If you have been out and about recently, you likely have seen signs asking you to pay with exact change, letting you know that there is a coin shortage. The problem with physical money is that there is a precise amount of it at any given time. If you have four quarters, two pennies, and a dime in your pocket, […]

Following World War II, the United States military expended great efforts to harness the power of the atom. Military planners were enamored with the promise of cheap, long-term power offered by a nuclear reactor, and efforts were in full swing in the 1950’s to develop nuclear reactors to support the military. Before satellites were available to monitor for impending attack, […]

Regarding the reception of World War II, especially within the educational system of countries that participated in the war, one would expect that many broad facts are common knowledge and, as happens with most all wars in history, each nation biases things a bit to make themselves look better in their own history books, regardless of what actually happened. As […]

At 11:30 AM on May 12, 1913, a man was taken from his cell at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City and lead out into the prison yard. There, he was strapped into a chair in front of a wall of sandbags and prepared for execution by firing squad. But instead of a group of trained marksmen, the man […]

When we think of weapons of war doing damage to physical things, we tend to think of solid objects, whether they be spears, swords, guns, bombs, tanks, or aircraft. But in June of 2010, a group of computer programmers stumbled on one of the most innovative of a new type of weapon that had recently emerged: one made up of […]

Joseph Stalin was born in December 1878 to a Georgian family and served as the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1952. After the death of Lenin, he initially shared power over the Soviet Union with other officials, but he managed to gradually consolidate his position and by the 1930s became the country’s […]

A good hat can be very hard to come by. A good example of this comes from H.G. Wells, who once stole the Mayor of Cambridge’s hat, leaving a note that said: “I stole your hat. I like your hat. I shall keep your hat”. This all brings us to 9th century Scandinavia and a king called Erik Anundsson, sometimes […]

When one thinks of Roman Emperors, often two kinds come to mind- the heroic generals and brilliant philosophers, like Caesar Augustus and Marcus Aurelius, or the insane and depraved despots like Nero and Commodus. The latter two are well known for their long list of antics, for a video on Nero’s famous fiddle incident and the truth about all that, […]

After World War II, the German state was utterly destroyed. It was split in four parts, and to top it all, coming face to face with the scale of the atrocities their government and armies committed through public events like the Nürnberg trials. This in combination with the process of de-nazification, which can be seen as a large-scale rehabilitation program, […]

The phrase ‘the peaceful use of nuclear weapons’ might sound like the ultimate oxymoron. While nuclear reactors are widely used to peacefully generate electricity and medical isotopes, it is difficult to imagine a peaceful use for atomic bombs on account of the whole, you know, radioactive BOOM. But incredibly, between 1961 and 1989, both the United States and the Soviet […]

If you’ve ever heard of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico at all, it’s probably because for a time the densely populated town next to El Paso, Texas was known as “the most dangerous city in the world”. But it turns out that at one point a bizarre sequence of events led to a rather odd nuclear disaster occurring there. Now, you […]

If we were to ask you to list a few things about former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, it’s likely that many of you would mention things like his role in the abolition of slavery in the U.S., his assassination, his hat and beard (which incidentally the latter was grown because a little girl suggesting he’d get more votes that way), […]

Free samples are generally considered to be one of the most reliable ways to bolster sales of a product, sometimes to an insane degree if it’s done correctly. You see, free samples don’t just work because they give customers a chance to try something without the barrier of cost stopping them- which is an effective marketing trick in and of […]

The SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, better known to historians as simply the Dirlewanger Brigade, holds the dubious distinction of being amongst the most reviled units of the Nazi war machine. Infamous for its brutality and the open sadism displayed by its commanding officer, a man previously imprisoned for raping a young teen girl, the unit and their actions were so detested that […]

The ancient Olympics are littered with spectacular stories of athleticism and peculiar characters, like Melankomas of Caria, an ancient boxer who won several Olympic wreaths by reportedly doing nothing but avoid his opponents punches until they gave up. Perhaps the most bizarre Olympic story of all, however, is that of Arrichion of Phigalia, who once won an Olympic wreath despite […]