The Bordereau That Tore France in Half
A torn-up scrap of paper from a German embassy wastebasket convicted the wrong man in 1894. France spent the next twelve years arguing about it.
Read the story →A theme
War
Battles, sieges, and the strange details of conflict.
15 stories in this theme.
The Rhineland Massacres That Came Before the Crusade
In the spring of 1096, before the First Crusade reached Asia, an army of pilgrims spent six weeks killing the Jewish communities of the Rhine.
Read the story →The Queen Who Invaded Her Own Country
Isabella of France crossed the Channel with fifteen hundred soldiers in 1326, deposed her husband, and ruled England with her lover. Her son removed her at seventeen.
Read the story →The Town Where the Boss Owned the Houses
George Pullman built a model factory town south of Chicago in 1880. He ran it like a benevolent autocracy until 1894, when his workers stopped accepting the rent.
Read the story → The Coroner’s Report June 11, 2026 · Old Jewish quarter, Cologne, Holy Roman Empire (modern Germany)
The Night Cologne Killed Its Jewish Quarter
Cologne's Jewish community had stood since the fourth century. On the night of Saint Bartholomew, August 1349, a mob ended it in a few hours.
Read the story →The Statue That Was Sold for Camel Loads
The Colossus of Rhodes stood for fifty-four years and lay in ruins for nearly nine hundred. A Jewish merchant from Edessa bought the bronze.
Read the story →The Earl Who Ruled England From the Queen's Bedchamber
Roger Mortimer escaped the Tower, invaded England, deposed a king, and ran the country for three years. His own teenage king-by-grace overthrew him in a midnight coup.
Read the story →The Soldier Who Killed Archimedes
After two years of siege, the Romans broke into Syracuse. A junior soldier found a seventy-five-year-old man drawing in the sand and made the worst mistake of his career.
Read the story → The Coroner’s Report June 10, 2026 · Island on the Rhine, Basel, Bishopric of Basel (modern Switzerland)
The Pogrom That Came Before Strasbourg
Five weeks before the Strasbourg massacre, Basel built a wooden house on an island in the Rhine, locked roughly six hundred of its Jews inside, and burned it.
Read the story →The King Murdered in a Castle Basement (Maybe)
Edward II of England was forced to abdicate, locked in a Gloucestershire castle, and died there in September 1327. Or did he escape and live another fourteen years?
Read the story →The Strasbourg Pogrom of Saint Valentine's Day, 1349
Six weeks before the plague reached the city, the council of Strasbourg deposed its mayors, replaced them, and burned the city's Jewish community alive.
Read the story →The Men Who Whipped Themselves Across Europe
In the summer of 1349 thousands of penitents marched through plague-stricken Europe flogging themselves twice a day. The Pope banned them within months.
Read the story →The Library That Did Not Burn
Caesar's fire, the Christian mob, the Caliph's order — every famous ending of the Library of Alexandria is wrong, or only partly true. It died slowly.
Read the story →The Captain Who Stayed on the Burning Ship
On 16 April 1947 a French freighter loaded with fertilizer caught fire at a Texas dock. Everyone but Captain de Guillebon ran. He fought the fire.
Read the story →The Telegraph Operator Who Stayed at His Key
On 6 December 1917, Vince Coleman had ninety seconds to warn the incoming trains. He used them, and then he was gone.
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