On Christmas Day, 1914, the guns of the Western Front suddenly fell silent. All along the line, tens of thousands of soldiers lay down their weapons, climbed out of their trenches, and wandered into no-man’s land. Men who just hours ago had been actively trying to kill each other suddenly began fraternizing like old friends, exchanging food and gifts, recovering […]

When we think of Sparta, the first thing that comes to mind is the Spartan warrior. Unlike other historical warrior peoples like the Samurai, the Spartan warriors were pretty close to our imagined conception of them. They were manly warriors who were very muscular, fought wearing red capes, and holding big shields. They were the face of Sparta, to the […]

Grosse Île lies 50km east of Quebec City, one of 21 islands in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. Though its name means “Big Island” in French, Grosse Île is barely two kilometres square, home to a small collection of buildings from its days as a quarantine station for Irish immigrants arriving in Canada. Designated a National Historic Site […]

History often remembers the great men of each era, their very public accomplishments, and the trials and tribulations they may or may not have gone through to get there, sometimes to the extreme. What’s often forgotten in many cases is the men generally didn’t do any of it alone. For most, there was their partner in life beside them supporting […]

If ever there was a living embodiment of the Roaring 20s, it was Eben Byers. The scion of a New York steelmaking fortune, Byers indulged in every hobby and luxury his wealth and social status allowed. He kept luxury homes across the United States, collected fine art, owned stables of racehorses, held titles in trap shooting, and even won the […]

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a massive armada set sail from southeast England and steamed south across the English Channel. Comprising more than 7,000 ships, 11,000 aircraft, and 156,000 troops, it was the largest amphibious invasion force in history. At 6:30 AM, after some 23,000 airborne troops had landed behind enemy lines, the main seaborne force […]

Who invented the telephone? How about the airplane? The lightbulb? If you paid attention in high school history class, you’ll probably know the standard answers: Alexander Graham Bell, The Wright Brothers, and Thomas Edison. But if you’ve been watching our channels long enough, you’ll also know that when it comes to the big inventions that have most shaped our modern […]

Among the most horrific facets of the Holocaust were the medical experiments performed by Nazi doctors upon concentration camp inmates. This sadistic practice was epitomized by the work of Josef Mengele, the ‘Angel of Death,’ who between 1943 and 1945 performed hundreds of cruel human experiments at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp – including on over 1000 pairs of twins, of […]

While dropping your drawers and flashing your no doubt abnormally attractive derriere at those you wish to express your contempt for may seem a relatively harmless act, it turns out at one point in history combining said act with expelling the gaseous contents of one’s colon once resulted in the deaths of at least 10,000 humans in what we here […]

For most of us, a trip to the shoe store is a thoroughly mundane experience. You browse the shelves for a style you like, check the rows of boxes below to see if it’s available in your size, and ring the box through at the front counter. If the store is a more full-service establishment, an employee might first measure […]

Artists often come to resent their greatest hits, and while inventor Alexander Graham Bell didn’t hate his most famous creation, the telephone, it was far from his only priority and passion. An inveterate tinkerer, throughout his long life Bell pursued hundreds of projects across dozens of fields, inventing early versions of the metal detector and iron lung, improving Thomas Edison’s […]

Slavery in some form or other has seemingly been a thing for as long as humans have been humaning, and accepted across most civilizations throughout history. But perhaps no other period in human history has the issue been more highlighted than during the colonization period of the Americas- most ironically in one of the nations which was founded on the […]

In 1789, French General – and later Emperor – Napoleon Bonaparte led a military expedition to capture Egypt from the Ottoman Empire. According to legend, shortly before leading his troops to victory in the Battle of Embabeh, Napoleon decided to spend a night alone inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. The next morning, the General emerged pale and shaken, refusing […]

One of the lasting legacies of Rome in modern society is the concept of a Senate, though it wasn’t really what we think of as a Senate today. In many countries today, you can find a similar governing body of elected or appointed representatives. If you dive a little deeper, you can see different countries have very different ideas of […]