top of page


How a Victorian Doctor Called Gustaf Zander Invented the Modern Gym
Before gym selfies and protein powder, a Swedish doctor built machines that exercised patients for them. Gustaf Zander’s nineteenth century system reveals how the modern workout was born from medicine, machines, and office work.


The Mummies of Venzone and the Village That Lived With Its Dead
Hidden beneath a small Italian church, plague victims became perfectly preserved by chance. The mummies of Venzone puzzled scientists, fascinated Napoleon, and were treated as ancestors by locals for centuries. Nature did the embalming, and no one knows how.


Jack “Legs” Diamond and the Myth of the Man Who Would Not Die
Shot more than a dozen times and always walking away, Jack “Legs” Diamond became the most notoriously unkillable gangster of Prohibition. Until one night in Albany in 1931, when his luck finally ran out.


Lebensborn: Birth, Adoption, and Kidnapping under the Third Reich
The Lebensborn programme promised care and security but hid a brutal reality. This deep dive explores how the SS attempted to reshape motherhood through selective breeding, child kidnapping, and forced Germanisation, and how its victims live with the consequences today.


Pink Floyd's Floating Concert In Venice That Forced The City Council To Resign, 1989
In July 1989, Pink Floyd performed a free concert on a floating stage in Venice. Watched by 200,000 people and broadcast worldwide, the event sparked outrage over damage, waste, and planning failures, leading to the resignation of the mayor and city council.


Thelma Todd and the Hollywood Death That Refuses to Be Explained
Thelma Todd was one of early Hollywood’s brightest comic stars. In 1935, she was found dead in her car at just 29. Officially ruled accidental, her death remains surrounded by contradictions, powerful figures, and unanswered questions.


The Christmas Dinner That Included Elephant Consommé, Roast Camel, And Kangaroo Stew.
During the 1870 to 1871 Siege of Paris, starvation transformed the city’s food culture. From horse meat and rats to zoo elephants, eyewitness accounts reveal how Parisians survived months of blockade, cold, disease, and inequality.


Irma Grese: Beauty, Power, and the Machinery of Cruelty
Irma Grese was young, beautiful, and terrifying. This in depth historical article explores how a rural German teenager became one of the most feared female guards of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, and why her story still unsettles historians today.


The World’s First Pocket Record Player: The 1924 Mikiphone
A detailed history of the Mikiphone pocket phonograph, the 1920s Swiss made portable gramophone that anticipated personal music decades before the Walkman.


Before Dallas: The Forgotten Attempt to Kill JFK
Three years before Dallas, JFK came within seconds of death. A forgotten plot, a car packed with dynamite, and a decision that changed history. The chilling story of Richard Pavlick and the first assassination attempt on John F Kennedy.


Randy Gardner: The Teenager Who Stayed Awake for Eleven Days in 1964
In 1963, a seventeen year old from San Diego stayed awake for eleven days. Watched by doctors, reported nationwide, and debated for decades, Randy Gardner’s sleep experiment changed how we understand the human brain.


Effie and Avis Hotchkiss: The Mother and Daughter Who Rode Across America in 1915
In 1915 Effie and Avis Hotchkiss rode 9,000 miles across the US and back on a Harley Davidson. Mud, heat, rattlesnakes, blanket stuffed tyres, and one unforgettable mother daughter adventure that helped shape women’s motorcycling history.


Rockwell Kent, Herman Melville and the Revival of Moby Dick
Melville’s “Moby Dick” was almost forgotten until the 1930s. Then Rockwell Kent arrived with bold black and white engravings that transformed the book into a cultural landmark. A perfect pairing across time that brought the white whale back to life.


Le Monocle and the Women Who Shaped Queer Montparnasse
Explore the full history of Le Monocle, the iconic Paris lesbian nightclub photographed by Brassaï. Discover its culture, key figures like Lulu de Montparnasse and Violette Morris, its wartime disappearance and its postwar revival.


Ronald Reagan’s Pocket Library of One Liners
Ronald Reagan carried thousands of handwritten index cards filled with jokes and quotations. Discover how his lifelong habit shaped his political style and public charm


Inside Brian Wilson’s Longest Battle: Control, Care, and Dr Eugene Landy
A detailed account of Brian Wilson’s long and controversial relationship with Dr Eugene Landy, examining treatment methods, financial control, creative interference, legal action, and the complex legacy left behind.


On a Mission from God: The Chaotic Making of The Blues Brothers
The untold, full length story of The Blues Brothers. Toronto beginnings. Chicago chaos. Soul legends. Cocaine. Exploding budgets. Lew Wasserman’s temper. And the cult classic that came out the other side.


Fred Hampton: The Rise, Betrayal and Murder of a Black Panther Leader
On the 4th of December 1969 police stormed the Chicago apartment of 21 year old Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Officials called it a shootout. Evidence later showed it was a planned killing, aided by an informant and shaped by FBI COINTELPRO. His legacy has shaped activism ever since.


Through a Northern Lens: Michael Kay’s Manchester Photographs of the Early 1970s
A detailed look at photographer Michael Kay’s striking images of Manchester in the early 1970s, capturing slum clearances, Moss Side’s transformation, pub culture, everyday resilience, and the city’s journey through poverty and regeneration.


Eugene Lazowski and the Truth Behind the Fake Epidemic That Saved a Polish Town
Dr Eugene Lazowski became known as the man who tricked the German occupation authorities with a fake typhus epidemic. The story became wildly exaggerated in later decades, yet the truth is still remarkable. This detailed account looks at what he actually did, who he really saved, and how the legend grew.


Rubber Soul: How the Beatles Plastic Soul Album Changed Music
In late nineteen sixty five the Beatles were famous enough to sell any record they liked, yet worried enough about their future to reinvent what an album could be. Rubber Soul was their response. Born from a throwaway remark about “plastic soul,” it fused folk, soul and pop, turned the studio into a playground, and quietly rewrote the rules of rock music.


Recalling the Death of John Lennon on December the 8, 1980
On 8 December 1980 a cold Monday that began like any other ended in global shock. John Lennon spent the day posing for Annie Leibovitz, giving an optimistic radio interview and working on Walking On Thin Ice before returning home to the Dakota, where Mark David Chapman shot him. The loss rippled across the world, culminating in one of the largest public vigils New York had ever seen.


Violette Morris: From Sporting Legend to National Controversy
The extraordinary and conflicted life of Violette Morris the French multi sport champion turned wartime collaborator whose defiance and talent made her one of the most controversial figures of twentieth century France
bottom of page

