Walls within walls within walls
Julius Caesar won the Siege of Alesia with a military tactic known as investment: build walls around the besieged settlement’s own walls, and and then build another layer of walls around those ones.
Category: Places
Death Valley swindler
Walter E. Scott performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, scammed thousands of dollars with a fake gold mine, set a cross-country train speed record, and claimed to be building a castle in the midst of Death Valley.
Science wars: Non-periodic crystals
Up until 1982, all crystals were believed to be, by definition, periodic. But then an Israeli materials scientist discovered something strange…
Twin shipwrecks
In 1864 two ships were wrecked on the same desert island. Despite sharing the island for an entire year, the crews never met and had no idea they were not alone.
Goddess of the sewers
The Cloaca Maxima in Rome is one of the world’s first sewer systems. It still works today, and with good reason: it has its own goddess.
Schools vs. Satan
Some of the first public schools in North America were founded explicitly to counteract “that old deluder, Satan.”
The pictures of Pictures at an Exhibition
Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition based on a journey through his late friend’s art exhibit – but what happened to the pictures?
Chimeric parents
During a child support dispute in 2002, a DNA test seemed to show that a mother was not the parent of her own biological children. The truth was stranger than anyone expected.
Endless elevator
Imagine an elevator with no doors that never stops: this is the paternoster lift.
Burning a million pounds
In 1994 the art duo K Foundation burned a million pounds in cash. They did it on purpose.
Shallowest sea
The Sea of Azov, between Ukraine and Russia, is never more than fourteen metres deep. Parts of the sea are shallow enough to wade across.
Boycotting New Zealand
In 1976 most African countries boycotted the Olympics because the games would not ban New Zealand.
The do in do-re-mi
The solfège system teaches Western music scales: do re mi fa sol la ti do. But who is “do”?
Nobody’s land
Bir Tawil is a wedge of land between Egypt and Sudan. Neither wants to claim Bir Tawil: it is one of the only unclaimed territories in the world.
The gannet’s dive
Gannets have evolved some very strange adaptations that make them some of the best divers in the natural world.
The Tristan chord
Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde set the course of 20th century classical music by keeping the audience in suspense for four hours with a single unresolved chord.
The Generalist Academy 