Mystery volcano
In late 1808, a colossal volcanic eruption disrupted weather around the world. It was one of the three biggest eruptions of the 19th century – but we don’t know where it happened.
Category: Places
Pizza Island
Some of the most inspired cartoonists of the 21st century all started off in a single studio space in Brooklyn: Pizza Island.
Peninsula no more
Qatar has been engaged in a diplomatic crisis with its neighbours since 2017. Amid the escalating tensions, Saudi Arabia has proposed a canal stretching all the way along the border with Qatar – turning the peninsula into an island.
Monolith of bodies
When the City of Oslo demolished Gustav Vigeland’s house, they offered him a new one. In exchange, he promised all of his future artwork to the city. For the next twenty years he created 212 remarkable sculptures.
Culinary diplomacy
A government that employs soft power aims to coerce rather than control – to build influence with other nations through non-violent means. For the government of Thailand, this approach includes restaurants.
False Cape Horn
Sailing around the end of South America, you steer around what you think is Cape Horn. But instead of open ocean there’s a surprise island dead ahead. You’re about to be shipwrecked thanks to the False Cape Horn.
The Japanese tomb of Jesus
News flash: Jesus Christ didn’t die on the cross; instead, he fled to Siberia and then on to Japan. Don’t believe me? Well, go visit the Tomb of Jesus in Shingō, talk to some of his descendants, and then tell them they’re wrong.
Music at the end of time
Olivier Messiaen was one of the most prominent classical composers of the 20th century, and his most famous work – the Quartet for the End of Time – was first performed in a POW camp in Germany.
Decade potato
NASA famously freeze-dried ice cream so that astronauts could enjoy it in space. But this method of food preparation actually dates back hundreds of years: the South American chuño, or freeze-dried potato, remains edible for decades.
Cowboy college
102 years ago, a tiny junior college was founded in Deep Springs Valley in eastern California. Despite having under 30 students at a time, alumni have received three MacArthur “genius grants,” two Pulitzer Prizes, and an Emmy award.
Green Sahara
For a period of about four thousand years, during the Neolithic Subpluvial, the Sahara was green. Rivers, lakes, trees, savanna, and pre-historic societies flourished in this wet period.
The second eradicated disease
Most people know that smallpox was the first disease that we have completely eradicated in the wild. But what was the second, and what does it have to do with Egyptian plagues, measles, and cattle?
Samoa for the Samoans
Samoa won independence from New Zealand through a concerted campaign of non-violent resistance. The Mau movement used a wide range of clever tactics, including boycotts, beetle-breeding, and surrendering en masse – and it worked.
The first iron bridge
It’s a bad idea to make a bridge out of cast iron – it’s brittle and doesn’t handle tension well – but the very first major bridge of this type opened to traffic in 1781 and still stands today.
The elected joke
Jacob Haugaard, a Danish comedian, ran for parliament every national election from 1979 up until 1994 – as a joke, of course. But in 1994, he won.
The first vampire
Vampire folklore goes back a long way, but who was the first real person to be described as a vampire? That honour goes to Jure Grando, who died in 1656, and who was decapitated sixteen years later.
The Generalist Academy 