#TodayInHistory: Thomas Bowdler, the man who Re-wrote the “Offensive” Shakespeare
Thomas Bowdler, a doctor and philanthropist, popular to be the man who took all the naughty bits out of Shakespeare, died on this day, February 24, 1825, even if he […]
#TodayInHistory: the casket that carried assassinated President John F. Kennedy buried at sea.
Dallas, Texas, USA. The casket used to carry the body of assassinated President John F. Kennedy from Dallas to Washington was, on this day, February 18, 1966, parachuted into oblivion. […]
#TodayInHistory: A deadly bite, or King Tut’s revenge?
Cairo, Egypt. February 16, 1923, and a discovery that would have made Indiana Jones himself envious: archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed doorway leading to the burial chamber and sarcophagus […]
#TodayInHistory: Captain James Cook’s last adventure
Captain James Cook, the legendary British explorer, was savagely murdered on this day, February 14 (but in 1779!) after a confrontation with islanders at Hawaii who had mistaken him for […]
#TodayInHistory – February 1945: Ancient Dresden reduced to rubble
February 13, 1945. On this day, waves of British bombers began reducing one of the Germany’s (and world) most beautiful cities to rubble. Thousands were to die in the ensuing […]
25 Great Insults From 18th Century British Slang
For history enthusiasts and linguists, “You jerk” just doesn’t have the same ring as “You unlicked cub,” an insult from Georgian England. And there’s more where that came from if […]
Don’t touch the Royals: the absurd death of the Queen of Siam in the 19th Century
Life is known to have a common destiny for everyone: death. There have been, throughout history, really lot of famous people who died in the most absurd ways, and there […]
Ramesses II: the first (and probably the last) mummy to receive a passport!
Ramesses II is often considered the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt: he reigned for over 60 years and his achievements were not matched by the pharaohs who preceded or succeeded […]
The “anomalous” burial of a child in a 5th century Umbrian cemetery
Lugnano in Teverina is a small village, located in the region of central Italy Umbria, surrounded by green hills that descend towards the valley of the Tiber river. At the […]
January 1985-2020: the anniversary of the greatest snowfall of the (last) century.
The snowfall of January 1985 in Italy is very popular still today: between 13 and 17 January many cities in the north of the country found themselves covered by almost […]
The Wonders of New York: a Midcentury Map packed with weird local stories
There is an old board game, in which someone throws a die at a map, and then dreams traveling wherever it lands. However, If you happened to find yourself in […]
The true story of Trim, the adventurous cat belonging to navigator Matthew Flinders
Outside Sydney’s Mitchell Library stands a statue of Matthew Flinders, the celebrated English navigator and cartographer who helped map Australia, declared it a continent, and was influential in giving it […]
Vyborg: Once Finland’s 2nd most influential city, now only a small provincial town somewhere in Russia
In Vyborg, Russia, time seems to have stopped. The city has a long history behind it that the ruins of its past never cease to pass down. Once Finland’s second […]
The sunken city of Pavlopetri: the oldest submerged city in the Mediterranean
Pavlopetri, in Greek: Παυλοπέτρι, is an anonymous village opposite the island of Elafonisos, on whose beach, in 1967, an exceptionally important discovery was made for world archeology: an ancient submerged […]
536 AD: the never-ending winter of the worst year in history
If you ask medieval historian Michael McCormick of the University of Harvard what year was the worst to be alive, and he’s got an answer. Not 1349, when the Black […]
12 rare Color Photographs show the First Nazi Concentration Camps in 1933
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled before and during the Second World War. Killed in gas chambers, starved to death, killed during experiments or shot by […]
