In the early morning hours of March 26, 1941, Royal Navy sailors on watch at Souda Bay, on the northern coast of Crete, were alarmed by an unusual sound: the high-pitched whine of high-powered engines, growing ever louder. As the sailors strained their eyes into the pre-dawn gloom, a swarm of tiny, fast-moving craft suddenly… Read More »
The human body is capable of surviving a frankly astonishing amount of trauma to the point that even the loss of entire limbs isn’t necessarily something that will inherently kill us so long as we keep a sufficient amount of blood circulating and avoid a deadly infection. Curiously, despite stories of people surviving things like… Read More »
At 7:35 A.M. on July 1st, 1940, a ship arrived in the port of Halifax, carrying a shipment of fish. Under the watchful eye of 300 armed policemen, the cargo, packed in hundreds of wooden crates, was methodically checked and rechecked before being loaded onto a dozen railcars. From Halifax, the shipment made its way… Read More »
Pretty much as long as Santa has been Santaing, kids have been trying to send him messages through various means, including, of course, in written form. But when these written messages are mailed, what do the post offices’ the world over actually do with the letters? Well, it turns out, some rather interesting things in… Read More »
A revival of the fantasy genre in recent years has also brought about a revival of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages. With an endless array of titles, we are sure that you can easily visualise scenes from some Hollywood, TV or streaming service production, in which mounted knights charge at a line of… Read More »
In the opening of the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall, everyone’s favourite super spy chases an assassin through the streets of Istanbul to recover a hard drive containing the identities of undercover British agents. For his trouble, he receives a shoulder full of shrapnel from the assassin’s pistol, is accidentally shot by a fellow agent,… Read More »
On September 8, 1943, the Second World War took a dramatic turn as Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who had just replaced a deposed Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister, announced an armistice between Fascist Italy and the Allied Powers. The following day, a large Italian naval fleet, on its way to counter the Allied amphibious landings… Read More »
Humphrey Bogart as world-weary bar owner Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films. Audrey Hepburn as socialite Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Keanu Reeves as kung-fu cyberpunk freedom fighter Neo in The Matrix. What do all these very different fictional characters have in common? You… Read More »
Take a flight 400 kilometres due south from the Peruvian capital of Lima, and you will find yourself over the Pampas de Jumana, an 80 kilometre stretch of coastal desert sandwiched between the Andes foothills and the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the driest regions on earth, receiving less than 4mm of rain a… Read More »
Imagine you are hiking in the woods. Emerging into a clearing, you stumble upon an unusual sight: a circular metal hatch like a manhole cover, protruding from the ground. Curious, you lift open the hatch to reveal a ladder, plunging down a vertical shaft into the earth. After taking a moment to gather your courage… Read More »
Before we get started today, we’d just like to send a quick shoutout to one of our most prolific and best authors here, Gilles Messier, who if you liked his few hundred videos here the last few years, please do check out the link in the description below to his channel Our Own Devices, where… Read More »