The Tomb That Gave Its Name to Every Tomb
King Mausolus died in 353 BC. His widow built him a tomb so spectacular that for two thousand years every grand tomb in Europe was called by his name.
Read the story →A theme
Art
Painting, writing, sculpture, music, and the people who made them.
8 stories in this theme.
The Doctor Who Invented the Vampire and Took Prussic Acid
John Polidori was twenty-five. He had written the first English vampire novel, been disowned by Byron, and lost a libel suit. He drank prussic acid on a Wednesday.
Read the story →The Comet That Broke the Crystal Spheres
In November 1577 a comet appeared over Europe so bright it cast shadows. A twenty-eight-year-old Dane measured its distance and demolished Aristotle's heavens.
Read the story →The Plague Novel Mary Shelley Wrote in 1826
Eight years after Frankenstein, Mary Shelley published a novel about a global pandemic that kills everyone except one narrator. Critics hated it. They had reasons.
Read the story →The Tree Halifax Sends Boston Every Year
Every November, Nova Scotia cuts down a 45-foot white spruce and ships it to Boston Common. The tradition is a thank-you for a relief train that arrived in 1917.
Read the story →The Prayer Book That Was a Math Textbook
In 1906 a Danish scholar in Istanbul opened a medieval Greek prayer book and noticed faint mathematics underneath the prayers. It was Archimedes.
Read the story →The Winters They Roasted Oxen on the Thames
Between 1608 and 1814 the river through London froze solid often enough to hold fairs on its surface. Then they tore down a bridge, and it never froze again.
Read the story →The Summer That Wasn’t, and the Monster It Made
In June 1816 it rained for a month at Lake Geneva. Five English visitors were stuck indoors. One of them was eighteen years old, and she had a dream.
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