Category: History

Last Three Wishes of Alexander The Great

Shared by Masroor Ali, NJ: On his death bed, Alexander the Great summoned his generals and…

Records of Pompeii’s Survivors Have Been Found – and Archaeologists are Starting to Understand How They Rebuilt Their Lives

by Steven L. Tuck at The Conversation: On Aug. 24, in A.D. 79, Mount Vesuvius…

Atlantic Ocean Current Might Not Shut Down So Soon

Yuxin Zhou at The Conversation: While Greenland is losing huge volumes of ice right now…

Brazil: A Melting-pot Genetic Present and an Uncharted Deep Past

by Razib Khan at Unsupervised Learning: In 1494, the expansionary Iberian powers negotiated the Treaty…

The Incredible Story of the Fake Allied Military Unit that Fooled Hitler Ahead of the D-day Invasion of Normandy

By Taylor Downing at Air Mail: General Hans Cramer was a German officer of the…

South Africa’s Enduring Unfreedom

An interview with S’bu Zikode, leader of the shack dwellers’ movement, 30 years after apartheid’s…

Thirty Years of Talking About Pablo Escobar

Juan Gabriel Vásquez in El Pais: Pablo Escobar, the most infamous drug trafficker in history,…

How the World Made the West

Steven Poole at The Guardian: “Western civilisation” would not exist without its Islamic, African, Indian…

From Rags to Riches, or the Multifaceted Progress of Lady

By Anatoly Liberman at OUP Blog: Every English dictionary with even minimal information on word…

America Still Has Heroes

Joe Nocera at The Free Press: It was early afternoon, the Thursday before Memorial Day,…

When Margaret Thatcher Refused to Jump

Douglas Murray at The Free Press: Welcome to Douglas Murray’s column, Things Worth Remembering, in…

A Brief History of Failed Attempts at Human Flight

Joe Fassler at Lit Hub: Years ago, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I…