LATEST LONG-FORM:
The Spy of Night and Fog
Noor Khan, a pacifist descendant of Indian Royalty became a famed World War II spy for Britain’s Special Operations Executive.
Written by Joseph A. Williams • 06 May 2020 • Read/Listen →
Written by Joseph A. Williams • 06 May 2020 • Read/Listen →
Long-Form:
Radical Solutions
French mathematician Évariste Galois lived a full life. When he wasn't trying to overthrow the government, he was reinventing algebra.
Long-Form:
Private Wojtek’s Right to Bear Arms
One of Poland’s most beloved and honored World War II veterans was not Polish at all: he was a 500-pound brown bear named Wojtek.
Site News:
Permission to Grow
Beards have been banned in a number of military forces in history, from Qing Dynasty China to the modern-day Indian Army (apart from Sikhs). However cert...
Nugget:
Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar
Shortly after the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy summoned his press secretary Pierre Salinger to the presidential ...
Long-Form:
The Most Modern of Modern Sports
The secret runaway success of Kenneth Gandar-Dower’s racing cheetahs.
Site News:
A Pregnant Pause
In January of 1963, husband and wife George and Charlotte Blonsky submitted a patent application for a revolutionary invention. George, a mining engineer...
Nugget:
Every Breath You Take
In June of 1965, a 27-year-old gentleman by the name of Angus Barbieri checked himself into the Maryfield Hospital in Dundee, Scotland. His complaint was...
Nugget:
Schumann Resonances
Three times a day, every day--roughly 9am, 2pm, and 8pm Coordinated Universal Time--an extremely low frequency electromagnetic pulse races around the Ear...
Long-Form:
A Debaculous Fiasco
The most expensive, bizarre, and obscure work ever created by Dr. Seuss.
Nugget:
The Original Ghostbuster
In the early 1980s, a certain Mr. Vic Tandy found himself working for a medical device manufacturer in Warwick, in the county of Warwickshire, England. W...
Long-Form:
Drawing the Shorter Straw
Visionary Argentine filmmaker Quirino Cristiani created full-length animated films between 1917 and 1931. He has since been all but forgotten.
Nugget:
Involuntary Indefatigability
Only one fictional character has ever been honoured with a front-page obituary in the New York Times: Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie's two recurr...
Long-Form:
The Curse of Konzo
In 1981, an international group of doctors identified the devastating disease behind a perplexing outbreak of paralysis in northern Mozambique.
Long-Form:
A Jarring Revelation
Amanda Theodosia Jones was a 19th-century poet, entrepreneur, and inventor who found inspiration in some unlikely places.
Nugget:
Scraping Bottom
When Germany was divided in two after the Second World War, military leaders recognized the need for liaison between the Soviet-occupied East Germany and...
Nugget:
The Colors of Numbers
Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which certain sensory concepts are strongly linked to each other in seemingly random but persistent ways. Tho...
25 May 2020
80 years ago today the 'Crypt of Civilization' was sealed, scheduled to be opened again in 6,177 years
damninteresting.com
Maybe a Fleet of Tiny Spacecraft Could Help Detect a Primordial Black Hole Planet 9
universetoday.com
Gina DeJesus has come a long way in the seven years since she was freed from nearly a decade of captivity
missingkids.org
24 May 2020
The extreme parkour team whose death-defying jumps caught the attention of Hollywood
edition.cnn.com
23 May 2020
The Things Inside This 105-Year-Old Time Capsule Have Hardly Aged a Day
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(see also)
atlasobscura.com
22 May 2020
Jurassic bug: Researchers find 151-million-year-old Morrisonnepa Jurassica insect fossil in Utah
usatoday.com
21 May 2020
Death mask of King Henry VII is brought to astonishing life in a digital restoration
livescience.com
