The morning of July 19th, 1976  started out like any other in the French city of Nice, its citizens having just enjoyed a relaxing three-day weekend for the national holiday of Bastille Day. But for customers of the Société Générale bank on Avenue Jean Médecin, it was quickly becoming clear that something was very wrong. All weekend the ATM outside […]

Ever wonder what happens if you actually found a buried treasure or some sort of National Treasure-esk haul of ancient loot? Well, wonder no more. To begin with, as ever in just about everything, the answer to that is complicated. The bottom line is that most countries have laws that regulate what has to be done when something precious is […]

The Crusades are seen as a milestone in European history. Especially through romanticizing eyes, they are often viewed as a heroic age, with legendary tales of pious folk, honor-bound knights, and even epic narratives imbued with mystical and semi-mythological elements, such as the search for the Holy Grail. Modern historians, however, tend to view the crusades more than a little […]

She has been called “the most kissed girl in the world,” and in the 120 or so years since her death she has certainly been among the most widely-seen. Her gently smiling face has adorned the homes and studios of some of the 20th Century’s greatest writers, artists, and thinkers, inspiring dozens of works of art and literature. And in […]

The Edwardian Era, lasting from 1901 to 1910, is often remembered as a final age of innocence before Europe descended into the savagery of the First World War – a gilded period of refinement and elegance. This is somewhat ironic, as for most of his life the namesake of the era, King Edward VII, embodied exactly none of these virtues. […]

On July 28, 1944, a flight of P-51 Mustangs escorting a squadron of B-17 Bombers on a mission over Merseburg, Germany, spotted something strange in the distance: a pair of white contrails rising at tremendous speed into the stratosphere. As the contrails pitched over and dove onto the bomber stream, the fighters broke formation to intercept. Seconds later, a pair […]

There are lots of ways to become rich overnight: you can win the lottery, have a rich relative mysteriously perish, or you could wake up with original Banksy artwork on the side of your building. Thus was the case for Bristol native Dennis Stichcombe back in 2014 when he found his struggling after-school clubhouse, “The Broad Plain Boys Club,” had […]

The name Albert Einstein has become a byword for genius – and rightly so. The German physicist’s theories of Special and General Relativity fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the uni-verse to a degree not seen since Isaac Newton, while his groundbreaking 1905 papers on Brownian Motion and the Photoelectric Effect laid the groundwork for modern atomic and quantum theory. Yet […]

The six Apollo missions that landed on the moon between 1969 and 1972 left an extraordinary amount of equipment behind on the lunar surface. This included Lunar Module descent stages, Lunar Roving Vehicles, ALSEP experiment packages, American flags, and over 800 items jettisoned to save weight – from EVA boots to cameras to waste bags. But among these thousands of […]

The rules are simple. All that is needed is a revolver, some cartridges, and one or more players. The revolver is opened, a single cartridge loaded, and the cylinder spun. The players then take turns placing the revolver against their heads and pulling the trigger. Depending on the rules, the cylinder is either re-spun after each play or left as-is. […]

In the early going, knighthood was an honor earned by those who had distinguished themselves in battle in some significant way or otherwise had made themselves into an absolutely exceptional soldier through many years of training. Later, the honor became somewhat more exclusive, generally limited to nobility or those who were the children of knights, but still typically requiring extensive […]

While there are many relics attributed to Jesus surviving through more modern times- including famed 16th century Catholic Priest Erasmus pointing out the large number of buildings that could be built using all the pieces of Jesus’ cross that were then around- unlike some other figures in the history of Christendom, relics of Jesus’ body itself aren’t really a thing. […]

One of our Patrons, DJ, asks: What’s the deal with Hollywood Accounting? Here’s a fun fact for you to mull over, despite having a clause in his contract that entitled him to a share of the total net profits of Return of the Jedi, David Prowse didn’t get so much as a single thin cent from Lucasfilm from this because, […]

Craig B. asks: What was the largest bet ever made? The history of gambling is littered with examples of people dropping unthinkable amounts of money on things as trivial as the toss of a coin or a single roll of dice. Despite stories of such wanton excess, including many of individuals winning or losing tens of millions of dollars in […]

In 1977, one of the most influential women of the 20th century, newspaper columnist Esther Pauline Lederer, better known as “Ann Landers” (and funny enough twin sister of one of the other most influential women of the 20th century, Pauline Esther Phillips, aka “Dear Abby”), wrote a seemingly innocent article in which she cited a preference for hanging her toilet […]

Azzah Syafire asks: Why do some clothes have random gibberish Japanese characters on them? Browse any clothing store and you’ll more than likely find at least one t-shirt covered in characters using the Japanese writing system. And if you can actually read Japanese, you’ve probably noticed that what’s written is often gibberish. Rather interestingly, the reverse is also popular in […]