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Month: January 2022

By The Generalist Posted on January 31, 2022January 30, 2022

Messy border

The border between Belgium and the Netherlands at Baarle-Hertog is one of the messiest in the world. It includes bits of Belgium in the Netherlands, and bits of the Netherlands in the bits of Belgium that are in the Netherlands.

Categories: 19th century history, 21st century history, Europe, Politics & law
Nadaam
By The Generalist Posted on January 30, 2022January 25, 2023

Featured category: Games & sport

The Mongolian Olympics; H. G. Wells’ miniature war game; the very first Mexican wrestler to be unmasked in the ring; and the 1970 computer-mediated fight between Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali.

Categories: Featured category
PDP-10
By The Generalist Posted on January 29, 2022January 25, 2023

From the archives: Hackers

The second computer worm in history was created to seek and destroy the first computer worm; cracking encrypted messages with “gardening”; the man who hacked a lottery’s random number generator; and the single line of code that can shut down a computer.

Categories: From the archives
By The Generalist Posted on January 28, 2022January 27, 2022

Original cliffhanger

Cliffhangers have been a staple of serialised fiction for centuries, but the first literal cliffhanger appears in an 1873 novel by Thomas Hardy.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Europe, Film & television, Literature
By The Generalist Posted on January 27, 2022January 26, 2022

Seventh child

By tradition, the president of Argentina is godparent to all seventh sons and seventh daughters born in the country; in Belgium, the seventh children are named after the reigning monarch, and that monarch also becomes their godparent.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, Religion & belief, South America
By The Generalist Posted on January 26, 2022January 25, 2022

War elephants vs. bird army

The 105th surah of the Quran relates a battle outside Mecca between Yemeni war elephants and a flock of birds.

Categories: Animals, Medieval history, Middle East, Military, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on January 25, 2022January 24, 2022

Shakespeare riot

On May 10, 1849, New Yorkers rioted over who was the better Shakespearean actor, the English performer William Macready or the American Edwin Forrest.

Categories: 19th century history, Europe, North & Central America, Politics & law, Theatre
By The Generalist Posted on January 24, 2022January 25, 2023

Eventful pub

There are few pubs in the world that can claim to be the site of the founding of a religious denomination, the creation of a style of beer, and also a murder by a famous gangster. But there’s at least one pub that can.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Europe, Food & agriculture, Politics & law, Religion & belief
Mercury
By The Generalist Posted on January 23, 2022January 25, 2023

Featured category: Astronomy

The planet which is the closest to every other planet in the solar system; stars escaping their galaxy; the Martian moon that’s one third empty space; and the unidentified anomaly pulling a hundred thousand galaxies (including our own) around.

Categories: Featured category
By The Generalist Posted on January 22, 2022January 25, 2023

From the archives: The two Koreas

The two Koreas’ black ops assassination teams; the North Korean who defected with a MiG jet; the involuntary park inside the demilitarised zone; and the single tree that set off an international stand-off.

Categories: From the archives
By The Generalist Posted on January 21, 2022January 20, 2022

The atom bomb memo

In March 1940 two physicists wrote a top secret memo describing, for the first time, just how to make an atom bomb.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, Military, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on January 20, 2022January 25, 2023

An Anglo-Saxon in Middle Earth

In an early version of J. R. R. Tolkien’s stories, the tales of Middle Earth are brought to our world by Ottor Wǽfre, who would go on to be the father of both the author of Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain.

Categories: Europe, Literature
By The Generalist Posted on January 19, 2022January 18, 2022

First piggy bank

The origins of the modern piggy bank are lost to history, but the oldest extant piggy bank comes from 12th century CE Java.

Categories: Animals, Economics & business, Fashion & design, Medieval history, Southeast Asia
By The Generalist Posted on January 18, 2022January 17, 2022

A world without banks

What would a country look like without banks? In 1970, all the banks in Ireland closed for half a year. In response, the Irish people set up their own exchange systems centred on (of course) pubs.

Categories: 20th century history, Economics & business, Europe
By The Generalist Posted on January 17, 2022January 16, 2022

Original sin immunity

The first time you get sick with a virus can affect how your body responds to that virus for the rest of your life.

Categories: Health & medicine
Samar
By The Generalist Posted on January 16, 2022January 25, 2023

Featured category: 20th century history

The mistaken message that changed the course of the largest naval battle in history; the oldest artificial satellite still in orbit; the Cold War tunnels underneath Beijing; and the country that lost 80% of its land to strip-mining.

Categories: Featured category

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