All Stories – Page 5

Studio photograph of Harry Houdini in a three-piece suit and bow tie, leaning on a chair, about 1913

Houdini Did His Last Show 100 Years Ago Tonight With a Fever and a Burst Appendix

Priya Raman · October 24, 2026

Photograph of the Yugoslav federal parliament building in Belgrade with flames in its windows and a crowd in front of it on 5 October 2000

Serbia Votes Tomorrow. The Last Time Its Students Beat a Strongman Took One Day

Marcus Delacroix · October 24, 2026

Engraved 1851 plate comparing the planetary systems of Ptolemy, the Egyptians, Tycho Brahe and Copernicus

Strange History

Tycho Brahe Died 425 Years Ago Today, and It Took Two Exhumations to Clear Kepler

Jonah Okafor · October 24, 2026

Brass planispheric astrolabe made in Persia in 1654, with a degree scale divided in sixtieths around the rim

Why a Minute Has 60 Seconds: Babylon's Maths Just Outlived the Leap Second

Eleanor Whitcombe · October 24, 2026

Old Judge Cigarettes baseball card of pitcher Charles Radbourn in a Boston uniform tagging a sliding runner, 1887

Why It Is Called the World Series: A Freezing Weekend in 1884, Not a Newspaper

Priya Raman · October 24, 2026

Photograph of three women at a polling place in 1957, one checking a book of registered voters, with a voting booth and an American flag behind them

Why Your Vote Is Secret: A Gold-Rush Colony Invented the Ballot in 1856

Marcus Delacroix · October 24, 2026

Photo of a round clay school exercise tablet with rows of cuneiform signs, Mesopotamia, c. 20th to 16th century BC

The ABC Order Is 3,400 Years Old and Nobody Knows Why A Comes First

Eleanor Whitcombe · October 23, 2026

Painting of a storm cloud sweeping over the Connecticut River valley at Northampton, Massachusetts, with the river's oxbow bend in sunlight below

Strange History

New England's Dark Day of 1780: Noon Went Black and Tree Rings Explain Why

Priya Raman · October 23, 2026

Photo of a Day of the Dead ofrenda piled with orange marigolds, painted skulls, candles, oranges and papier-mâché skeletons

Day of the Dead Was Reshaped by Friars, a Printmaker and a Bond Film

Eleanor Whitcombe · October 23, 2026

Photograph of Charles de Gaulle in a dark suit standing beside Dwight Eisenhower at a microphone on an airport apron, surrounded by officials, in April 1960

World Figureheads

The Day de Gaulle Vanished: Six Hours in May 1968 That Saved His Presidency

Tomás Ferreira · October 23, 2026

Colourised scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles, in blue, budding from an infected cell, in yellow

Ebola Was Found Fifty Years Ago in a Thermos Flask Sent From a Mission Hospital

Marcus Delacroix · October 23, 2026

Printed broadside of the 29 September 1690 order by the Governor and Council of Massachusetts suppressing the newspaper Publick Occurrences

America's First Newspaper Lasted Four Days Before Boston Shut It Down

Hannah Lindqvist · October 23, 2026

Photograph of a wild emu feeding on dry open ground in outback Australia

Strange History

Australia Sent Machine Guns Against 20,000 Emus in 1932 and the Emus Won

Jonah Okafor · October 23, 2026

Woodblock print of a huge blue wave with clawed white foam curling over three boats, with a small Mount Fuji in the distance

The Great Wave Cost About as Much as a Double Helping of Noodles in 1831

Hannah Lindqvist · October 23, 2026

Let Them Eat Cake Was in Print Before Marie Antoinette Could Read

Jonah Okafor · October 23, 2026

Detail of a medieval map showing a crowned Black king seated on a throne holding a gold coin and a sceptre, with Catalan text beside him

World Figureheads

Mansa Musa Took So Much Gold to Mecca in 1324 That Cairo's Price Crashed

Tomás Ferreira · October 23, 2026

The Queens Museum, the former New York City Building at Flushing Meadows where the UN General Assembly met from 1946 to 1950, photographed in 2018

Eighty Years Ago the United Nations Moved Into a Skating Rink in Queens

Marcus Delacroix · October 23, 2026

Engraving of a crowd of men in hats gathered around the porch of a courthouse on election day, with a banner reading The Will of the People the Supreme Law

Why Americans Vote on a Tuesday in November: An 1845 Law for Farmers

Priya Raman · October 23, 2026

The Milwaukee Brewers' ballpark, then called Miller Park, photographed in 2016; it is now American Family Field

The Brewers Were Born When the Seattle Pilots Went Broke After One Season

Priya Raman · October 22, 2026

Sepia photograph from 1902 of the interior of the basilica of St John Lateran in Rome, looking toward the Gothic canopy over the high altar

Strange History

The Pope Who Dug Up His Predecessor and Put the Corpse on Trial

Jonah Okafor · October 22, 2026

Ink cartoon from February 1962 showing two groups of men in hats and overcoats meeting on a bridge, the figures labelled Abel and Powers passing each other, under the title Better Relations Through Trade

Before Hubbard Came Home, the Cold War Traded Prisoners on a Berlin Bridge

Marcus Delacroix · October 22, 2026

Photochrom print of the Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace in Split, with houses built into the Roman arcade, about 1890 to 1900

World Figureheads

Diocletian Retired From Ruling Rome to Grow Cabbages, and the Empire Split

Tomás Ferreira · October 22, 2026

Strange History

Peter the Great Taxed Beards, and Russians Carried a Copper Token as Proof

Tomás Ferreira · October 22, 2026

Close-up photograph of a torn strip of ancient papyrus with lines of Greek handwriting, a third-century BC fragment of Homer's Odyssey

How Sappho Survived on Rubbish-Dump Scraps and Reached Anne Carson's Nobel

Hannah Lindqvist · October 22, 2026