travelkev

In 1912, an Austrian tailor jumped to his death from the first-level platform of the Eiffel Tower.  The jump had been an attempt to prove the value of his invention – a wearable parachute – then much in demand for the early days of aviation.  The Paris police had given permission for the test but on the understanding that a dummy would be thrown over, not a live human. For a parable of designing your tests in a responsible and appropriate manner, read on...

Why does copying someone in on an email use “CC” or “BCC”, what does that stand for?  Why does the “Settings” icon on a computer typically look like a cog wheel?  Read on for the strange design features that persist long after the thing that they represent and a phenomenon for which there’s even a name.

A total eclipse of the sun in the mid-19th century led to the discovery of Helium and the death of Rama IV, the King of Thailand, a self-taught polymath who had predicted the event several years before and to a degree of accuracy exceeding his European contemporaries.