The World’s First Skyscraper

Oct 15, 2019

The word “skyscraper” was used to describe a tall building for the first time during the construction boom that rippled across many America ...

Port Arthur And The Convict Tramway

Oct 15, 2019

In the middle of the 19th century, Tasman Peninsula, on the southeast coast of Tasmania, became home to one of Australia's most dreaded ...

Disposable Ships

Oct 12, 2019

Before the Industrial Revolution, the British shipbuilding industry was completely dependent on the countries around the Baltic Sea for timb...

The Spiral Hives of Sugarbag Bees

Oct 10, 2019

Not all bees sting. There are about five hundred bee species out of twenty thousand that have lost that ability, but they do exhibit other d...

Chinese Medicine Dolls

Oct 10, 2019

For hundreds of years until the early 20th century, getting medical help for a Chinese woman was tricky. In those times the Chinese placed e...

Bouvet Island: The Uninhabited Island With Its Own Top-Level Internet Domain

Oct 8, 2019

As far as islands go, Bouvet is pretty insignificant—a speck of rock located in the South Atlantic Ocean over 1,600 kilometers off the coast...

An Incredible Move: The Indiana Bell Telephone Building

Oct 7, 2019

The relocation of the headquarters building of Indiana Bell Telephone Company in Indianapolis remains one of the most fascinating moves in t...

Shadwell Forgeries: How Two Illiterates Fooled Victorian Archeologists

Oct 5, 2019

During the middle of the 19th century, London’s antiquarian market was flooded by the sudden arrival of a large number of supposedly mediaev...

Megapode Egg Fields

Oct 2, 2019

Most birds incubate their eggs with body heat, but not megapodes, a chicken-sized bird with heavy body, short rounded wings and large, stron...

Fist Fights on Venetian Bridges

Oct 1, 2019

Throughout the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period, Venice was divided into many administrative districts and rival factions, who disp...