“God…France…My son…Josephine.” These were the final words of Napoleon Bonaparte, spoken on May 5, 1821. The Corsican-born leader, who in less than two decades rose from humble artillery commander to Emperor of the French and conquered much of mainland Europe, died far from his beloved France – exiled to the remote, windswept island of Saint Helena. Napoleon’s cause of death […]

On February 20, 1947, a captured German V-2 rocket roared off the launch pad at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico and streaked off into the sky. Within three minutes, it reached an apogee of 109.4 kilometres – just above the 100 kilometre Karman Line that defines the boundary of outer space. Though completely forgotten today, this launch was a […]

If you visit Pier 13 at the Canton Marine Terminal in Baltimore, Maryland, you will find two very different historic cargo ships. One is the SS John W. Brown, one of nearly 3,000 cheap, quick-to-produce “Liberty Ships” built to haul cargo during the Second World War. The other, by contrast, is one of a kind. With a gleaming white hull […]

There have been no small number of rather bizarre accidents from humans humaning, everything from that time the City of Boston almost literally drowned in molasses to how humans drilling a 14 inch hole accidentally created a 1,300-foot deep saltwater lake out of a formerly 10-Foot deep freshwater one (more on this hilarious event in the Bonus Facts later.) But […]

On January 1, 1959, troops of the revolutionary 26th of July Movement marched into the Cuban capital of Havana, toppling the American-backed government of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Two weeks later, the leader of the revolution, former lawyer Fidel Castro, was sworn in as Prime Minister. Almost immediately, Castro began implementing a program of sweeping socialist reforms, nationalizing Cuba’s sugar and […]

In a fenced-off field near Langdon, North Dakota stands a strange and enigmatic object: a 24-metre high truncated concrete pyramid, looming over the prairie. Scattered around its base are other strange forms cast in concrete and steel, and a cluster of low, prefabricated buildings, now empty and slowly rusting away. These are the remains of the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard […]

On December 26, 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world’s second-largest superpower and flagship for state communism for 74 years, suddenly ceased to exist. The Cold War, the four-decade- long ideological struggle between East and West, was finally over. But while December 26 marked the official birth of the newly-democratic Russian Federation, the dissolution of the Soviet Union […]

The world of aviation abounds with thousands of unique aircraft designs, from tiny ultralights to giant military transports. Yet no matter how advanced or outlandish these designs get, nearly all fall into one of only two basic categories: fixed wing or rotary wing. But the history of aviation, like that of all technologies, is riddled with false starts and dead […]

It’s 2024! Where’s my flying car? So goes the lament of many a 21st century citizen, disappointed that our world does not yet resemble an episode of The Jetsons. Along with personal jetpacks, moon bases, and robot butlers, flying cars have become emblematic of the shiny high-tech future we were promised but which never came to pass. As we’ve covered […]