Closing the Pigeon Gap

Military, economic and indeed political history has often been driven by fear that, on the other side of the hill, some perceived enemy is making all-too-rapid progress in developing dangerous new technology. From the Dreadnought race of the early 1900s to the fictitious Missile Gap that so bothered the Americans in the late 1950s – [...]

Murder in the Potala

The Dalai Lama is one of the world’s most revered religious leaders… but that hasn’t prevented four holders of the office from dying in mysterious circumstances. This week’s Smithsonian essay takes a close look at the short lives and mysterious ends of the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Dalai Lamas, all of whom expired in [...]

On heroic self-sacrifice

In 1887, painter G.F. Watts was inspired by an idea: commemorate the everyday heroism of men, women and children who had lost their lives trying to save another’s. Not without struggle, his vision became the modest monument that is the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice at Postman’s Park, a tiny sliver of greenery amid the hubub [...]

The mysterious Mr. Zedzed, the wickedest man in the world

Late in November 1927, an elderly Greek man sat in his mansion in Paris and tended a fire. Every time it flickered and threatened to die, he reached to one side and tossed another bundle of papers or a leather-bound book into the grate. For two days the old man fed the flames, at one [...]

The Monster of Glamis

“If you could even guess the nature of this castle’s secret,” said Claude Bowes-Lyon, 13th Earl of Strathmore, “you would get down on your knees and thank God it was not yours.” That awful secret was once the talk of Europe. From perhaps the 1840s until 1905, the Earl’s ancestral seat at Glamis Castle, in the Scottish [...]

The most terrible tunnel

At the beginning of the 19th century, the port of London was the busiest in the world. Cargoes that had traveled thousands of miles, and survived all the hazards of the sea, piled up on the wharves of Rotherhithe—only for their owners to discover that the slowest, most frustrating portion of their journey often lay ahead [...]

The great tea race

Captain John Keay, master of the crack new British clipper ship Ariel, had good reason to feel pleased with himself. He had secured the first cargo of tea to come to market at the great Chinese port of Foochow (modern Fuzhou) in 1866—560 tons of first and second pickings, freighted at the high price of [...]

On hidden history

“The best stories from history lie beyond the margins of textbooks, says the historian. He tells us about five extraordinary tales from the past, from visions of the Virgin Mary to the golden age of American con artist.” Here’s the text of a long interview that I gave to the brilliant The Browser site about [...]

The mystery of the five wounds

On September 14, 1224, a Saturday, Francis of Assisi—noted ascetic and holy man, future saint—was preparing to enter the second month of a retreat with a few close companions on Monte La Verna, overlooking the River Arno in Tuscany. Francis had spent the previous few weeks in prolonged contemplation of the suffering Jesus Christ on [...]

“Above the Senior Wrangler”

To be a woman in the Victorian age was to be weak: the connection was that definite. To be female was also to be fragile, dependent, prone to nerves and—not least—possessed of a mind that was several degrees inferior to a man’s. For much of the 19th century, women were not expected to shine either [...]