In the 2008 film Wanted, mild-mannered office worker Wesley Gibson, played by James McAvoy, is inducted into a secret group of elite assassins known as The Fraternity, who keep the world in balance by eliminating those who threaten its safety. Among the superhuman skills Wesley learns is the ability to “curve” bullets by swinging his pistol as he fires, allowing […]
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On the evening of August 21, 1986, Ephraim Che, a farmer from the highlands of northwest Cameroon, heard a great rumbling in the distance like rolling thunder. Emerging from his hut, he peered down the mountain to the moonlit waters of Lake Nyos, a small but deep body of water nestled in the crater of an extinct volcano. Though a […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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While often overlooked, unless you drive an electric car, there is likely a seemingly humble metal can attached to your exhaust pipe that is an absolutely incredible piece of chemical engineering, a product of a herculean but now largely-forgotten feat of politics and industrial research and development that some scholars have compared to the Apollo Program. This is the fascinating […]
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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 […]
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From the dawn of history we humans have been obsessed with measurement, striving to gauge, rank, and quantify every part of our world from the tallest mountain to the tiniest grain of sand. It is an obsession which led to the development of the precise mathematics and science which underpin our modern world. But one unfortunate result of this millennia-long […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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In Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 historical revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds, U.S. Army Lieutenant Aldo Raine, played by Brad Pitt, recruits the titular Basterds – a squad of Jewish soldiers – to wreak havoc behind Nazi lines during World War II. In the process, they cross paths with a parallel British mission and a revenge plot by a French Jewish woman and […]
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Bulletproof vests are one of Hollywood’s favourite action movie plot devices. Easily concealable and seemingly impervious to all weapons, they provide writers with a handy eleventh-hour means of saving their characters from certain death. But how can such a relatively thin and flimsy piece of fabric stop a speeding bullet, and are real-life bulletproof vests really as impenetrable as in […]
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Ah, the Bikini! What event more definitively announces that summer has arrived than the appearance of this classic swimsuit at beaches and poolsides across the world? An icon of women’s fashion, the bikini has permeated pop culture like few articles of clothing, giving us such lexical gems as bikini season, bikini bottom, and bikini wax. But while ubiquitous today, when […]
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Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu. If you have ever served in the armed forces or worked in the aviation industry, these words are most likely permanently seared into your brain. And even if you haven’t, you have probably heard […]
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Ah, the Super Soaker. Combining the range and accuracy needed to act out your wildest action movie fantasies with safety and bonus cooling action, it is the ultimate toy for hot summer days. As far as toys go, the Super Soaker is fairly basic: a hand pump, a reservoir for water and compressed air, a trigger valve, and a nozzle. […]
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“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” This speech, delivered to Congress by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is one of the most famous of the 20th century, and marked the official entrance of […]
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When the air campaign of Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991, television viewers across the world were presented with some of the most awe-inspiring images of modern, high-tech warfare ever broadcast: stealth bombers dropping precision “smart bombs” on Iraqi command posts, helicopters and ground attack aircraft picking off swathes of enemy vehicles, and tanks duking it out in […]
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