Category Archives: History

The Mysterious Kugelpanzer: The Nazi-Designed, One-Man Spherical Tank

During World War II, Nazi engineers designed and built a number of revolutionary super or “wonder weapons” (wunderwaffe), including a wide array of aircraft, guns and ships. Among these weapons is a mysterious small, round tank named the Kugelpanzer (literally meaning “spherical tank”). This odd little tank was never seen in the European theater, and very little is definitively known […]

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Swapping Assassination Attempts- Unit 124 and Unit 684

In 1968, a group of 31 highly trained North Korean special forces commandos culled from the country’s most elite and secretive unit, Unit 124, crossed the Korean DMZ with a singular mission- kill the South Korean leader, Park Chung Hee. The unit supposedly trained for 2 years prior to the mission, with their initial selection being conducted soon after what is […]

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The Great Stink of 1858

According to the only book I currently have on my desk, everyone poops and that’s okay. What’s less okay though is when there’s nowhere for that poop to go- something people in Victorian era London found out first hand when all of the sewage they’d pumped into the Thames dried up and caused a stench that spurred London’s City Press […]

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Bonsai!

Long before the bonsai art form of creating miniature trees came to Japan, the wealthy in China were perfecting their craft known as “penzai” and “penjing.” The former means “tray plant” and the latter “tray scenery.” It is from the Japanese pronunciation of “penzai” that the word “bonzai” ultimately derives- “bon” meaning “tray-like” and “sai” meaning “planting.”  (The Japanese equivalent […]

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The Origin of the Color Belt Scheme in Martial Arts

White, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple and black, the colors of martial arts belts denote student development, skills and experience. However, contrary to popular belief, using colored belts to denote rank or ability in martial arts is a relatively recent invention in the otherwise ancient arts- one that was only introduced around the turn of the 20th century. Much of […]

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Erased from History- Hatshepsut, the Bearded Female King of Egypt

Hatshepsut was the eldest of two daughters born to Egyptian King Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose Nefertari. Her younger sister died in infancy, meaning twelve year old Hatshepsut was Thutmose I’s only surviving child from his marriage to the queen. However Thutmose I, like other Egyptian pharaohs, maintained secondary wives also known as harem wives. Any sons born from those […]

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How Did the Practice of Women Jumping Out of Giant Cakes Start?

Diane F. asks: Who started the tradition of girls jumping out of cakes? Almost everyone has seen depicted the bizarre bachelor party tradition of a scantily-clad woman jumping out of a giant cake. It turns up most often in decades-old films, TV shows, and comics, but it still persists today at lavish Vegas shindigs—though the cakes are now usually made […]

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Nixon’s List

The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader As 1972 approached, President Richard Nixon started to get more and more concerned about his coming reelection campaign.   He became convinced that his political adversaries weren’t just opponents-they were “enemies” and had to be stopped. He and his advisers compiled this list of 20 public figures who they felt could […]

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A Brief History of the Game of Darts

Ben W. asks: Who invented darts? While throwing rocks and dart-like objects in battle has been around seemingly as long as there have been humans, rocks, and dart-like objects, the game of darts itself is generally thought to have stemmed from the Middle Ages. Legend has it that everyone’s favorite pub game was originally invented by bored (and possibly tipsy) […]

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The London Garrotting Panic of the Mid-19th Century

Although crime in England’s capital was on the decline in the mid-19th century, thanks in part to the relatively recent formation of the London Metropolitan Police Force in 1839, fear of crime was a persistent, reoccurring issue thanks to a few instances of robbery and murder, and, of course, the news media. In particular, the so-called “garrotting” cases, where someone strangles someone else, […]

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21 Against 10,000- The Battle of Saragarhi

On the Samana Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in Pakistan, the British Army built a small communications post at Saragarhi, to be housed by an equally small contingent of soldiers. The region had always been a troubled area, and during the last quarter of the 19th century, British India’s hold on the North West Frontier was tenuous. In fact, […]

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Harry Houdini on Trial

In 1901, the Cologne, Germany newspaper, Rheinishe Zeitung (RZ), published a story titled (translated) “The Unmasking of Houdini,” in which a chief of police, Schutzmann Werner Graff, accused Houdini of attempting to bribe him into rigging an escape from the city’s jail, and of paying another man, Herr Lott, to help him with a phony performance. Incensed (and facing an […]

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Gandhi’s Letters to Hitler

By the late 1930s, Gandhi’s method of peaceful non-cooperation had already won significant concessions from the British Raj, including the founding of a national administration and local and national legislative assemblies, albeit still under British oversight. Gandhi, himself, was internationally famous for his various acts of non-violent, civil disobedience, including his 241-mile Salt March, which, while protesting Britain’s monopoly on […]

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