It is the 24th of January, AD 41. The 28-year-old Emperor of the Roman Empire, a favorite mascot of the army who had ascended unchallenged to the throne only four years earlier has just been stabbed to death in the tunnels under his own palace, by his own guards. In the century leading up to
Brazil is famous for its Carnival season, an almost week-long party which unifies the country in a spirit of feasting, drinking, and of course dancing. This is traditionally held just before Lent, but a new study suggests it may have existed long before Christianity came to South America. The research, announced by the University of
This is a story about an inventor and his invention. It is the story of striving to create something new and innovation in problem solving. It is also, perhaps more than anything, a story of failure. It is the story of a brilliant man trying to solve a longstanding problem. It is the story of
From the perspective of history, there is a danger that Hitler is seen as an inevitability. Far more interesting to focus on the Nazi excesses once they were in power (more lurid), the Second World War they directly caused (more exciting) and their dramatic downfall (more… dramatic) than to ask how they rose in the
In 1799 France changed forever. After a decade of rumbling discontent regarding the concentration of wealth towards the powerful and the exploitation of the masses who were facing widespread starvation, the French rose up and killed everyone in charge, from the King on down. The failure of the ancien regime, the creaking feudal order of
When Dracula was published in 1897 it was an instant success, but one built on an old legend. The strange gothic count of the novel may have been new, but the legend on which Bram Stoker built his story was decidedly not. Vampires had been around for hundreds of years, one of the motley assortment