Funny protest signs are the only part of a march that reliably outlives it. Here is what separates the ones that get photographed from the ones that go in a bin at the end of the road, plus 26 ideas you can take.
A protest chant has about four seconds to be learnable by a thousand strangers. Here is the mechanics of why some spread down a whole street and others die in the third row.
Most Viking name lists online are half invention. Here are names that genuinely appear in Old Norse sources, what they meant, and why the nicknames are better than the names.
Most Viking tattoos are not Viking. The compass is from 1860, the helmet is from an opera, and nobody knows what the valknut means. Here is what the evidence actually says before you book the appointment.
Königsberg stood for seven centuries, produced Immanuel Kant, and was erased in under two years. The buildings, the people and finally the name. What is there now is called Kaliningrad, after a man who never went.
Google is spending €13 billion on data centres in four Finnish towns. Within two days its own AI had called the figures exaggerated and a party leader had said nobody is looking after the overall picture. The numbers, the electricity, and what you can do.
Finland lost a tenth of its territory and moved twelve per cent of its population. Then most of them went home, and had to leave all over again. The story of the Karelian evacuation, and the names that vanished with it.
Albert Einstein provided more than just physics equations. His observations on life and the human mind remain relevant. These ten quotes offer a perspective on imagination and curiosity. Ten quotes from Albert Einstein 1. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” 2. “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” 3. “I have no…
When most of us picture the past we imagine it in black and white. Hardly surprising when you consider the history of colour photography. Although the first colour photograph was taken way back in 1861 by Thomas Sutton (the Englishman chose a tartan ribbon as his subject), it wasn’t until the 1970s that colour snaps…
British comedian Ricky Gervais always has a lot to say. Sometimes he says it on Twitter and often it’s about the ludicrous nature of religion. Here are 10 of his finest philosophical moments in a 140 characters or less.