#history
In 1897, Indiana State Representatives proposed a bill that suggested a new method to square the circle, inadvertently implying a value of π as 3.2.
Over 25% of nations are currently governed by populists.
New Zealand is mentioned in the Australian Constitution as a potential state. At the time, it was not clear if New Zealand would want to join, so they were included just in case.
A short book that serves as a great standalone account of the life and philosophy of Bob Hawke, possibly Australia’s best Prime Minister.
A study reveals that human ancestors in Africa faced near extinction around 900,000 years ago, with the population of breeding individuals dropping to just 1,280.
An astounding 3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec Empire.
During WWII, Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome protected dozens of Jewish refugees by claiming they had a fake disease called ‘K Disease’.
In 1791, the metre was changed to be a fraction of the Earth’s curve through Paris.
Is mainstream media promoting UFO conspiracy theories for clicks, without adequate skepticism or fact-checking?
An interesting, long, and diverse conversation with Stephen Wolfram. Most interesting to me is the idea that technologies are usually invented for practical purposes, and science later catches up.
In 1988, English art dealer James Birch exhibited Francis Bacon in the USSR. In this book, Birch tells this story.
This article pitches 2012 as a “tipping-point” in various culture, economics, and public health.
Putin’s rise to power was backed by a nexus of KGB, oligarchs, and criminals, not with a goal to return to communism, but to restore security services’ prominence.
Geruso and Spears argue that the declining birth rate could lead to a global population of around 560M in 300-600 years, making humanity more vulnerable to extinction.
Large datasets of individual biographies were analysed to quantify scientific production between 1300–1850, revealing significant differences among countries; England and the United Provinces were notably more creative.
Four new studies investigating the effects of Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms on political beliefs found that removing some key functions of these algorithms had “no measurable effects” on people’s political beliefs. In fact, the ability of users to share political news declined when their ability to reshare posts was removed, according to one study.
Historically, people in Europe consumed a large amount of beer and wine, with the average person consuming about a liter of beer a day, four times more than in modern beer-drinking countries.
Brain drain, or the emigration of highly-skilled and highly-educated individuals from Europe to the United States during World War II, driven by the fear and destruction of the Nazis and their anti-Semitic agenda, had an impact on the outcomes of the war.
H.G. Wells foresaw the potential atomic bombs in his novel The World Set Free (1913), which depicted a devastating war that led to the creation of a unified world government to prevent future conflicts.
In the 1920s, Berlin nightclubs, such as the Resi and the Femina, used a unique system of table phones and pneumatic tubes for anonymous late-night flirting between strangers.
Alberto Grandi challenges the traditional notions of Italian cuisine, claiming that many Italian classics are relatively recent inventions.
This is an incredibly fascinating article, and the related video is fantastic.
This is an interesting story about a British family living in China during the Cultural Revolution.
Anyone who’s spent as little as a day in Mexico City has heard fierro viejo, the incredibly charming and annoying marketing siren of scrap metal haulers. This is the story of fierro viejo and the people who use it.
US elites (cultural, government, and security) conspired to make American modernism a successful counterpoint to the socialist realism of the Soviet Union.