Poet, inventor, and businesswoman Amanda Theodosia Jones learned firsthand why 19th century America was a tough time and place to be a female entrepreneur, especially one with romantic and spiritual sensibilities. In her long and storied career, Jones made remarkable advances in food safety and other fields, collecting a dozen patents along the way. She […]

An iconic sight in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the Kimjongilia. This hybrid begonia was bred by a Japanese botanist and presented to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il in 1988. It soon became part of the diplomatic toolkit. The North Korean government has sent the flower to a number of countries as a sign […]

The introduction of non-native species can be a tricky business. The feral camels of Australia are a case in point. They were brought to the country in 1840 to ease exploration of the Outback, and the hardy animals soon proved useful in the construction of railway and telegraph lines. From the beginning, however, camels and […]

Zanzibar, an island nation that is now part of Tanzania, has been a contested territory for centuries. Starting in the 15th century, interested parties from Portugal, Oman, Germany, and Britain vied for the right to settle in Zanzibar and to decide whether to continue or abolish its slave trade. In 1890, Zanzibar was declared a […]

One way of determining a person’s likely ethnicity is looking inside their ears. Simply put, there are two kinds of earwax: dry and white, or wet and brownish. Genetic research shows that Caucasians tend to have the sticky type, while East Asians generally have the dry kind. This is due to a variant of the […]

The year was 1721. The ship was called the Prince Royal, its destination the American colonies. And the cake–the cake was gingerbread. The British crew shouldn’t have been surprised to find the metal file in the cake. Its stasher, James Dalton–a notorious thief and escape artist–had been shuttled involuntarily between Britain and America more times […]

Jack Ketch was a man in need of a career change. As the official executioner during King Charles II’s 17th-century reign, Ketch handled a number of political executions. However, he lacked a knack for the job. He frequently required as many as five swings before successfully beheading a prisoner. His butchery of the politician William […]

In October 1977, the city of Ames, Iowa hosted the International Conference on Iceberg Utilization. The conference was sponsored by the Saudi prince Mohammed al Faisal, whose company was called Iceberg Transport International. Prince Faisal and other attendees had big ideas for making use of the massive blocks of ice, including towing bergs to the […]

Charles Waterton was born in Yorkshire, England in 1782, to an aristocratic Catholic family whose ancestors included members of several royal families. The life of an idle nobleman didn’t appeal to him, however. From a young age, he displayed a passion for studying and interacting with animals in a very hands-on way. An inveterate tree-climber, […]