Category: Featured category

The suspicious origins of Wall Street’s wall, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s abandoned children, the crossroads killings of Sengoku era Japan, and Renaissance fart jokes.

Uganda’s first action film, Cameroon’s lake of death, the resurrection of the extinct quagga, and the war over the (literal and physical) throne of the Ashanti Empire.

Diamond-, copper- and gold-prospecting forests; the smallest tree in the world; the lost plant species that provided ancient Rome’s birth control (and our modern heart symbol); and the tree still defending itself against an extinct giant.

Ayn Rand’s choose-your-own-adventure play, the magician in the oven, the shortest play in history, and the cross-eyed kabuki pose.

An international alphabet, the tongue-twisters of click languages, language chains across continents, and the five million dollar comma.

The juggernaut’s kitchen, patenting yoga, the thousand names of Vishnu, and the strange chain reaction that led from anti-inflammatory drug use on cattle to a leopard invasion.

The measure of a one-in-a-million death, the problem with Australian tablespoons, counting prayers, and why an ounce of gold weighs more than an ounce of feathers.

Prehistoric surgery, prehistoric mathematics, the first undisputed dog, and a preserved prehistoric brain.

The shortest war in history, medieval rocket launchers, art in the trenches of World War I, and the US Navy’s love of acronyms.

The plan to move an entire country, the yacht club in the middle of Australia, the Samoan independence movement, and the kidnapping of half the population of Rapa Nui.

The hardest problem in computer science, computer chip graffiti, and why programmers sometimes need to give the queen a duck.

The hot dog stand at the centre of the Pentagon, a Japanese garden ziggurat, a town under Australia, and the building that housed 1% of a country.