great Fire of London , the Tower of London, The Pal...
Giuseppe Ferlini: The Pyramid Destroyer
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 5, 2021
If there is something that characterizes archeology, it is the care, the almost exquisite touch that is given to the sites and that makes a ...
William Walker: The Man Who Saved Winchester Cathedral
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 4, 2021
More than a century ago, Winchester Cathedral, which is one of the largest cathedrals in Europe and the longest of all Gothic cathedrals, wa...
How Astronomer Percival Lowell Mistook His Own Eye For Spokes on Venus
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 2, 2021
Percival Lowell, the American astronomer whose name bears an observatory in Arizona, made several very significant observations of the plane...
The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 1, 2021
The 1950s were exciting times. There was much enthusiasm and optimism around the use of atomic energy, which was seen as the solution to all...
The Silver Tree of Karakorum
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 27, 2021
Of all the things described in William of Rubruck's account of his travels through 13th-century Asia, perhaps none is so striking as the...
Spindletop: The Gusher That Launched The Oil Industry
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 25, 2021
Although the modern oil industry is said to have begun with the drilling of the first oil well by Edwin Drake in Pennsylvania, it was the di...
Why The Soviet Union Exchanged Warships For Pepsi
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 20, 2021
The American soft drink giant Pepsi has a long presence in Russia dating back to the early 1970s when Russia was still a part of the Soviet ...
San Francisco’s Hidden Cisterns
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 18, 2021
Scattered around San Francisco are a total of 177 large cisterns buried beneath the streets. Their presence is visible at many intersections...
The Victorian Mail Order Business
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 12, 2021
In the beginning of the 19th century, a large Welsh town called Newtown on the River Severn became the center of the woolen industry. Like o...
Talakadu: The Temple City Devoured by Sand
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 8, 2021
The ancient city of Talakadu situated on the banks of the Kaveri river, about 45 km east of Mysore, was once the capital of the Western Gang...
Anderson Shelters: The Backyard Bunkers That Saved Britons From Luftwaffe Bombings
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 7, 2021
In 1938, before the Second World War had even begun, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain placed Sir John Anderson in charge of air ra...
The Night The Moon Exploded
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 5, 2021
In the early evening of 18 June 1178, five monks from Canterbury in southern England, reported having witnessed an unusual phenomenon in the...
Why Julius Caesar Built a Bridge Over The Rhine And Destroyed it 18 Days Later
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 4, 2021
In the early summer of 55 BC Julius Caesar had already begun his conquest of Gaul three years earlier. At that time the eastern border of th...
