Author: Himanshu Sharma

When we talk about periods of major civil unrest in America (leaving aside the Revolution and the Civil War, of course), usually only the civil rights movement comes to mind. While it was undoubtedly a pivotal event in many ways, we forget that it was only one of the many various revolts and uprisings that…

Mysterious sounds trigger something primitive in our brains. They take us right back to our hunter-gatherer days, when deciphering a weird ‘bloop’ in the jungle might have helped us survive (as it may be a new type of predator). While that’s hardly the case anymore, that part of the brain still works the same way. …

The Mongol Empire was, by far, the largest contiguous empire we’ve ever known. Many historians attribute it to their sheer superiority on the battlefield, as well as their more DIY approach to warfare compared to their enemies. The Mongol army – throughout its existence under the various Khans – was a highly mobile and agile…

You know how the longer you sit in a traffic jam, the more it starts to feel like one of the worst jams in history? It’s completely understandable, as traffic jams do have the ability to mess up with our sense of time. Objectively speaking, though, it’s highly unlikely that any jam you’ve ever been…

Almost everyone reading this probably knows quite a lot about Asia already. We know that it’s the largest continent, home to some of the most densely populated countries in the world, and has had some pretty huge and successful empires in history. Other than the general information, though, most people know surprisingly little about the continent. In the spirit of bringing Asia back…

Scientifically speaking, coincidences aren’t that peculiar, as we live in a world full of so many random occurrences. They seem weird because our brains are wired to spot patterns to predict future outcomes – in space as well as time – even if those patterns don’t actually exist. As an example, in the early days,…

The role of happiness and prosperity has been well documented in our history. Misery, however, only shows up in the records as an anomaly, even if it’s still quite widespread across the world. While there’s no doubt that there are still many countries living in the most peaceful times of their history, there still seems…

Cryptocurrencies have been around long enough that we generally know what they are, but not long enough that most of us know exactly what they are or how they work. Bitcoin has been in the news in the recent past for making people rich – or bankrupting them – overnight, though it’s not clear to…

It’ll come as a surprise to no one that the US government has a bunch of secrets that have never been revealed, though we assume the most explosive of them are related to aliens or dead presidents and musicians.  In reality, though, the actual secrets hiding in the US government’s vaults are the ones we…

The reason urban legends work so well isn’t because they’re scary, but because they’ve happened to someone you know. It’s not a fictional story in a book anymore, but a shared tale of a community or locality, giving them more credence than any ghost story we can ever come up with. Even if most of…

We owe a lot to violence and conflict, as a big chunk of all of our technological innovations have come from violence and conflict. That makes perfect evolutionary sense, too. The threat of extinction was a huge driver of innovation in the early days. If you have better swords than the rival clan, you automatically…

Almost everyone reading this probably knows quite a lot about Asia already. We know that it’s the largest continent, home to some of the most densely populated countries in the world, and has had some pretty huge and successful empires in history. Other than the general information, though, most people know surprisingly little about the…

Booby traps are perhaps the oldest weapon type we know of. Before we could make melee and projectile weapons, traps were the preferred way to catch game. Of course, a simple pre-historical trap from our hunter-gatherer days could hardly be compared to the elaborate – and deadly – mechanisms found in today’s booby traps, though…

Quite a few of you reading this would be currently – in one way or another – preparing for a job. You might be studying for it, preparing for an upcoming interview, or already doing one job and looking for a better one. We all want the best job we can get, and most of…

Movies getting banned somewhere around the world isn’t really news these days, as quite a few countries are ruled by authoritarian governments. From North Korea to Iran to Russia, many otherwise-popular movies have been banned for speaking against their respective regimes, being too explicit, or hurting religious sentiments, which is honestly expected. It’s surprising, however,…

If you’ve spent enough time around the Internet, you’d know that there are a lot of weird types of food items available around the world, from insects to stink-meats to horse testicles. Of course, it’s wrong to just paint them all as ‘weird’, as different cultures have different factors driving their cuisine, including topography. Still,…

We all grow up with an idea of what romantic love is supposed to be, though it’s usually not long before we discover that we’re wrong. Needless to say, this can contribute to problems in our relationships. The role of popular fiction – especially cinema – in shaping those beliefs remains largely undiscussed, too. Here are 10 ways…

One way to get a better job than the one you’re doing right now is adding more skills to your overall portfolio, gradually climbing up the ladder and raising your value in your respective field. While that would surely get you to a better, higher-paying position, it’d take a while. For those without time or…

Ask a scientist, and he’d tell you that you can’t put a deadline on science. Research takes as long as it does because of how rigorous the modern scientific process is. Many high-profile experiments can take days – even weeks – to complete. Then there are the rare experiments that go on for so long that it seems like the researchers simply…

We often imagine war only in the context of two opposing states or empires, rarely considering that in many cases, internal civil wars can turn out to be bigger and much more destructive than any war between states. Some of the biggest rebellions and revolutions in history have also been some of the biggest wars.…

Death in itself isn’t that surprising. After all, all of us have to go one way or another. From car accidents to peacefully passing in your sleep to foolishly challenging a stronger person to a duel to the death, there’s no dearth of potential ways one may pass away. The ways we die are as…

Most people understand evolution to be quite linear and straightforward. Remember that chart of apes gradually turning into early humans, and then modern, civilized people? Almost all of us imagine evolution to be a set of gradual step ups, even if that’s not how it happened at all. Dig into our early history, and you’d…

The evolution of our species has been… eventful, to say the least. While some form of semi-bipedal hominids and apes have existed for millions of years, our march toward modern civilization began relatively recently. In a short period of time, our species has gone through many monumental changes that gradually gave shape to everything we…

Despite the global scale of the Covid-19 pandemic, there are still many things we don’t understand about it. We don’t know exactly how it spreads, where it came from, or what will happen as it continues to mutate.  Most importantly, we don’t understand its precise biology or origins, though that may not be specific to…