Of all belligerent nations in the Second World War, few were as creative and prolific in their pursuit of exotic weapons technology as the Third Reich. From jet aircraft to ballistic missiles, air-independent submarines, and infrared detection, German scientists and engineers pioneered many of the key technologies that would shape the course of late 20th-century… Read More »
In all but four of the 25 James Bond films so far, the titular super spy starts his adventure with a visit to Q, MI6’s brilliant but grumpy creator of spy gadgets. From a briefcase full of weapons to a safe-cracking cigarette case to a watch with a built-in laser, Q always has exactly what… Read More »
Most of our nightly dreams are either traumatic conga lines of unresolved anxiety, or a hodgepodge of random, incoherent nonsense that makes perfect sense while we’re asleep but quickly fades into irrelevance once we awake. But for some people, dreams can be far more useful; indeed, they can change the world. Such was the case… Read More »
Come and listen to my story ‘bout a man named Jed – a poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed. And then one day he was shootin’ at some food, and up from the ground come a bubblin’ crude. Oil, that is – black gold, Texas tea. Yes, oil: the sticky, fortune-making, war-inspiring, planet-warming liquid… Read More »
In May 1961, a U.S. Navy aircraft was flying a routine submarine patrol over the Arctic Ocean when it spotted something unusual on the pack ice below: a small cluster of plywood buildings. This was the remains of the Soviet drifting ice station NP-9, hastily abandoned when an ice ridge began destroying the station’s runway.… Read More »
It is a classic supernatural horror trope: a team of archaeologists dig through the desert sands to reveal the entrance of an ancient Egyptian tomb, sealed and forgotten for millennia. Carved over the door in hieroglyphics they find an ominous inscription, warning that anyone who dares disturb the tomb will suffer a terrible curse. Undeterred,… Read More »
200 kilometres off the coast of Mozambique lies the island nation of Madagascar. With a land area of 587,000 square kilometres, it is the fourth-largest island in the world after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo; and the second-largest island nation after Indonesia. A French colony from 1896 to 1960, Madagascar has long been the world’s… Read More »
The recipe is simple: take an empty glass bottle, fill it with gasoline or other suitably flammable liquid, and stuff a piece of cloth – preferably also soaked in gasoline – into the neck. To use, simply ignite the cloth and throw. The quintessential improvised weapon, the Molotov cocktail has become a potent symbol of… Read More »
Air raid sirens blared and curtains of tracer rounds rose into the sky as the ominous drone of aircraft engines grew ever closer. Suddenly, a flight of enemy aircraft swooped low over the sleeping anchorage, unleashing their deadly cargo of torpedoes and bombs onto an unsuspecting fleet. All around, geysers of water and flame erupted… Read More »
On the morning of January 17, 1955, Eugene P. Wilkinson, commander of the U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus, transmitted one of the most consequential messages in the history of naval warfare: underway on nuclear power. Prior to this, military submarines were more aptly termed submersibles, with the majority of their time spent on the surface.… Read More »
In one of the more memorable scenes of the 1966 camp masterpiece Batman: the Movie, the Caped Crusader ascends a rope ladder to the Batcopter when a large – and very rubbery – shark clamps its jaws around his leg. Unable to dislodge the fiendish fish, Batman calls up to Robin in the Batcopter and… Read More »