The parricide’s sack
In the Roman Empire someone who killed their parent would be sewn into a sack with a live rooster, dog, monkey, and snake, and then thrown into the water. In medieval Germany, they used a cat, a dog, and a picture of a snake.
Recent Posts
Wind on the tower
In 1978 the structural engineer of the Citigroup Center skyscraper learned of a fatal flaw in the design that could cause the tower to topple in high winds. Over the next three months a team raced to secretly repair it at night.
The tempest enigma
Around 1508 the Italian Renaissance artist Giorgione painted The Tempest. No-one knows what it means.
Mathematical coincidence
A billionth of a century is approximately pi seconds. The diameter of the Earth is roughly half a billion inches.
Doomsday device
In 1950 Leo Szilard warned the world that a single device capable of annihilating all life on Earth was theoretically possible.
Churches of Antarctica
Antarctica has eight churches: four Catholic, one non-denominational, and three Eastern orthodox.
The strange death of Rudolf Diesel
The inventor of the diesel engine died at sea under mysterious and still unexplained circumstances.
Horror frog
The Central African hairy frog can break its own bones and stick them through its skin as impromptu claws.
The ten commandments of whodunits
In 1929 Ronald Knox codified the ten rules that all detective fiction should follow.
Vidal Sassoon, antifa
Vidal Sassoon was an icon of 20th century fashion – and also beat up fascists in post-WWII London.
The house in the depths
A significant proportion of the food in the deepest ocean falls from discarded giant larvacean houses.
Oldest carpet
A prehistoric Scythian tomb in Siberia contained the oldest surviving carpet in the world.
Stats 2
This website is two years old today.
The birthday paradox
Put 70 people in a room and there’s a 99.9% chance that two of them share a birthday. Why?
Sir doctor sheriff grandmaster dean Nariman
Temulji Bhicaji Nariman was a knight, a dean, a plague doctor, a sheriff, a grandmaster, and his marriage lasted longer than almost any other in recorded history.
Relic souvenirs
In early Christian tradition, the power of saints’ relics could be transferred from object to object by a simple touch.
The Generalist Academy 