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Europe

Stories from Britain to Russia and everywhere in between. 38 stories, a few minutes each.

  1. Why Carrots Are OrangeBefore the late 16th century, most carrots were purple, white, or yellow.
  2. The Woman Who Sold the Eiffel TowerContrary to popular legend, Victor Lustig did not actually sell the Eiffel Tower. He sold the rights to scrap it, which in 1925 seemed like a…
  3. The Dancing Plague of 1518In July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg and began to dance. She did not stop.
  4. The Tunguska EventOn the morning of June 30, 1908, something exploded in the sky above a remote stretch of Siberian forest.
  5. TarrareIn the late 18th century, a French man with an insatiable appetite became one of history's strangest documented medical cases. Known only as…
  6. Kiruna — The Town That MovedKiruna, Sweden's northernmost city, sits 145 kilometers above the Arctic Circle on top of one of the largest and purest iron ore deposits on Earth.…
  7. How Velcro Was Inspired by BurrsIn 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral took his Irish pointer for a walk through the woods near the Alps. When they returned home, both man and…
  8. Why Golf Balls Have DimplesA smooth golf ball hit by a professional golfer would travel only about half as far as one with dimples. The textured surface seems…
  9. The Voynich ManuscriptIn 1912, an antiquarian book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich purchased a strange medieval codex from a Jesuit college in Italy. No one could read it.…
  10. The Great Stink of LondonIn the summer of 1858, the River Thames smelled so bad that Parliament considered relocating.
  11. Tulip ManiaIn the winter of 1637, a single tulip bulb sold for 6,000 florins in the Netherlands—enough to buy a luxurious house on an Amsterdam canal. A few…
  12. The Antikythera MechanismIn 1901, sponge divers exploring a shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera pulled up a corroded lump of bronze. For decades, it sat in a…
  13. The London Beer Flood of 1814At around 5:30 in the afternoon on October 17, 1814, a wooden vat at Meux and Company's Horse Shoe Brewery ruptured and released a wave of porter…
  14. GiethoornIn the Dutch province of Overijssel, about ninety minutes from Amsterdam, there's a village where you can't drive a car. Not because it's…
  15. The Svalbard Global Seed VaultOn a remote island in the Norwegian Arctic, about 620 miles from the North Pole, there's a concrete entrance jutting out of a mountainside. Behind…
  16. The Library of Unwritten BooksIn Richard Brautigan's 1971 novel *The Abortion*, there's a library in San Francisco that accepts any book anyone wants to deposit. Not published…
  17. How Champagne Was Invented by AccidentThe legend goes like this: Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk working in the cellars of the Abbey of Hautvillers in the late 1600s, accidentally…
  18. The Woman Who Fell 33,000 FeetOn January 26, 1972, JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 exploded at 33,330 feet over Czechoslovakia. A bomb planted in the forward cargo hold by…
  19. The Dyatlov Pass IncidentIn February 1959, nine experienced hikers died under unexplained circumstances in the northern Ural Mountains of Russia. The group, led by…
  20. Shakespeare Has No Living DescendantsWilliam Shakespeare had three children. Susanna, the eldest, was born in 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in 1585. By 1670, every direct line…
  21. The Phantom Time HypothesisIn 1991, a German historian named Heribert Illig published a paper arguing that 297 years of human history never happened.
  22. The Man Who Ate an Entire AirplaneMichel Lotito was a French entertainer who spent his career eating things that were not food.
  23. How Traffic Lights Were Invented Before CarsThe first traffic light was installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London on December 10, 1868—more than a decade before Karl Benz patented…
  24. How the Guillotine Was Designed to Be HumaneBefore the French Revolution, the method of execution in France depended on social class. Nobles were beheaded by sword, a relatively quick death…
  25. The Paris CatacombsBeneath the streets of Paris lies a network of tunnels containing the remains of roughly six million people.
  26. How Aspirin Was Discovered TwiceWillow bark has been used as a pain remedy for thousands of years.
  27. The Bridge That Soldiers Must Break Step OnOn April 12, 1831, a column of the 60th Rifle Corps marched across Broughton Suspension Bridge near Manchester, England.
  28. The Day Sweden Switched Sides of the RoadOn September 3, 1967, at precisely 4:50 in the morning, every vehicle in Sweden stopped.
  29. How Mauve Changed Fashion ForeverIn 1856, an eighteen-year-old chemistry student in London accidentally created the first synthetic dye while trying to synthesize quinine, a…
  30. The Whistling Language of La GomeraOn the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, people communicate across deep ravines by whistling. The language is called Silbo Gomero, and it…
  31. The Inventor Killed by His Own InventionOn February 4, 1912, Franz Reichelt climbed to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower and jumped. He was wearing a combination overcoat-parachute…
  32. Cher AmiIn October 1918, during the final weeks of World War I, a battalion of the U.S. 77th Infantry Division advanced into the Argonne Forest in…
  33. The Night WitchesDuring World War II, the Soviet Union formed three all-female air regiments. The most famous was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, which the Germans…
  34. How Lego Nearly Went BankruptBy 2003, the Lego Group was losing roughly a million dollars a day. The Danish toymaker that had defined construction play for half a century was…
  35. The Invention of the ForkThe fork is one of the most common objects in the Western world, yet it took roughly a thousand years to catch on. For most of European history,…
  36. The Hermitage CatsThe Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the largest art museums in the world. It houses over three million items, including works…
  37. The Real Robinson CrusoeIn September 1704, a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk asked to be put ashore on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific.
  38. Why Stradivarius Violins Sound So GoodBetween roughly 1680 and 1720, Antonio Stradivari built about 1,100 string instruments in his workshop in Cremona, Italy.