Plumbing the depths of the world’s nuclear arsenals — Russian state television recently made claims that Russia could destroy London with a radioactive nuclear tsunami. The foreign hosts boasted that Russia has massive nuclear torpedoes that could be stealthily deployed and detonated off the coast of major cities. The explosion would result in a massive radioactive wave that would…

These horrors stuck with some soldiers for life — One of the things that defined warfare in the Pacific during the Second World War was the fact that the Japanese seemed to have no intention of playing by the rules that Westerners expected. They would frequently throw tactics out the window at the squad level in favor of suicide…

The rise of the Normans — In AD 885, a group of Viking raiders sailed down the River Seine and laid siege to Paris. Paris was the cultural center of the Franks and was the heart of West Francia. Thousands of hostile northern warriors surrounded the city and demanded tribute and concessions. Despite emerging victorious, the…

And how the British played a key role — The borders of the modern Iraqi state were drawn, quite arbitrarily, by the British and the French after the end of World War I. After a series of secret agreements, promises, and claims the Middle East was rearranged in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. …

And down and down and down and down it goes — On May 24th, 1970, a massive drill made by the Russian company Uralmash spun up for the first time. A small group of workers, scientists, and engineers watched as the drill began to penetrate the frozen ground. The team had set up shop in the frigid northern regions of the…

And how two men found out — On January 23rd, 1960 two men set out to do the impossible. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh were boarding a heavily modified research submarine with the goal of reaching the deepest part of the world’s oceans in person. That spot is known as Challenger Deep and it lies over 35,000…

And it had nothing to do with WWII — The first European to land on the Solomon Islands was Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira. The Spaniard reached the remote land in 1568 via Peru. With a healthy dose of religious occultism and on-the-spot myth-making, de Neira convinced himself that these islands produced the gold that adorned Solomon’s Temple. …

Is the world patient enough to watch a nuclear demonstration without overreacting? — Detonating a nuclear weapon is seen by many as a last resort. Some people fear that the detonation of any nuclear weapon in today’s day and age would result in an unstoppable chain of events that would guarantee a nuclear exchange. That makes the idea of someone setting off a…

The recent eruption that shattered records — On January 15th, 2022, the underwater volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai blew itself to bits in a record-shattering explosion. The seamount had been erupting since December and the violent activity had allowed the surrounding sea to close over the top of the exposed crater. …