When the question of the greatest mind/genius of the ancient world comes to mind, some may claim the likes of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Archimedes, Euclid, etc. to take that prize. However, upon doing further research over the years on ancient Chinese history, I stumbled upon a philosopher that...

I recently encountered a post by Kerry Callan where he provided a pictorial image from the September 1966 issue of Esquire magazine of conditions that will exempt you from the draft. (click to enlarge) Most of them make perfect sense to me, except "silk underwear". I took a quick look through th...

I've been reading about the Aurelian Wall and it's very fascinating, though I wonder how much, in denarii, sestercii, or other, it would have cost the Romans. Is there any way we could possibly estimate the cost? I know the economy was in a bad state at this time, but I also know that it wasn't b...

I have noticed that several brands of biscuits have ships on them and have wondered why that is. A friend suggested that this is for historical reasons but I couldn't find any evidence of that. Where did the trend of putting ships on biscuits originate and why is it still so popular? Here are som...

In 1958, Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to forcibly collectivise Chinese agriculture and industrialise the country within just a few years. This involved the use of pseudoscientific farming practices which reduced yield rather than increasing it, massive industrial and ir...