Lasting from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War was among the most dangerous periods in all of human history. For over four and half decades, the communist east and the capitalist west eyed each other suspiciously across the Iron Curtain, locked in a deadly game […]

Selfie stick. Electrical banana. Pocket pleaser. Magic wand. Divorce maker. Buzz Nightgear. Battery Operated Boyfriend. These are but a few colourful euphemisms for womankind’s best friend, found in millions of nightstand drawers across the globe: the vibrator. If you are a connoisseur of strange product origins then you’ve likely heard the quirky and unlikely story of the vibrator’s creation, which […]

On this channel, we have covered our fair share of weird, wonderful, and sometimes utterly bonkers German ‘secret weapons’ from the Second World War, from rocket-powered fighters that sometimes dissolved their pilots alive to midget submarines cobbled together from old torpedoes, piggyback bombers crammed with explosives, jet fighters designed to be flown by children, and even weaponized space shuttles. But […]

On the afternoon of September 7, 1940, the people of London heard a sound they had been dreading for years: the ominous drone of aero engines. High above, the sky filled with waves of German bombers, and a torrent of high explosives and incendiaries began to rain down on the British capital. The bombardment continued through the night, and by […]

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a massive Allied invasion force comprising some 5,000 ships, 1,200 aircraft, and 160,000 troops steamed across the English Channel towards the beaches of Normandy. It was the opening act of Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious invasion in history and the battle that would finally secure an Allied foothold in western Europe […]

It is the ultimate naval weapon. Lurking unseen beneath the waves, it can travel the world’s oceans at will and appear without warning, unleashing a deadly salvo of ship-killing torpedoes or world-ending nuclear missiles before melting away back into the depths. It is, of course, the submarine. But the stealthy, ultra-sophisticated nuclear submarines of today did not suddenly appear fully-formed; […]

Of all major military conflicts of the Twentieth Century, the Second World War stands apart. Not only was it the deadliest conflict in modern history, claiming an estimated 85 million lives, or about 1 in every 25 people, but it was also arguably history’s first truly technological war. While many now-ubiquitous military technologies such as aircraft, tanks, and submarines saw […]

On the 25th of April, 1917, the British satirical magazine Punch ran an evocative political cartoon. In it, a stern Kaiser Wilhelm II, dressed in full regalia, stands before a young German army recruit. Pointing out the window to a giant factory belching black smoke, he declares: “And don’t forget that your Kaiser will find a use for you—alive or […]

It is one of the most iconic and enduring images in American history: a hollow-cheeked, white-haired figure with bushy eyebrows and a pointy goatee dressed in a tophat and tails emblazoned with the stars and stripes, pointing sternly at the viewer and declaring I WANT YOU FOR THE U.S. ARMY. This, of course, is Uncle Sam, the flamboyantly-dressed personification of […]

If I say the word “balloon”, the image that pops into your head is likely a benign one – a colourful helium party balloon, perhaps; or a hot air balloon drifting serenely over a city. But, as with pretty much all of mankind’s creations, these seemingly docile flying machines can and have been turned into weapons of war. As we’ve […]