The First Airmail Was Delivered During The Siege of Paris
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2022
When Prussian forces had Paris under siege during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the beleaguered Parisians had only one hope to get messag...
Thomas Harriot: The Scientific Genius Who Eschewed Fame
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2022
Four hundred years ago, on July 2 1621, a remarkable Englishman named Thomas Harriot died in London. He left behind some 8,000 pages of scie...
Ashford v Thornton: The Last Challenge to Trial by Battle
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 18, 2022
Many personal disputes in the past have been settled by one-to-one combat. When a crime was committed, or a complainant accused a person of ...
The Donkey Wheel of Carisbrooke Castle
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 16, 2022
After King Charles I of England surrendered to Scottish forces following his defeat in the English Civil War (1642–1651), he was captured an...
The Pneumatic Clocks of Paris
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 15, 2022
When French-born but London-based civil and electrical engineer, Jules Albert Berly, traveled to Paris for the 1881 International Exposition...
Wood Gas Vehicles: Cars That Run on Firewood
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 14, 2022
In the early 19th century, in addition to coal and natural gas, a new kind of fuel became available to people. It was called synthetic gas (...
The Great Meteor Procession of 1913
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 11, 2022
On the night of February 9, 1913, inhabitants of a large portion of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada witnessed a meteo...
The Pyramid of Cestius
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 10, 2022
Although we associate pyramids with Ancient Egypt, these four-sided structures with a tapering top are found all over the world, built by ma...
Kīpuka: A Different Kind of Volcanic Island
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 10, 2022
Sometimes when a volcano erupts and the subsequent lava flows engulf the mountain slope and the surrounding terrain, some pieces of the land...
Acta Diurna: The First Roman Newspaper
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 8, 2022
According to Cicero, from the beginning of Roman history the Pontifex Maximus compiled on a white table the most important events that had ...
