Pol Pot: Let’s All Move to the Country
If there’s one thing that all of the dictators in this book have in common; it is grandiosity and hubris that can’t be contained. They just don’t look at …
Battle of Britain
Great Britain famously defended itself so pugnaciously during World War Two that no mainland British soil was occupied by Germany. It’s often said that the only British-owned territory on …
The Big Cheese
Queen Victoria married her sweetheart, the German Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in a lavish ceremony at the Chapel Royal in St. James’ Palace, London, on February 10, …
Whatever Floats Your Boat
In 2016, an ecological organization based in the UK called the Natural Environment Research Council invited its members and the British public at large to name the latest acquisition …
Strike One
The very first labor strike in American history occurred right back at the very founding of what is now the United States. In 1619, the burgeoning colony of Virginia …
Deadheaded
When the Vikings invaders first began arriving on the coastlines of central and western Europe, few people had seen anything more frightening. Beginning in the mid-8th century, and enduring …
Carrying The Spear
Long before the actual migratory behavior of birds and animals was known, precisely where seasonal animals went to during the winter or summer months, was a longstanding puzzle. Unable …
Documentary Evidence
There’s an old notion that Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the Canterbury Tales collection of stories, is the inspiration for April Fool’s Day. According to the theory, in the Nun’s …
Jar Of Farts
As the Black Plague swept across Europe in the 14th and 15th century, claiming the lives of perhaps as much as one third of the entire continent’s population, then …
Fire In The Belly
It was sometime in the late summer or early autumn of 79 CE that Mount Vesuvius—the enormous volcano in southern Italy, near the city of Naples, erupted with such …