The mosque in the middle of the Parthenon; the book smugglers of Russian-occupied Lithuania; the fake-real bridges of the Euro banknotes; and the time Da Vinci and Machiavelli conspired to steal a river.
For more than a hundred and fifty years, there was a mosque at the centre of Athens’ Parthenon.
When Lithuania was absorbed by the Russian Empire, an extensive network of book smugglers kept the Lithuanian language and cultural identity alive.
.png){kind=link}
The bridges depicted on Euro banknotes were not real bridges… until someone decided to build them.
Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci may have teamed up to redirect the course of the Arno River away from Florence’s enemy Pisa.
For more bizarre history, geography, and biography of Europe and Europeans, begin here: