The Yukon Square Inch Land Rush of 1955
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 1, 2020
Marketers give away freebies all the time to generate buzz and promote their products. Usually these freebies are cheap trinkets like toys, ...
Showing posts with the label Featured
Hostile Façades
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 27, 2020
The old city of Segovia, about 90 km north of Madrid, is best known for its aqueduct , but this historic city is full of architectural curio...
The Great Glass Slab at Beth Shearim
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 26, 2020
In a cave adjacent to an ancient cemetery near Beit She'arim, an old Jewish town in northern Israel, there lies a huge slab of glass app...
The Ancient Chinese Earthquake Detector That’s Puzzling Modern Researchers
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 6, 2019
In the year 132 CE, a brilliant Chinese astronomer, mathematician and engineer named Zhang Heng presented to the Han court an impressive inv...
Punkah: The Hand Operated Ceiling Fans of Colonial India
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 4, 2019
When the British first came to India, they had to adapt themselves to a lot of unfamiliar things, such as the climate, the blood sucking mos...
Monadnock Building: The Last Brick Skyscraper
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 2, 2019
In a city full of high-rises, a sixteen story skyscraper might not seem like much, but the Monadnock Building standing in the south Loop are...
Letters Q, W, And X Were Once Illegal in Turkey
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 28, 2019
An alternative spelling for taxi in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo credit: Jürgen Luger/Flickr In 1928, the Turkish government decided to change ...
Jack The Baboon Signalman
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 26, 2019
During the later part of the 19th century, travellers entering Uitenhage railway station, near Port Elizabeth, in South Africa, frequently ...
Mizuko Kuyo: The Japanese Ritual of Mourning The Unborn
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 21, 2019
Losing a child can be very painful, even if that child is yet to be born. In fact, many parents who experienced miscarriages feel the pain i...
The Clay Licks of Amazon Rainforest
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 20, 2019
Macaws and parrots of the Amazon rainforest have developed a particular taste for clay. They collect in large numbers on exposed river banks...
The Chrysler Air Raid Siren Was So Powerful it Could Induce Rain
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 19, 2019
The Chrysler Air Raid Siren was the size of a car. It measured twelve feet long and six feet high, and weighed an estimated 3 short tons. Th...
How Mediaeval Husbands Chastised Wives Who Talked Too Much
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 17, 2019
By putting a muzzle on them, of course. Known as Scold's bridle, these devices of torture and public humiliation were used mostly in En...
The Radioactive Energy Drink That Kills
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 16, 2019
Ebenezer Byers was a well known American socialite, son of industrialist Alexander Byers. In his youth Eben showed promising talent at sport...
Project Isabela: How Goats Helped Eliminate Goats From The Galapagos
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 15, 2019
The Galapagos Islands, off the west coast of Ecuador, are a treasure trove of unique ecological specimens. The islands’ extreme isolation an...
Tomb of Cyrus: The World’s Oldest Earthquake Resistant Structure
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 13, 2019
Natural calamites like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes have always been considered “acts of god”, yet for centuries our ancestors have r...
Republic of Cospaia: The Italian Hamlet That Became an Independent State For Four Centuries Due to Surveying Error
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 9, 2019
Nuzzled next to Tuscany, in northern Umbria, lies a small Italian village called Cospaia. For nearly four centuries, this territory of just ...
The Vitrified Forts of Scotland
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 6, 2019
Throughout the Bronze and the Iron Ages, Europeans have constructed hilltop forts and enclosures made of stone. About two hundred examples o...
The 40-Foot Studebaker President
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 5, 2019
Few companies escaped the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that plunged the United States and much of the western world into an abyss of economic...
Project A119: The Secret Plan to Nuke The Moon
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 2, 2019
Long before the United States President John F. Kennedy delivered the inspiring "We choose to go to the Moon" speech in front of a...
Barge Haulers on The Volga
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 1, 2019
Before the era of steam engines, the process of moving a boat or a barge up a river was extremely difficult. The usual method was to tow the...
