Source: Wikipedia
It is one of the most bizarre documented events in European history, and its strangeness holds up under scrutiny because it is unusually well recorded — noted in multiple…
How many days a country stops working says a lot about it — its religious makeup, its history, its attitude toward rest, and how many different traditions it formally recognizes.…
Source: Wikipedia
The Voynich manuscript is the most stubborn document in the world. It is a real, physical object — roughly 240 surviving pages of vellum, bound, densely handwritten, and lavishly…
Life expectancy — the average number of years a person born today can expect to live — is one of the most revealing statistics about a country, reflecting its healthcare,…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Every July 25 marks the birthday of a scientist whose name most people now know, and whose actual work most people could not describe. Rosalind Franklin was born…
Source: Wikipedia
The story of invention is usually told as a story of intent: someone identifies a problem and engineers a solution. But a surprising share of the objects in an…