Indian flag monopoly
Every Indian flag in India is made in one small south Indian village.
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Every Indian flag in India is made in one small south Indian village.
The Japanese kotatsu combines a table, a heater, and a layer of comfortable blankets.
The origins of the modern piggy bank are lost to history, but the oldest extant piggy bank comes from 12th century CE Java.
The Rational Dress Society, founded in 1881, fought the strictures of the Victorian corset, crinoline, and high heels.
The Vikings may not have worn horned helmets, but the ancient Greeks had helmets covered in boar tusks and the Dayak of Borneo had helmets covered in fish or pangolin scales.
How do you visualise climate change simply and evocatively? Well, you could knit it.
When Jean Shrimpton walked out onto Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia, in 1965, she didn’t know she was about to make fashion history.
A Portuguese mercenary stole the largest working bell in history from Shwedagon Pagoda, and then lost it in the waters of the Yangon River.
In a kiln, a set of three drooping cones can monitor the effects of temperature on the pottery items being fired.
Vidal Sassoon was an icon of 20th century fashion – and also beat up fascists in post-WWII London.
A prehistoric Scythian tomb in Siberia contained the oldest surviving carpet in the world.
In early Christian tradition, the power of saints’ relics could be transferred from object to object by a simple touch.
What do the first postage stamps, Fabergé eggs, and watch backs have in common? Rose engine lathes.
The 19th century mystery watch was a genuine engineering puzzle: a pocket watch whose face was entirely transparent.
In 1806 the French artist Jean-Gabriel Charvet premiered one of the first multi-panel artistic wallpapers: it depicted a romanticised and colonial panorama of explorations in the South Pacific.
When British suffragettes were released from prison, they got medals.