Stories

During Brazil’s 2001 energy crisis, Alfredo Moser cut a hole in his roof and slid a plastic bottle through it. Filled with water and bleach, the bottle refracted sunlight into his dark home.

In 1960s Zambia, science teacher and ex-sergeant Edward Nkoloso declared the country’s entry into the space race. He founded the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy, intending to beat the U.S. and USSR to the Moon—with a teenager, two cats, and a missionary aboard.

In 1886, Sarah Winchester purchased an eight-room farmhouse in San Jose, California. By the time she died in 1922, it had grown into a sprawling 200-room mansion. For 36 years, teams of carpenters worked around the clock. Paid triple wages, they followed instructions often sketched by Winchester on scraps of paper.

In 2014, George Frandsen launched a website dedicated to coprolites—fossilized feces—after starting his collection at age 18. His collection grew from a single specimen to over 8,000 by 2024, earning him a Guinness World Record and leading to the museum’s creation.

Charles Domery, a Polish soldier in the Prussian Army during the War of the First Coalition, deserted to the French when the Prussian rations failed to satisfy his hunger.

In ancient Olympia, rules were strict, punishments swift, and cheating—while rare in records—was harshly dealt with. From bribes to eye gouging, athletes tried anything for victory, but penalties often followed. The Greeks may not have had doping, but they had their own scandals.

In 1959, the U.S. Army constructed Camp Century under Greenland’s ice sheet, 240 km from Pituffik. Publicly presented as a scientific base, it secretly supported Project Iceworm—a plan to build a hidden network of nuclear missile launch sites.

In a remote pocket of Minnesota lies a small piece of land cut off from the rest of the state by water and connected to Canada by land.

In August 1914, just weeks into World War I, the skies over Serbia witnessed an unprecedented moment. During the Battle of Cer, Serbian pilot Miodrag Tomić, on a reconnaissance mission, encountered an Austro-Hungarian aircraft. What began as a wave between airmen turned quickly into the world’s first known dogfight.

In August 1839, over 100,000 people converged on Eglinton Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland, for a medieval-style tournament organized by Archibald, Earl of Eglinton.