The Golden Age of Islam refers to a nearly six-centuries-long period of renaissance in the Islamic world, beginning with the foundation of the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth century and ending with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258. It was a time of unprecedented developments in the fields of geometry, medicine, astronomy,…
Author: Himanshu Sharma
At the moment, some of our best minds are trying to find a habitable, Earth-like planet as a Plan B, in case things go really bad here. We don’t have many contenders so far, as it’s difficult – almost impossible – for all the right conditions to come together like they do here on Earth. …
The Second World War was easily the most devastating war in history. Some official records place the total number of dead close to 60 million, though the real toll may be far higher. Not everyone died in combat, either – more than 45 million of them were civilians, as everyday folk around the world bore…
We usually tend to focus on only the dark and gruesome parts of history, though it’s not been all bad. Among all the wars, diseases, and other tragedies of history, there have also been quite a few times of unprecedented peace and prosperity. These are sometimes referred to as a ‘golden age’ by historians, when…
Throughout the history of slavery, revolts have usually been brutality crushed in order to set an example for the others. Despite that, uprisings have been a regular part of slave societies for as long as one can remember, going as far back as ancient Rome and Persia. 10. Stono Rebellion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pND-9KhM1Xw The Stono rebellion of…
Space travel is fast coming up as a potential solution to every problem facing Earth, though how achievable is it, really? While recent advances in fields like robotics, artificial intelligence, navigation, communications, rocket design, and others have allowed humanity to explore further into space than ever before, we’d still need to solve many problems before…
In popular imagination, the 20th century was a time of technological progress and relative peace around the world, when we built the computer and finally reached space. Look closer, though, and this rosy view doesn’t seem to be accurate, or at least not for everyone. While it’s true that some parts of the world experienced…
Science and warfare are intrinsically linked. Throughout history, many scientific innovations and discoveries have changed the battlefield in fundamental ways – from antibiotics that massively reduced the number of soldiers dying to disease, to drones that have entirely changed how modern wars are fought. 10. Barbed Wire Barbed wire was originally invented in the 1870s…
Engineering is the practice of applying scientific and mathematical principles to real-life situations. While scientists usually get all the credit for all of humanity’s scientific achievements, it’s actually engineers who build the things that make all that possible – from intricate lab equipment to large-scale city projects. Some of the best engineers ever also happened…
History is full of examples of battles that have changed the world – for good or worse. From the WW2 battle at Stalingrad to Napoleon’s infamous defeat at Waterloo, some of them are still remembered as turning points in the course of history. Most, however, remain forgotten outside the countries that fought them, either due…
It’s often claimed that we’re living in the most peaceful time in history. That even if news reports of violent incidents are clearly going up, it’s only because of a wider dissemination of information through smartphones and social media than any real rise in violence. While it sounds intuitive, this school of thought is actually…
CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing mechanism derived from a naturally-occurring set of DNA sequences found in bacteria. While still in its infancy, the technology has garnered a lot of attention in the past few years due to its accuracy and flexibility, as well as its relatively-low cost. You can even buy your own CRISPR-Cas9 kit for…
The advent of the Internet was a pivotal moment in modern history. It was the perfect tool for the increasingly globalized, modern world, which has now turned into an everyday necessity similar to groceries. Sadly, everything comes at a price. The Internet also came with an entirely new type of security threat, one that we…
The British Empire was the largest empire in history in terms of landmass, as well as one of the most formidable military powers in the world at its peak. From Napoleonic France to southeast Asia to the Americas, Great Britain was known for its spectacular successes on the battlefield, often against much larger, better-armed enemies. …
The concept of free will dictates most modern human societies, though as science is gradually finding out, it might not be as ‘free’ as we think. Rather than conscious choice, many of our everyday decisions are actually taken by the subconscious part of the brain – a complex network of neural signals and connections we’re…
While robots haven’t yet taken over our daily lives like classic science fiction writers imagined, robotics has still advanced quite a lot in the past few years. From playing music to cooking world cuisine to ruthlessly murdering anyone in a given area, robots of today are capable of much more than we give them credit…
There are so many ‘mysterious’ photos and videos around the Internet that it’s hard to take them seriously. While it’s true that most of them are staged or fake, that’s not all of them, as there are still many unsolved photographic mysteries around the world that remain unsolved. 10. The Babushka Lady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg5pGueel-k Babushka Lady…
The French Empire officially refers to the geopolitical entity set up by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804, though the French colonial empire is way older than that. French colonies started showing up in the Americas and India as early as the 17th century, and some of them still remain under French control. For the purposes of…
We hear a lot about scientists and their fancy ideas, though it’s actually engineers who put those ideas into practice for real world applications. At its most basic, engineering is the science of building things – like machines – to apply theoretical scientific principles to real life situations. The theoretical system of measuring time, as…
The universe is big. So big, in fact, that even if we learn how to travel at the speed of light and solve all other problems with space travel, we’d still only be able to explore a tiny fraction of what we can currently observe. Of course, even that seems like a thing of the…
We think of all microbes as more or less the same species with some variations here and there, when in reality, it’s the oldest and most diverse subgroup of life on Earth. Their contribution to the ecosystem isn’t as apparent as other forms of life – as we can’t see them – though under the…
We envision the history of our cities to be a step-by-step sequence of accomplishments, from small settlements to towns to the sprawling metropolises we see today. The darker parts are remembered as merely interludes – ‘dark ages’ – in the grand story, when in reality those dark ages have had a much larger impact on…
The Second World War has been extensively studied and analyzed, and yet, so many of its most horrific parts remain largely forgotten outside communities that experienced them. There are few historical parallels to the kind of violence faced by millions of people throughout the painfully-long duration of this global war – from Eastern Europe to…
Scientific research is usually aimed at solving something important, though that’s not always the case. There’s a growing body of research being conducted just because the researchers had nothing better to do that day. Many of these elaborate, yet useless, studies are funded by taxpayer money, too, or at least money that could have gone…